Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed hearing the hon. member's intervention. He talked about the Beaverbrook museum in Fredericton. I have not been there but I have been to the National Gallery. I have seen what has purchased, either through tax credits or directly with cash, which is the way I would prefer to see it done because it is a lot more transparent and you can hold people accountable that way.
One of the things my hon. friend from Wetaskiwin pointed out was a display that hangs from the ceiling there. It is a toilet hanging from the ceiling of the National Gallery. Is that not a wonderful purchase by the people of Canada? I wonder how many tax credits we handed out for that? Perfect. Does that not speak volumes about state funded art? It speaks volumes, Mr. Speaker.
I walked into a room at the National Gallery where in one corner are Brillo pads stacked to the ceiling. That is art. That is unbelievable.
I walked into another room where I thought they were undergoing renovations because there was a bunch of underlay lying on the floor. Do you know what, that was the display. Two hundred and fifty-six pieces of felt is what it is called.
I have a picture sitting on my desk of a display at the National Gallery. It is a large woman reading a newspaper and she has got a wig on and all of that sort of thing. According to the people at the National Gallery who were telling people about these displays, someone was paid $750,000 for what in my judgment is an absolutely ridiculous piece of junk.
When we talk about the government's prescient ability to choose art with other people's money let us go and take a wander through the National Gallery and find out just how good it is at this.
The hon. member from Glengarry-Prescott-Russell pointed to Reform's policy on culture. Let me address that. Our party feels very strongly that the federal government does have a role, but we also feel that these institutions have to be accountable. I also remind the hon. member that these things have to be put in context. Reformers also believe in a flat tax system. We believe that we cannot be going around giving wealthy people a special privilege. That is ridiculous. It is even more pronounced, more ridiculous in this day and age when middle income Canadians are being squeezed so dramatically.
I would ask the hon. member to put these things in context. I would much rather see private individuals, private groups, lower levels of government like municipalities and provinces run the museums and galleries to the greatest degree possible because they are a lot more accountable. When it is all funded through the federal government and people who are appointed by the federal government make the selections, they are absolutely unaccountable.
Has the hon. member gone through the National Gallery at any time in the recent past and seen some of these ridiculous, what can only be described as abuses, this mocking of taxpayers which is exactly what it is. Somehow we feel we have to support this counter culture, the people who mock a lot of the ideals that really enabled them to have freedom of expression. They mock us and we still give them money.
Has the hon. member seen this lately and how he can justify the government being involved in purchasing that kind of garbage?