Debates of Sept. 28th, 1995

Business Of The House

[The Speaker]

It would seem that we are stretching out the points of order, one on top of the other. I will permit it today, if the government House whip is prepared to answer, but I would prefer we deal with one area at a time when dealing with this type of information.

[Don Boudria, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday afternoon shortly after question period and pursuant to an all-party agreement duly signed by all whips of the House, a meeting was held to proceed with the election of officers of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. As I said, there was an agreement signed by all whips to the effect that the committee along with other committees would meet at previously agreed to hours and days.

Contrary to the agreement, one group of individuals chose not to allow the votes to proceed on the election of the chair and decided to filibuster the committee for whatever reason.

That was confirmed in an informal conversation I had with members of that party, at which point we were forced to adjourn the meeting by causing it to lose its quorum.

At 3.30 this afternoon we will once again attempt to elect officers pursuant to the agreement made. If that fails, we will attempt to do it again until we succeed in having not only the order made by the House some time ago on the repartition of members by party but also the all-party agreement made by the whips.

We intend to do our part as a government to ensure the standing orders are adhered to. Hopefully members of the third party will co-operate today, unlike what happened yesterday.

[Len Taylor, NDP, The Battlefords—Meadow Lake, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order regarding House business. In support of your statement a few moments ago that it is not good to split up these matters, I noticed that in the course of the whip responding to the second question the government House leader vacated his seat.

I still have a question relating to House business for him. Perhaps the parliamentary secretary could answer my question. However in the future, Mr. Speaker, I want you to know that I support your contention that these points should be made separately and individually so that we can deal with matters in specific order.

With respect to House business for the coming week, the government House leader is aware that the recent supreme court ruling in respect of tobacco products marketing has been thrown back to the government for a response. The government has said that it is looking at options in response to this ruling but for the most part is relying on staff in the Department of Health for ideas.

In light of the fact that it would be better for members of Parliament to be examining the options, would the government House leader be willing to support a request from the House that the government offer this week the study of these options to the Standing Committee on Health so that a more public examination of the options and the issues could be undertaken?

[Herb Gray, Liberal, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will draw the hon. member's suggestion to the attention of the chair of the committee. If I am not mistaken, under our current rules the standing committees have wide powers to undertake studies at their own initiative rather than only at the request of the government. The committee may see fit to begin looking at this matter in a general sense.

I also assure the hon. member that this issue is being actively examined within the government. The judgment which I received just yesterday is very lengthy and very bulky. It is understandable that the government's response would not be forthcoming within days of the judgment.

The member's point about a vehicle for some public examination of the issue is one that, as I have said, the health committee might well want to take a look at under its ongoing and existing authorities.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-93, an act to amend the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, the Income Tax Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee; and of the amendment.

Cultural Property Export And Import Act

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Unless there are more questions following my speech, I am finished.

[The Speaker]

I thank the member. I was hoping he would regale us with more dinosaur tales.

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to debate Bill C-93, particularly because over the course of the last few days as we have been discussing the bill I have been interested in the misinformation and in some ways nonsense that have been lobbed at this side of the House, especially by members of the third party.

I should like to clarify certain aspects of the bill to ensure the people of Canada understand and fully appreciate its importance to them and to us as a country. As I was listening to the debate, particularly the day before yesterday, there were indications from members that the bill would cost the government $60 million. That is wrong.

As a result of the bill and the notion that Canadians can donate artefacts of importance to our cultural heritage to museums, libraries and art institutions, we have had 1,100 donors give to our country the value of $60 million. The cost to our country, from a tax incentive point of view, has been just about half of that, $25 million to $30 million. In fact, what we have are priceless donations of our country's history, culture, and art from other nations which is remaining in Canada for all of us to enjoy, value and appreciate. We have received $60 million dollars worth of priceless art and goods for the value of $25 million.

That makes good sense to me, yet the members of the third party are misconstruing the information and having it printed in Hansard that it is costing us $60 million because they have not taken the time to understand the bill. In fact, I understand that they refused briefings from the parliamentary secretary and bureaucrats from the ministry. As a result we get misinformation in the House and that is not acceptable. It is good to have this opportunity to clarify that particular point.

There were challenges from the third party saying: "Did you know that this does not only apply to Canadian artefacts and art,

but to art from around the world? Is that not terrible?" I do not think it is terrible at all. Are we to assume that Canadians are not interested in works of art done by people from other parts of the world? We are a melting pot. We are a multicultural society. We can all learn from and appreciate art from other cultures. Those are the kinds of donations which are accepted under the bill. They are of value to us. I want to clarify that for the House. It makes sense and I appreciate it as a Canadian.

