Evidence of meeting #135 for Canadian Heritage in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was work.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Okay.
My next question is this. In the coming year when you're talking about proposed spending, we have ones that you're going to say are in other departments, such as the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019, and the 100th anniversary of Versailles. However, it's the 50th anniversary of the Official Languages Act next year. Is this something you're looking at?
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
I could be. We'll have to wait for a proposal from Andrew. Do you have something?
Chief Financial Officer, Department of Canadian Heritage
That falls under Minister Joly. Official Languages is within her department.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
Okay. The 100th anniversary of the death of Prime Minister Laurier, who died as a member of Parliament, is next year. Is that Canadian Heritage?
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
I guess that would be Heritage, yes.
Conservative
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
We could consider that. Prime Minister Laurier was a great Prime Minister.
Conservative
Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB
We now change very drastically by losing Centre Block. We have a tremendous number of statues in the parliamentary precinct. As we move from Centre Block, are you going to develop a program to deal with them in the heritage sense? The public will not be able to see Centre Block. Are you going to develop a more extensive program than we have now?
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
I have to look at that. I'll have an answer for you on the 2nd, and get back to you.
Conservative
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
I'll be quick.
One of your goals is to compensate our artists in a fair and timely manner. I had the privilege of meeting with many stakeholders regarding remuneration and fair dealings. One of the things that I was shocked about was that CBC is one of the biggest abusers of copyright and remuneration. My question is, who's monitoring the CBC to ensure that artists and creators are treated fairly? Is your department monitoring the CBC's transactions?
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
The CBC is a Crown corporation that falls under me, but it's arm's length. I'm not telling the CBC what to do or not to do.
Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC
Shouldn't you be monitoring how taxpayers' dollars are spent? Over a billion dollars are spent from taxpayers. We want to ensure that artists are treated fairly. That's not a hard thing to accomplish.
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
We definitely have the same priority. One of my objectives is that artists and creators are paid fairly, absolutely, 100%.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Julie Dabrusin
I want to jump in, Mr. Yurdiga. We will have time to come back to you for five minutes.
I'm going to shift now, so that we have five minutes with Mr. Boissonnault.
Randy Boissonnault
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for coming to Edmonton, Minister. The meeting with the artists and people from the multicultural community was a friendly one.
I have a first question for you.
How many Canadians used the rink that was on the Hill? Do we have the number of how many Canadians used the rink for Canada 150?
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
As I said, if it was important to Mr. Shields that we answer, then we will answer Mr. Boissonnault, if it's important.
Chief Financial Officer, Department of Canadian Heritage
There were 153,000 skating passes distributed over 83 days of skating.
Randy Boissonnault
Thank you very much.
I understand that the rink has now made its home in Gord Brown's riding in Gananoque, and it will be named the Gord Brown rink.
Thank you for your sensitivity on that matter, Minister and departmental officials.
With regard to indigenous languages, as a member of the indigenous caucus and an unregistered adopted Cree, I congratulate you. I know the government is very much interested in this issue and has already begun discussions on the subject.
Can you provide us with an investment update on the future of all those languages?
Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism
That's a very good question. As I mentioned earlier, it's really a core priority for me. In the short term, it's a major priority not only for me, but also for the Prime Minister, the government and, I'm sure, every one of you.
As I said earlier, indigenous languages are disappearing at a dizzying rate. Far too many of those languages have been lost. We all know that was caused in large part by former governments in the course of our history that simply wanted to wipe out those languages through various programs, such as by tearing children away from their families and preventing them from speaking their language and from preserving their culture in the residential schools. An entire system was put in place to make those languages disappear.
Considerable effort was made to erase those languages, and now we must expend as much effort, if not more, to promote them, to protect them and to enable them to spread. Why must we do it, Mr. Boissonnault? Because language represents who we are. Look at what we're doing now: we're discussing and communicating, and its language that enables us to do that. By speaking our language, we transmit our culture, our way of seeing things and our history.
You know, I only spoke Spanish when my family arrived in Canada. My father told me that, since we were political refugees, we would be here for a long time, and that's been the case. I was eight years old, I spoke only Spanish, and I couldn't speak a word of English or French.
My father loved French: he performed Molière. He told me to learn French, and to learn English too if I wanted, but to preserve Spanish and thus to preserve who I was. Today, it's a big advantage to be able to speak those three languages. I'm learning Italian, and it would be my fourth language if I had more time.
In short, Mr. Boissonnault, it's an absolute priority of this government. We've established programs to fund certain projects. That's fine, but it's not enough. We need a robust bill, and that's what we'll have soon.