Madam Speaker, I have great interest in taking part in this debate today.
It is seemingly unusual that only yesterday I was in the House arguing and defending the budget program of the government. At that time my hon. colleagues in the Bloc were saying: "Cut more. You need to cut more. You have not done enough. The province of Quebec is sitting in a sinking ship and we are not doing enough". Today, they are speaking the reverse argument. "You are doing too much. You are hurting us. Do not do that any more". What is it going to be?
It is clear to most people in Canada that the status quo is not good enough. As we approach the 21st century we have to change. We have to change as a government, as a country and as a people. The status quo which is being defended by the Bloc Quebecois is not satisfactory.
While talking about the status quo, it is interesting to note the problems we are having with our rail industry today. That is part of the same argument in some ways because some of these contractual agreements have matters in them that go back almost a century.
I was surprised to learn that blacksmithing is a job description which is still available in the CN. One has to be a blacksmith to get certain types of jobs. This is the kind of thing the Bloc Quebecois is defending, blacksmithing, as we approach the 21st century. I do not think that is good enough.
I can say that the people of my riding in which General Motors is a major feature are not at all impressed by the ability to manage this economy that the Bloc Quebecois has shown so clearly. We try to manage and people are stopping us from doing that.
We share the North American continent with our tremendously large neighbour to the south. This neighbour has tremendous resources, huge programming and cultural diversity. It is exporting its culture all over the world. Programs come easily across the border. Indeed as we go to better telecommunications devices it is going to be almost impossible to avoid that kind of culture penetrating the North American milieu. That affects our culture, both English and French.
I have always been a supporter of the CBC. I have always believed it is necessary to foster Canadian culture. What we have to do is to foster it in an affordable way.
Clearly the CBC has been a vanguard of supporting culture both in English Canada and French Canada. I note that Canada is an exporter of French programming and clearly therefore, it has been a success. It has been a success not only of the CBC but also of our federal system which has recognized the need to foster these industries, to get them going and let them flourish.
As we approach the 21st century, it is clear we have to change the way we conduct our government and the way we do business. It is clear that governments want to withdraw from direct management of different types of industry, whether they are cultural or direct industries like CN Rail and let others do that for them. It does not mean the government wants to abdicate Canadian culture, far from it. The object of the exercise is to find a better and more efficient way to deliver the same thing.
The CRTC has a mandate which does just that. New licences have just been issued. The basis of that licensing program was to foster and assist Canadian culture.
I remember not too many years ago when the finance department brought in an incentive to support both the French and English Canadian film industry. I was a little pessimistic at first. I am always pessimistic about tax driven investments. However it was very successful both for the French and English people in Canada who developed a movie industry. Once again, Canada was an exporter of French language programming to the world.
We have now slowly moved out of the tax incentives for that. Once we get a child going, it is no different from a family. If we think about it, when our children reach a certain age it is time for them to go out on their own. It is time for them to do their own thing. That is really what we are saying about the CBC.
Even after these cutbacks the CBC will still have funding of $1.4 billion. We can hardly consider that a small amount of money in support of cultural broadcasting in Canada regardless of what language it is in.
We are not saying to the CBC that it has to cut a lot of jobs, which possibly it will. We are saying that it has to redefine where it is going in this country. It has to define the things it can do well and rethink some of the things that perhaps it should not be doing any more.
I had a discussion with some journalists one day. They thought it was unusual that the CBC could have journalists in just about every town in this country whereas other private broadcasters had to rationalize that and make it more efficient. This is what we are asking the CBC to do, to become more efficient so it can be slowly weaned off the public payroll.
The motion very clearly is talking about the concern of the reduction in funding. I ask my colleagues in the Bloc, what would the alternative be? Would the alternative in meeting our deficit targets be to transfer this tax on the poor, the needy, the unemployed? Those are the alternatives. We have to get our deficits in order. That is the commitment we have made to the Canadian people. I can say that the Canadian people are very happy about the leadership we have taken in these areas.
I know there are many new broadcasting ventures. My colleague from the Reform Party mentioned CITY-TV in Toronto which has a tremendous array of new broadcasting programs. In other words it is not necessary to have publicly funded broadcasting companies simply carrying on with this type of production.
The bottom line is that it is necessary. The taxpayers are saying we have to get our economic house in order. The taxpayers are on the hook even after all of this is over for $1.4 billion. Taxpayers want to be able to see what they are getting for that money. In some ways they are getting valued service for that.
Most people in Canada will continue to support cultural funding for broadcasting, but at a significantly reduced level. That is only reasonable. We have to focus on the things which possibly are missing, those things that perhaps need a bit of help right now, but those other areas which can stand on their own, we can let them fly.
In conclusion, it upsets me very much to see that members of the Bloc Quebecois simply want to carry on with the old systems of the past. They do not want to be flexible in seeing how we can change government financing. More important, they do not want to assist their cultural industries from the infancy stage to fruition.