The particular argument that the third party makes of the bill is that it only benefits rich people, in fact it is the Canadian government again servicing the rich, giving them an opportunity to receive a tax incentive for making a donation to a museum, an art gallery or a library.

[Peter Milliken, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

If that were true, then you would think they would support it.

[Jane Stewart, Liberal, Brant, ON]

The parliamentary secretary makes a good point. He says: "If that were true, then you would think they would support it". I tend to agree with him. What they are saying is that the government is not being fair, that it is all one sided and that it is only going to the rich. No, it is not. Donations are made to our art galleries, our libraries and our museums and we all benefit.

Members of the Reform Party are suggesting, I believe, that people who are not rich are not interested in art, do not value our history and our culture and do not like to go to museums. I can tell them that is not true. By virtue of this kind of legislation we have a very unique and important way of ensuring that our heritage remains in Canada, that it is here for us to enjoy and value, and that it is here for our children.

If we go to the National Art Gallery, just behind Parliament Hill, we can go for free. Anybody can go for free and see incredible works of art, whether they be from the Group of Seven or from the Renaissance period. That is of value to all Canadians. Perhaps Reformers want us to charge for that. I do not know.

The results of the bill do not just service the rich, they service us all. They enrich our culture, our society and our heritage. These are important points which have to be put on the record as we discuss Bill C-93.

I was interested in some of the comments from the third party, in particular those that suggest the members of that party are credible art critics. If we go back through Hansard we can read of those members talking about particular pieces of art in the National Art Gallery and chastising that gallery for the purchase of those works of art or for even presenting them. It makes me wonder if the members from that party can spell art, let alone understand what art is all about. Quite frankly, art is a very personal thing. Art speaks to people in different ways, given the experiences, the culture, the point of view or gender of an individual. It is something that is very important as we discuss this bill. We are clarifying, crystallizing the differences between the party in government and the party on the other side of the House by showing an appreciation and value for our history and culture. Quite frankly, the attacks that have fallen on us are all focused by the third party on the dollar figure. Nothing else is important.

I agree that when times are tough, and we are finding it that way now, it is very easy to say stop, do not spend. Stop everything and focus on one issue. That is not good for our history, not good for our future. We have to remember that culture is continuing. Do we want a void in our history, in our collections, in our programs just because at this time we have a tough fiscal circumstance? I do not think we do.

Fortunately the government in place is a balanced government which understands the importance of all aspects of culture and of the fiscal realities of society. As my colleague pointed out, we are a national government that knows the importance of differences. Art comes from the Atlantic provinces or from Vancouver, British Columbia or from the prairies. Those are things we should be thankful for and they should continue.

The most important and telling point in this debate for me comes from my understanding of my own riding where we have a wonderful museum, the Brant County Museum, which has recently benefited from the philanthropy of one individual, Mr. Scheak, who over the course of his lifetime has collected a fabulous and very eclectic grouping of art, artefacts and historical documents. As a philanthropist he donated that collection to us in the riding of Brant. We now have an opportunity to look at historical pieces from around the world, whether it be from the Middle East, Asia and Europe, right in our own hometown. We do not have to travel to see it. There was nothing like that in my community before. Through legislation such as this, that is allowed to happen.

No one in my community would chastise Mr. Scheak for getting a 50 per cent return on that collection. Let us be clear. That is what he gets; 50 per cent of the value of the collection. He does not get it all, just 50 per cent. We as a community benefit greatly not only because our children get a firsthand attachment to that history, but because others come to our community to see it as well. From a point of economic development and tourism the riding of Brant is going to win.

As we listen to the strategies of the third party and their attack on this bill, we realize that a one-track, myopic approach to legislation is just not good enough. There are so many other aspects. There are no simple questions and there are no simple answers. Governing is very difficult. It takes a broad perspective, a complete understand-

ing of a country, its people, its history and its values. Fortunately, I believe the government shows that.

In this bill we are tangibly indicating that commitment. It is a proactive approach. As I mentioned, it is a unique strategy. There is one other country, interestingly enough, that provides tax incentives for donations to cultural institutions. That country is our neighbour to the south, the United States.

I continue to find it interesting that the third party touts the United States as the be all and the end all. They want us to have a political system like the United States. They want us to be like Newt Gingrich. They want us to be far, far on the right and forget about those in our community who have not got the same resources, capabilities and skills as others.

