I will give a federal example. Canada Council recently spent money handing out a grant to a project called "A Linguistic History of Swahili". Another grant went out to something called "Anatomy of a Seance". Another grant went out to translate a book called I Lost it All in Montreal . Another went out to publish Poems Released on a Nuclear Wind . Of course the big one, there was $3.3 million that went into that famous museum in Montreal, the Montreal Museum of Humour.
I would argue that if any taxpayer walked through the National Gallery through some of the huge rooms, some as big as a high school gymnasium, and looked around and in one corner saw a box of Brillo pads stacked up to the roof they would question whether that was a good use of their public money. Frankly, I did. I think it is ridiculous. Taxpayers would make a lot better choices if that money were left in their pockets to make decisions about what is art.
If they walked into another room a saw a bunch of bricks laying on the floor and somebody from the National Gallery told them that was art, they would say that is crazy. If they walked into another room and saw 256 pieces of felt laying on the floor they would probably conclude that they were renovating, putting in a new carpet. In fact, that is what they call art. That is ridiculous.
Any time we start handing out more and more money to the government so that it can then decide who should get that money based on its determination of what constitutes art, it is absolutely ridiculous.
We have to look at the situation with the CBC. Here we are again rewarding failure. Not only are its ratings dropping, not only is it programming all kinds of American programs throughout the day, in light of the fact it is undergoing a review of its programming right now, here we are suggesting it should be granted the right to borrow money.
That is exactly what we are considering doing with Telefilm as well. That is a crazy idea. I do not think we need to get into that. We should let the taxpayers decide. Does the government not have faith in the ability of taxpayers to decide what constitutes art? Why not leave the money in their pockets?
Let me conclude by suggesting a great hoax is being perpetrated by bureaucrats in this country, by the government and by so-called artists. They are telling people: "If you give us money, we will give you art". They produce things they indeed call art. In the judgment of most Canadians I would argue this is not art. In fact in many cases it is garbage, absolute garbage.
Let us leave that $2 billion plus in the hands of the taxpayers. Let us not support those kinds of things any more. Let us allow the people of Canada to make those decisions themselves.