Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to address Bill C-53 once again. It is my pleasure to talk about the various aspects of the Department of Canadian Heritage and to suggest that what is really needed when we talk about this department is not just a superficial streamlining of the department but a complete overhaul starting with many of the departments that reside within the Department of Canadian Heritage, including specifically departments like multiculturalism, the Canada Council, the National Film Board, status of women, CBC and many more.
Let me talk about some of these different departments on an individual basis and suggest that in some cases we could do completely without them.
Let me talk first about the department of multiculturalism, something many Reformers have talked about already. Hon. members from across the way have suggested that if there were not a department of multiculturalism somehow there would be no multicultural diversity in Canada. That is a crazy notion.
I remind members across the way that when we settled the west in this country we had cultures from all over the place. We did not need a department of multiculturalism. Those people had their own cultures, they preserved them with their own money, which is a new concept for Liberals. It is something that is still done today. People do not need the government to tell them they need to preserve their culture. They will preserve their culture if they see fit with their own funds. That is what makes sense to most Canadians.
For some reason this government has decided that some cultures are more deserving than others, that there should be a list of priorities in terms of cultures and that some groups should get money and others should be shut out. I think that is very divisive.
I point out to the members across the way who have often said that Reformers offer no solutions on cutting spending, here is an area where we can cut spending, something like $21 million. We could cut it today, I would argue, and most Canadians would be very much in favour of it.
I want to talk for a moment about some of the other problems with the department of multiculturalism. A minute ago I said that sometimes I think having a department of multiculturalism creates division. As an extension of that, not all behaviours are equal. Some cultures advocate types of behaviours that are clearly not supported by most Canadians. For instance, some cultures suggest that women should be somehow subservient and that they should play a lesser role. I do not agree with that.
I think when we start to fund cultures and give people money to support cultures, it stops what has become a standard in Canada, sort of an ethical or moral standard from spreading into these other cultures where sometimes they do not treat people with respect on the basis of gender. That is something I very much oppose and I hope the government across the way would oppose as well. We can make the argument that the department of multiculturalism has outlived its usefulness.
I would also argue that when we see things like what the justice minister proposed on the weekend or what came out of his department, that there be something like a culture defence in law, I think we can see the danger of this whole attitude toward setting up special status for certain cultures and what it can lead to, possibly opening up a Pandora's box.
Thankfully Reformers were on guard for Canadians and quizzed the minister about this immediately. He backed away from it, and well he should have.
It is not because they saw this was flawed from the outset. It was only because Reformers jumped up, raised the point and forced the minister to back down and hopefully we will always be there to do that.
In the meantime we would certainly encourage the government members across the way to take another look at this whole department of multiculturalism and to acknowledge that this approach to governing can lead to division, can lead to some of these strange ideas in the justice system.
Another departmental organization that should be looked at in the Department of Canadian Heritage is the Canada Council. The Canada Council provides grants for all kinds of Canadian artists and people who should be and would be producing art anyway. We spend tens of millions of dollars through the Canada Council every year to pay people to produce what they at Canada Council call art.
I would argue that before there was a Canada Council and in spite of the Canada Council people still create art. I know in my own riding there are many people who are painters, writers, who are thrilled to try to produce art not because they get paid to do it but because it is a creative impulse that they have. In order to satisfy that impulse they produce art and all of society is enriched for it.
What I really like about it is taxpayers are not expected to pay for it. They are not expected to either fund the artist or to buy the art. Contrast that with the Canada Council where we have tens of millions of dollars going to publishers so that they can produce books from writers who are also funded and then of course they sit on shelves forever. I read a book actually that was funded by the Canada Council about the abuses in the Canada Council, believe it or not. It is a great irony that it is almost impossible to write a book in this country without it being funded by the Canada Council because those funds go directly to Canadian publishers. That is one of the strange ironies.
This particular writer talked about a warehouse being devoted to all these volumes of Canadian literature that people simply would not buy. They could not even give it away.
When they proposed to send packages of Canadian literature around to schools, even to prisons, they were rejected. I suspect rightfully so because at the end of the day beauty is in the eye of the beholder and people have to make these judgments for themselves.
I think that is the best argument of all for not having an organization like the Canada Council that completely distorts the marketplace and really cheapens the product because many very good Canadian writers are lumped together with the ones who are not very good. In the eyes of people who try to follow this they get a jaundiced view of Canadian culture because so much stuff comes out that is not good. It is funded by the government and people get a jaundiced view and at some point say perhaps all Canadian culture is not very good. That is very unfortunate. There is a lot of good stuff out there. Because of organizations like the Canada Council people get a prejudiced view of what we can produce in this country. That is very unfortunate.
Another institution that causes people to wonder about the government's spending of tax dollars is the National Film Board. My colleagues from the Reform Party in this House have raised the issue of a series of videos funded by the National Film Board on lesbian love. They were restricted videos, ones that contained very explicit scenes. This causes us to pause and wonder whether this government is serious really about cutting spending at all.
There are many millions of dollars spent by the National Film Board every year. Should there not be some strict guidelines that that say anything that is pornographic in nature or is x-rated should not be produced particularly with taxpayers' dollars when so many taxpayers would reject that?
That is not what the Liberals think. It begs the larger question of whether there should even be a National Film Board. It seems to be largely unaccountable.
I would argue that many private producers of films would love to step in and provide films for schools as is done actually in the United States. I had a lady in my own riding who came to me and said she would like to show National Geographic films in the school. She wanted to know how she could go about getting the rights to them. As it turns out it actually offers these to schools for free. The National Geographic Society is a society that is funded by individuals, not by taxpayers. Why could that not happen in this country? I would argue very strongly that it could.
Let us talk for a moment about the department for the status of women also under the aegis of the Department of Canadian Heritage. One of the jobs it has it seems unfortunately is to fund private interests including the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, a group that is highly politicized, very narrow in its focus and absolutely and completely does not represent the views of all Canadian women no matter what it tells us. If it is so certain of its position, if it really does believe that it represents Canadian women then it should go to Canadian women and get its funding from them directly. I would absolutely support it in doing that.
At this point in this country when we are in such a terrible fiscal situation I encourage the government to take a look at the complete Department of Canadian Heritage to seriously evaluate whether we need great gobs of that department and to really finally get its fiscal house in order.