Thank you, Chair. It's good to see you again, sir.
You said earlier, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit, that it's a mistake to forget our collective history. You were talking about it in regard to the new museum.
I understand that. We do not currently have a museum of that stature. The problem is this. When you start using words like “digitization” or “collecting the works of our history”, there is a group of people out there.... You mentioned one group that didn't protest too much. One group that did protest a lot was Library and Archives Canada. They're not happy. I would never think to tick off a librarian to the point that they keep writing me to the nth degree, but they are very good at it.
One of the programs was a great little program—it worked in my riding, it worked in hundreds of ridings—called the national archival development program, or NADP. It allowed small communities to digitize and to archive their collective history.
If you want to see collective histories, sir, I don't think cutting programs such as this is the way to go. It seems to be that now you have a centralized version of history that can only be done by the people who can afford it outside of government help.
I know the budget is tomorrow. It's always a little awkward to talk about estimates before we actually get our budget, but having said that, the Library and Archives Canada has a pretty good beef about this program and the ILL they use.
Would you not agree? Is there something for them?