Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We are just as surprised as you are, Mr. McAvity and Mr. White, with the government decision to cut back Canadian museums' budgets. Before me, I have the Conservative Party of Canada's answers to a questionnaire that you sent them, a questionnaire that was probably sent to all other parties as well, last December during the electoral campaign.
The third question reads as follows:
3. Do you, along with your party, support investing an additional $75 million per year as needed to implement these recommendations?
The Conservative Party answered the following:
The Conservative Party of Canada supports stable and long term funding for Canadian museums. We believe that it is important to ensure continuity in programming and that stable and predictable funding is necessary to this effect.
Allow me to emphasize the words “stable and predictable”. Further along, it reads:
Canadian museums [...] are increasingly crippled by underfunding [...] rest assured that a Conservative government would make generous funding of Canadian museums a priority.
When you compare the answers given here by the Conservative Party during the election with the announcement of budget cutbacks made yesterday, what is your reaction? I would like you to talk to us about the impact of these cutbacks. We are talking about a reduction of $4,630,000 over two years, which represents 25% this year and another 25% next year. Given that six months of this fiscal year have already lapsed, the effect of these cutbacks will be devastating.