On the Sir John A. Macdonald program and the CBC, there's more of a barrier between me and the CBC than members of Parliament and the CBC, you should know, because they're a crown corporation for which I am responsible. We provide funding oversight. I'm responsible for the Broadcasting Act that governs the CBC, but they're not a government broadcaster. I don't pick up the phone and tell them what they should show and what they should show less. That's for the board and Canadians to talk about.
Speaking as a Canadian, not as the Minister of Heritage, I agree with you that the program on Sir John A. Macdonald was fantastic. I actually think that Canadians are calling the CBC to say they'd like to see more and to learn more about their founders and the great moments in Canadian history. We need more of these dramatizations that are rooted in fact.
If anybody agrees with that sentiment, I encourage you to write to Hubert Lacroix, the board at the CBC, and Kirstine Stewart in English programming--they're still doing a job search for the head of French language programming at CBC--and encourage them to do more.
The second part of your question was on why it is important. Not to be too political, but the Bloc Québécois was defeated in the last election campaign. But they weren't wiped out. There's still a large number of Canadians who don't fully feel part of the Canadian family, and I think we need to do better than that. I think one of the reasons is that we don't teach history; we don't teach a pan-Canadian narrative of Canadian history.
I think we very often identify ourselves with our community. Only because it's obvious, and we've just talked about it, is the War of 1812. When you go to Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort George—it's a city of 25,000 or so people in Niagara-on-the-Lake.... Fort George has 15,000 school kids going through it every year. This coming year that will double as a consequence of the 200th anniversary. Niagara-on-the-Lake people very much understand Queenston Heights, Sir Isaac Brock, Fort George, what mattered, and what happened. But as soon as you get beyond there, people don't know, and I find that's true not just of the War of 1812, but across the country.
People know their local history very well. I know about Captain Vancouver and what happened in Port Moody. I can tell you to a T what happened in my hometown, but I couldn't say the same thing about Gander. I know about Cupids because we celebrated that, but I couldn't tell you about the pre-history of Gananoque. We need to do a better job of that.
We are working on proposals on Canadian history that will be very ambitious about teaching Canada's history. I'll have more to say on that in the future.