Mr. Speaker, we have an industry in our country called Canadian culture. It is run by bureaucrats, financed by subsidies, yet virtually unaccountable to the government from which it gets its funding.
This explains why we have what looks like a pile of carpet underpadding on display in our National Gallery and boxes of Brillo pads stacked up to the roof. It is why for years we have subsidized the homosexual theatre group, Buddies in Bad Times, despite the fact that this group advertises violent sado-masochism seminars featuring abduction, guns, knives, forced confinement, blood sports and rape play.
For those of you who say art must be subsidized in order to survive, read your history. The finest theatre in the English language was produced by Shakespeare. His plays were considered popular art at the time, as were Chaucer, Dickens and endless others.
The finest painters or sculptors had patrons, but they at least were accountable. Not in Canada though. Slap something on a canvass, call it Canadian, make friends with the bureaucrats and you will get your funding.
Let us leave these funds in the hands of taxpayers so they can-