Since I've been asked the question directly, I'm willing to answer that anybody who wants to make contributions to worthwhile causes has a plethora of choices in which to express his or her view with finances. They are charitable organizations. They are funds. They are community organizations. They relate to the Holocaust. They relate to Canadian tradition. They relate to a newer tradition emerging.
What I've said--and I want to be consistent about this--is that this is an opportunity for the Canadian public to see this initiative as its own. The only way the entire Canadian collective can see this as its own, the only way the Canadian collective can give an expression of its commitment to that event and recall for the entire world that it decries these types of historic circumstances that led to the tragic event of the Holocaust, is for the Government of Canada to back, on behalf of all Canadians....
This doesn't preclude anyone else from taking whatever funds, energies, or resources they have and putting them in other situations where they, too, can reflect on the event, but that would be a personal or a small community decision. It is not the Canadian collective decision.
From our perspective in the Liberal Party, our support for this bill goes to the heart of the collective's interest in expressing its collective view. You can't do that by going to a few select people who have some money at their disposal to do this. You go to the Canadian public through the arm of the Canadian government and you execute this result.
That's all it is, Mr. Chairman. It has nothing to do with depriving people of the opportunity to contribute.