Now they find their heroes to the south doing something not so different from what we are doing here in Canada and they do not like it. I wonder. It is very rare that it happens, but we in fact have with this legislation implemented a program where Canadians can make donations to our very important cultural institutions. By and large they are doing it philanthropically because as I mentioned they are not getting the full return for the value.

They could sell them. They could insist that their collections go out of the country where we do not have the value for them and sell them beyond our borders, lost to us forever. But no, many people are philanthropic. They give to our institutions. It is very appropriate for us to in return give them at least a 50 per cent return. As I say, the people of the country do not object to that.

I know each of us as members of Parliament find as we talk to our local cultural institutions that they do not have the money to go out and buy artefacts and pieces of art. It is through donations that they create their significance, their contents and their importance. We do not want to ever lose that.

This bill is a good bill, bringing together pieces of several acts that have been historically part of the mix, clarifying them, improving them and making our country, as a result, much better.

I would like to thank the House for its indulgence. I appreciate the opportunity to clarify some of the points that have been floating around over the course of the last few days of debate and at this point recommend the bill to the good graces of our House.

[John Richardson, Liberal, Perth—Wellington—Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and speak in support of the act to amend the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, the Income Tax Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act.

The opposition to the bill and the thrust of the amendment to the bill would undermine cultural institutions from coast to coast. Culture is the one legacy that the past leaves to the present and the present prepares to leave to the future.

By establishing the incentives that are inherent in this bill it will encourage people in this country who have items of great significance nationally, of great significance regionally or great significance locally to donate those items to art galleries, museums and heritage buildings that may be in any town, city or county.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Cultural Property Export and Import Act, with consequential amendments to the Income Tax Act and the Tax Court of Canada Act, to establish an appeal determinations by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board of the fair market value of certified cultural property.

In December 1991 the responsibility for determining the fair market value of cultural property donated to the designated Canadian museums, art galleries and libraries and significant heritage buildings transferred from Revenue Canada Taxation to the review board and the review board assumed this responsibility at its meeting held in January 1992. No provision for appeal of the review board decisions was included in the legislative amendments despite the fact that the right of appeal had existed when this responsibility was withdrawn from Revenue Canada. Donors and custodial institutions expressed serious concerns about the lack of an appeal process that is inherent to have built into any program like this where value is to be judged.

The Department of Canadian Heritage in co-operation with the review board then undertook a series of consultations with the community about the need for an appeal process. As a result of these consultations, it was agreed that the legislative amendments should be prepared to establish the right of appeal to the Tax Court of Canada.

This bill establishes two processes. The first gives the donor or recipient institution the right to request that the review board consider its initial determination of fair market value. If after receiving a determination from the board the donor is not satisfied, he or she may take the second step of appealing the board's decision to the Tax Court of Canada.

There are key messages inherent in this bill. I will review some of them at this time. The cultural property export and import tax provides tax benefits to encourage donations to public institutions of objects and collections that are of outstanding significance and national importance. This support is the only program of the Government of Canada that provides financial support through tax credits for donations to museums, art galleries, archives and libraries.

Museums, art galleries, archives and libraries in every province and territory in Canada benefit through the receipt of donations of cultural property as a result of these tax credits. Cultural property valued at approximately $60 million is donated to Canadian

institutions each year. A significant amount of real property is donated to public institutions.

The fair market value of cultural property certified by the review board is eligible as a tax credit at 17 per cent for the first $200 and 29 per cent on the balance over $200. The donor can claim the fair market value of the gift up to the total amount of his or her net income. There is no tax payable on any capital gain resulting from this gift.

Because a donor receives a tax credit, the amount of money realized as a result of the donation is approximately 50 per cent of the fair market value. The donor does not therefore receive a tax refund equivalent to the fair market value of the gift.

Donors, museums, art galleries and professional associations have been lobbying for the right to appeal review board decisions as it was perceived that the lack of an appeal was a denial of natural justice. In most cases where there is arbitration the laws of natural justice in this country must be seen to be in action. Due process must be seen to be in action.

The establishment of appeal should be viewed as a reinstatement of the right of appeal that was lost when the responsibility for determining the fair market value was returned to the review board in 1991.

These amendments will ensure that donors who disagree with determinations of the review board will have the right of appeal to the courts and that they will not be denied natural justice. The announcement of the establishment of an appeal process was received positively by donors, museums, art dealers and the media. These legislative amendments therefore enjoy a high level of public support.

The amendments are technical in nature and respond to strong concerns expressed by the heritage community. Their passage into law should be seen as part of the ongoing commitment of the Government of Canada to ensure the preservation of Canada's cultural heritage.

