You said it.
The Council for national unity will continue to benefit from Ottawa's generosity. It will receive over $800,000 from the Open House Canada Program, which allows young people from the middle and upper class to travel across Canada, learning to love their country through official propaganda. The overall budget of this program is $2.2 million.
We also have to add to the Canadian identity budget the expenses that will be incurred for the six trips that the royal family will make to Canada during the year, at our expense of course.
Meanwhile, the government announces a 21 per cent cut in the arts program, a 13 per cent cut in the heritage programs, a 24 per cent cut in the cultural industries program, a 20 per cent cut in the official languages support program, the major part of which will be passed on to the provinces through cuts in second language training funding. It also announces a 20 per cent cut in amateur sport just one year before the Olympics in Atlanta even though, when interviewed by the CBC in Lillehammer, the Minister of Canadian Heritage had promised the world to our athletes. This promise has changed into a 10 per cent cut in funding.
At the same time, the increase in corporate management services spending will be 13 per cent. Thirteen per cent more to manage a department whose minister never has any clear idea of what he should be doing. I hope that he will at least take advantage of those 130 extra jobs in his department to answer our questions.
Fortunately, the cultural affairs budget of the Department of Foreign Affairs will remain unchanged, at $4.7 million, although there has been a change of policy and the emphasis is on the NAFTA countries, and Europe is left out. That way, Quebecers will have no more visitors from the Francophonie. Are we to understand that some ministers wield more influence than others?
Most of my remarks have been on cuts in the cultural sector and what I consider frivolous spending subsidized by the department. While in times of austerity and financial difficulty it is normal for the government to try to rationalize its expenditures, it should establish a set of priorities to do so. The priority
for the Department of Canadian Heritage should be cultural products. Even in times of budget restraint, cultural products should be protected from cuts, since they are the key to the future. The government should invest more in this area.
We can readily support our cultural industries and find money for research and development in artistic creation with cuts to departmental expenditures and by eliminating empty programs like the campaign promoting the Canadian flag, raises to the lieutenant-governors and grants to federalist organizations, without naming any, to enable them to do their propaganda work during the referendum.
The minister is sacrificing the production of cultural works for programs that attempt to promote an empty, artificial identity aimed at imposing a national identity on everyone and denying ours. The situation at present in cultural and communications matters clearly indicates that the head of the department cannot give us what we need to go forward.
Worse, if the present is an indication of the future, we will see that the minister is more inclined to protect programs promoting Canadian identity, like promoting the flag, than programs that provide for investment in cultural products as such, something that would be more in keeping with the requirements of our historical context.
Heritage Canada still sees culture in folkloric garb, when it long ago moved into the age of telecommunications and the information highway.
As we live through the technological revolution, it is vital that we have a Minister of Canadian Heritage who is credible and capable of defending cultural interests in cabinet. We are therefore asking Mr. Chrétien to act accordingly.