Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his question. It is a very interesting one. I could not imagine not being in support of the bill.
Museums, art galleries, archives and libraries in every province and territory benefit through the receipt of donations of cultural property as a result of these tax credits.
I recently sent a collection of postcards, with no value or tax incentive for me, that I received dealing with western history, particularly in the province of Manitoba. It was sent in the 1800s to my riding of Victoria-Haliburton.
I came across it in a collection and managed to pick it up for very little and I donated it to the Canadian Heritage Museum in Manitoba. It sent me a thank you. I should have asked for a receipt but I did not feel the collection had a lot of value.
The collection significantly added to the heritage, the culture and preservation of culture in western Canada. It is very important for an eastern Ontario member to be concerned with western Canada and with the culture of western Canada, with the preservation of the culture in western Canada.
I have a lot of trouble understanding why the Reform Party would not support such a bill. I know quite specifically that the areas those members represent have gained from Liberal members such as me, the member for Kingston and the Islands and the member for London-Middlesex.
Somewhere along the line we have donated without any tax receipt. The collection I donated was postcards, but it was invaluable. I should have had it appraised. I felt it should be in a museum and was something people should be able to enjoy. It is preserved forever instead of being thrown in the garbage or kept in some personal collection where it is not seen.
I also collect guns, much to the dismay of a number of people here. The gun bill is still in the other place. I have a gun that was carried by an army doctor in the first world war. I guess we would call it an oxymoron that doctors were issued handguns in the first world war. I have had recent discussions with the museum in Lindsay to donate that gun. If I am lucky enough to get a tax receipt for it, that would be fair. It is the only one of its kind registered in Canada and therefore should be preserved so that the public can see it.
Even going into the law and order issues Reform Party members seem to stand for, I cannot imagine why they would be in any kind of discourse with the bill. It is necessary. It will help preserve our culture and our heritage, a very important part of the fibre of our country.