Libraries, whether they are the Library of Parliament or libraries across the world, have a unique role to play in democracy, because they are fundamental to the access to knowledge and information. When heritage or historical documents are destroyed, we lose that opportunity to learn from the past, to improve and to be better.
For the Library of Parliament as a memory institution, part of the mandate is, of course, to retain that history and to make it available not only to you as parliamentarians but to Canadians to be able to learn how Canada has developed as a country and where we are going. We can't progress without having that historical knowledge.