As I said before and would like to stress again, the era of a country is known by the culture it passes on to another. We must bring those significant items that demonstrated the culture of that era into a place of safekeeping so that they can be studied, viewed and appreciated by people in future eras.

Throughout history works of art have been prized by civilizations as expressed by the cultures that created them. They are regularly protected, conserved and displayed as both symbols and concrete examples of the history of a particular society or cultural group. We see this now as our natives in this country seek to preserve items of their cultural heritage which have great meaning to them. Other groups in our society are seeking now to preserve items of cultural heritage that will have great meaning to future generations.

All nations define themselves in the present by events of the past. It is therefore vitally important to preserve our nation's history and heritage.

Canada passed the Cultural Property Export and Import Act to provide cultural patrimony and preserve in Canada significant examples of the nation's cultural, historic and scientific heritage in movable cultural property. As a means to protect its cultural property, Canada adopted unique combinations of export controls and tax incentives for making gifts to the designated public institutions and incorporated these in legislation by establishing the articles that flowed from that act.

May I speak from some personal experience. Last Sunday I attended a cultural heritage event. I stood in for the minister of culture at a ceremony for a plaque commemorating a historic building of significant architectural importance. Its interior was significant; it was the most outstanding example of fresco painting in three dimension in Canada. I was pleased to be there as were all the people of that community. It is not a sophisticated metropolitan community but the town of Baden of approximately 2,000 people.

People gathered in great numbers to celebrate the historic recognition of Castle Kilbride. Significant artefacts that belonged to that castle from the early 19th century were donated. People brought them back and these items were of significant value because they were owned by a man of considerable wealth. They returned them to this heritage building and museum so that the people of that community would see the architecture and painting of significance to Canadian history and how life was lived in that building.

I live in a town where there are a number of buildings of architectural significance that will be declared heritage buildings. There is not just the culture of significant and exciting designs but there is also the finest English speaking repertoire theatre in North America, the Stratford Festival Theatre and its three stages. We go down the trail and recognize great writing, great playwriting and performances in Stratford, which by the way is playing to its best year in history.

Canadians will look back on those significant events which developed their culture, developed their appreciation for fine architecture, developed their appreciation for fine art, which were developed in Canada by Canadians, for Canadians today and for Canadians tomorrow.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Rosedale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak in support of this bill today.

As the hon. member for Perth-Wellington-Waterloo so ably said, there is a technical reason for this bill, which is to enable an appeal procedure to be put into place so that the proper amount of taxation deductions will be calculated and applied in the course of allowing citizens to make donations to institutions in Canada. That in itself is an extremely important public policy consideration.

In some respects the bill seems very narrow in scope because it is reinstituting an appeal procedure which existed some time ago under previous legislation. In that sense it is rectifying a situation which needed to be dealt with.

Some of the objections which were raised by members of the third party when we were debating this bill the other day attacked not only the thrust of the bill and the whole purpose of what we are trying to do here, but also the need for an appeal procedure. If members of the third party are sincere about having genuine intellectual problems with this whole idea, they certainly should support the thrust of the bill, which is to ensure that there will not be an arbitrary decision by just one authority as to how these matters will be dealt with, but rather they will be subject to an appeal. They will go to the tax appeal court and from there they can go to the federal court. We will be able to ensure that these matters will be handled by strict, appropriate, legal methods.

This bill deals with an extremely important aspect of public policy concern in Canada, that is, that we should have proper procedures in place to ensure the good administration of all aspects of our justice system. In that sense the bill fits within the whole purpose of what the government is trying to do, which is to ensure that the people in Canada have a judicial system which is fair and open and which ensures proper judicial procedures for all. We should look at that aspect of the bill when we are considering it.

I sat in the House the other day and heard the attacks on the bill by members of the third party, who used, as one so often does in the course of debate, rather outrageous examples. One member stood up and said they had seen a painting that was scurrilous or unattractive. Imagine that. Someone had donated it and received a tax deduction for it. We could all probably go to an art gallery and find some paintings which are unacceptable to us.

In the course of my travels I have been to the Louvre. I was told that some of the finest paintings in the Louvre were, at the time they were painted, offensive, despicable and unacceptable. The whole thrust of the impressionist school when it first came out was quite unacceptable to the public. The paintings which today fetch $50 million were totally and utterly unacceptable to certain people at that time who said: "This is a class of art with which we do not wish to be associated. It does not conform to our traditions. It does not conform to exactly the way we think. Nothing except the way we think is acceptable in this world. We will not accept artistic values or views that are different from what we represent".

