Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Unlike my colleagues opposite, I have sat on this committee for some time. I have some knowledge of the history of arts funding in this country by various governments. I have to say that I am presently less than impressed by what I hear. I fully support the list of witnesses that my colleague has presented. I feel that it would be very useful for this committee to deal with the mattter because it arose so unexpectedly. We find out, in the middle of the summer, that the government is reducing or completely eliminating various programs, even though they have been evaluated and found to be very useful for a number of communities in the past.
I support the list, and I would even add the names of two people whose comments have appeared in the last two days in the local newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen. I am referring to Keith Spicer, a great, internationally-renowned Canadian who well understands how useful a flourishing culture is internationally, and to Michael Geist.
Michael Geist is a professor at the University of Ottawa, and his take is somewhat different from that of the artist community. His take is that one of the programs eliminated, the digitalization of our collections, is an extremely important thing. It affects our competitiveness and our ability to present ourselves and our cultural product abroad. Even though Canada was at one time leading in this effort, we're now falling behind. The European Community, for instance, is investing $200 million to achieve some of that objective, whereas we're just nowhere anymore.
So these two I would add as possible witnesses to the list of those mentioned by my colleague and others. I think it's important that we hear them.
I want to pick up on what my colleagues across the way have said—that this is a reallocation. This confirms that all of these are programs that have been cut. They're not denying it, but there are questions that arise from it. What are we reallocating to? What criteria are we using? Is this a program that's going to be created? I know Madame Verner alluded to it after she was asked by a number of people, for a number of days, what was going on. She said, “There's something else coming.” I think it would be important for the artistic community of this country to have an input into whatever is being concocted.
He also went into the budget. That's interesting. I want to come at this from a slightly different angle. He accused a colleague of mine of wanting to fund programs in perpetuity. Because they exist, he said, we want to fund them in perpetuity. I say no to that. However, once Parliament has approved, through the budget or estimates, the spending for certain programs, then one would expect that those programs would go forward. So I would like to ask this committee whether there is an abuse of executive authority here.
We've seen this in the past. Programs exist, whether by parliamentary appropriation, by law, like the Law Reform Commission, or by agreement with third parties, as with the volunteer organizations, and this government comes along and by executive fiat cancels whole programs, agreements, funding of legally instituted organizations. Is there an abuse of executive authority in cutting programs once they have been approved by Parliament? I think this is a very serious question. I think parliamentarians and Canadians would want a bit more insight into this. If this is the case, then the government can cancel any program without doing any evaluation whatsoever. If the programs exist, parliamentarians of all parties should have a chance to look at the evaluations. If the government can cancel any program that has been approved by Parliament through estimates or in the budget, then where does it stop?
I think this is a very serious question. I suspect we're bordering—if we're not already over the line—on abuse of executive authority in cancelling programs that have been approved and for which the spending has been approved by the Parliament of Canada. I would ask our research staff to suggest a number of readings on this or witnesses who could help us to explore this question. I think Canadians are getting a taste of what the executive authority of this government means to programs of Canada and to the future orientation of our country.
Thank you.