Sorry, I have the floor.
This motion is in fact in response to two questions that I and my colleague Pierre Nantel asked on March 18, in which Minister James Moore replied, “If there are controversies about the code of conduct, and I gather there are..., I invite my colleague and the heritage critic for the NDP to invite Daniel Caron to come before committee to explain the code of conduct”.
Now, this is an issue of grave import in terms of how we preserve, how we share, how we collect the important documentation of Canadian history. This is something we hear time and time again, that the Conservatives think it is a grand priority. Yet we've seen that cuts to Library and Archives Canada have resulted in the end of the interlibrary loan program; the relieving of duties of archivists; the internal re-identification of archivists from specialists to generalists, which raises all sorts of concerns; the fact that the government isn't doing its due diligence when it comes to acquisitions; and the fact that we have had archivists and historians who have really raised the alarm bells around this stuff. Then to come out with a code of conduct that essentially muzzles debate....
It did seem as though the minister had said this was something that concerned him. I think it concerns many of us; that's why I move this motion. That's why I think it's important we get on with a study, and we bring in the stakeholders and the people who are really focused on this issue.
Thank you.