Mr. Speaker, I am glad the hon. member for Skeena got up because I wanted to make a comment. I am not particularly going to deal with the meanderings of the hon. member in his last comment, but he did talk earlier about
something very dear to my heart. I happen to know it is dear to the heart of the member for Rosedale sitting over there as well, not to mention a few other members in the House, and that is the whole question of arts funding.
Along with the compassionate face of government and the kind of funding that we in the Liberal Party with our 150-year history in the country will continue, may I say the country that does not funds its artists, the country that does not make representation on behalf of its own culture, is the country that has no soul. The country that has no soul will wither on the vine. If the hon. member would like to see the country wither on the vine, I am sure one the fastest ways to do it is to say that we as a federal government should not be funding the arts.
I can also say I would be very interested to see how many hon. members on the other side would be prepared within their own communities to stand and deny the kind of general small group funding they were probably working on. I saw a number of reports in the newspaper about how they worked on their SEED grants. Did they cut in their ridings all those SEED grants to all the groups they mentioned? I doubt it. If they did, I think that getting off the plane when they get home, even after flying economy class, would be a bit more difficult than they heretofore encountered.