Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I join the debate today. Bill C-53 is an important bill because it establishes a very important department, the Department of Canadian Heritage. Yet I am afraid I will have to vote against the motion and the bill in front of us.
May I hasten to add for entirely different reasons than the reasons I have heard from both opposition parties today that I cannot accept the arguments put forward by members of the Bloc. There is a need in Quebec and in other parts of Canada for a cultural presence by the federal government. I think the first people to recognize that would be the artists in Quebec.
The artists in Quebec would abhor just having to depend upon the Quebec government. Just having to depend upon one source of support and assistance in the arts is not in the interests of the artists. All too often they have found in terms of past governments, and I suspect the present government as well, that the political agenda of the provincial government is at variance with the artistic interests of the artists.
Artists in Quebec also want to have the federal government, the Canada Council, the National Film Board, the SRC, all the federal cultural institutions. They also want them. I am not surprised by the objections raised by the Reform Party though I am saddened by them. Surely they also must recognize that cultural institutions are really what define the people in a nation.
Our cultural institutions help define what Canada is. They allow us to be able to see and hear and listen to other Canadians without the intervention of the government. Surely the Reform members are not so naive to assume that if you just leave it to market forces Canadian culture would be totally swamped by American culture. The economics would dictate that. Surely it is a naive belief in saying the federal government should get out of this area. They will do as much damage as what the Bloc is doing to the well-being and the maintenance of this country. Once you destroy the cultural identity you have destroyed this country. In this way the Bloc and the Reform are indeed in cahoots and working well together in that.
May I quote quite an excellent article that appeared in the Globe and Mail on May 8, 1994, by Michael Valpy. Why, indeed, maintain a multibillion dollar military establishment-when what is under attack in Canada is largely militarily indefensible; the alien control of our commerce, our resources, our jobs, our entertainment, publishing and other forms of communications''. Mr. Valpy was discussing a paper that was written by University of Toronto political scientist Franklyn Griffiths. He quotes Mr. Griffiths and this is the quote I wish to put on the record:The state of our cultural life'', he writes, ``is now of greater importance than the state of our armed forces in determining our ability to make choices for ourselves in a world where military challenges to our country have diminished relative to non-military or civil dangers''.
Again, I wish to agree with Valpy's thesis which is that the attack on Canada as a nation is really more in terms of non-military areas like our cultural sense of identity and sense of who we are.
I oppose this bill because this government's record in this area has been dismal. We have a weak minister and a weak department. It was referred to by members of the Bloc when they expressed their concern about issues like copyright and as well questions concerning the information highway, whether it is the ministry of industry or the ministry of heritage that is really in control.
I suspect it is the ministry of industry rather than the ministry of Canadian heritage. We have a weak department and a weak minister. The Canadian cultural institutions and values are not being well protected.
The other reason why I would have to oppose this bill is that the government as well as the previous government when it signed the FTA and the NAFTA continued to refuse to release the documents both on the FTA and the NAFTA on cultural discussions. We really do not know yet what is allowed and what is not allowed under the free trade agreement and under the NAFTA. How can we operate in terms of defining, strengthening and protecting Canadian cultural institutions when the public and as well those cultural institutions do not know what has been given away? How can we continue?
Historically in this House all political parties have supported the notion that the federal government has a role to play in our cultural institutions. That is why Conservatives started the CBC as well as Liberals, generally supported by New Democrats or the CCF, even the Social Credit Party when it had members in this House.
There was a recognition by those who are part of the English culture part of Canada, standing so close to the American border with its dynamic and very powerful cultural industries, that
unless we had an interventionist government, unless we followed something other than just market forces, our cultural identity as a country would be swamped.
There is a belief that all political parties in this House have traditionally agreed to, that as Canadians we have some identity, some values as Canadians that are unique, that are important and that are worth preserving. This is our contribution to the civilization of the human race.
It is worth the money we invest there. Without that investment, the Canadian cultural identity would disappear and then one has to once again ask oneself: "What do we have as a country?" We might as well then join the United States.
There is another important reason that I wish to mention in my remarks in terms of the importance of Canadian cultural industry. It creates jobs, many jobs. There are more jobs in the cultural sector than in fishery or in forestry. It is also a source of foreign earnings.
I hear members of the Reform Party talk about our taxpayers. Yes, indeed, taxpayers' dollars are involved but artists also create tax revenue. There was a study that was done in Toronto in the spring of 1993 which showed that the cutbacks in the Canada Council in fact decreased government revenues greater than the cutbacks.
They went through numerous performing companies after the cutbacks of their support by the Canada Council. They determined how many musicians were laid off, how many productions did not occur. Those performers, musicians, artists, actors and actresses were no longer working, were taking UI or welfare and were no longer paying taxes.
There was the loss of tax revenues from the loss of admission tickets. They found in this study that the government lost more money through revenue loss than had it continued to support the arts the way they it had formerly done.
I am also concerned, very much so, with our deficit. There is a need as well for wise spending and for trimming government expenditures. Let us do it with intelligence because in some areas when one cuts one will create more harm and there will be a greater loss of revenue than the money one will save from the cuts in those areas.
In conclusion I wish to restate that it is with sadness that I cannot support Bill C-53 because of the reasons that I have stated in my speech.