That is not the view of the government. It is not the view of average Canadians. Average Canadians know that art, literature and culture must represent a vast gamut of society. There must be tolerance. There must be a willingness to accept that we need an expression of culture in our country that is broad, embracing, and global in nature if we are going to take our children into the next century with a sense of what the world is about.

This bill fits into that. It enables small communities to take artifacts, libraries, and things of real value to those communities and give them to local museums and allow them to stay in place so that people can be a part of their own culture. There is nothing lamentable about that. There is nothing to criticize in that. It seems to me to be an extraordinarily valuable contribution we are making.

When we turn to what the third party was complaining about in the House the other day, the fact that this bill enables wealthy people to make contributions to Canada, I think we have to take this into proportion. We have to look around our country and look at some of the contributions that have been made.

In my own riding of Rosedale there is a museum called the George R. Gardiner Museum, of which I was privileged to be a trustee some years ago when I was teaching at the University of Toronto. Mr. Gardiner donated a collection of extremely valuable porcelain to the City of Toronto. That collection is contained in a part of the museum that the University of Toronto helped to build. That is, to use that much overtaxed phrase, a world class collection. It receives world class attention. It receives visitors from around the world. It contributes to the economy of Toronto. People stay in the hotels nearby. They use taxis to get to it. They eat in the restaurants around it.

It is calculated that during the course of the Barnes collection exhibition in Toronto the spin-off effect for the economy of Toronto was some tens of millions of dollars. We cannot forget that not only are we enriching our cultural heritage when we allow, enable, and encourage, as this government does, this type of activity, we also enable our economy to be strong. We enable a real contribution to be made to our economy in the form of tourism or in the form of people coming here.

I myself have had the privilege of going to Calgary. Many members of the third party must have visited the Glenbow Museum. The Glenbow Museum would not exist if it were not for measures like this. Where would we be if we did not have that wonderful repository of our First Nations' art and artifacts that are found in that fabulous institution that is the Glenbow Museum, which is a pride for all Canadians, not just Calgarians.

It is measures such as this that make the existence of the Glenbow Museum possible. The Glenbow Museum, the George R. Gardiner Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and over 300 small and local institutions in this country all have requested this measure to enable them to survive and continue to do the job they are doing so well for Canadians. That is why I support it.

If I go to Montreal, I have the opportunity to see the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I can visit the architecture museum created through a gift from Mrs. Lambert, an extraordinary museum which has made Montreal famous. People come to Montreal from all over the world to visit these museums which enjoy a worldwide reputation, not merely a local one.

All of these contribute not only to Montreal and Quebec culture but to Canadian culture as well and I dare say contribute to the economy of Montreal and of Canada also.

If we acknowledge that donors, museums, art galleries and professional associations are all lobbying for the right to challenge the decisions of the review board, we must as a government acknowledge that they are justified in making such demands and put into place in the legislation a reliable and valid system for handling this situation.

I would like to conclude along the lines of my colleague from Perth-Wellington-Waterloo, who pointed out that we should keep this in proportion. This is 50 cents on the dollar these people are getting. This is not some huge tax give-away. It is 50 cents on the dollar.

At some point a government, if it is to be faithful to its mandate, must provide cultural objects for its citizens. Do the members of the third party suggest that we should go out, collect the taxes, and then go and buy objects with that tax money? That is a much more expensive way of doing it. This way we get the benefit of the generosity of Canadians who have collected wonderful things during their lives. At the same time, we enrich our communities and we do it in the most tax efficient way possible.

That is why I support what this bill is about and why I support what the government is doing when it tries to ensure that we have a better country that is enriched by the activities of our citizens and we enable them to put their life's work and their life's collections to the benefit of our society and that of our children.

[Glen McKinnon, Liberal, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the previous speaker.

I come from an area where there is an endeavour under way to establish a new resource of heritage. I am wondering whether or not he sees any mechanism through this bill that would enable in a general way a new facility, a new collection of artifacts to be set up to encourage the general community to bring forward its artifacts in a particular manner.

I will give a little background. We are the oil capital of Manitoba. We have a problem of encouragement to the oil industry to bring some of those artifacts back into a setting whereby they will be on display. I would ask if the hon. member sees any mechanism that would be available.

[Bill Graham, Liberal, Rosedale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not in a position someone in the ministry would be to answer a technical question of the nature the hon. member poses.

I think the question has some general value that I would like to address. First, this bill is not directed to the problem or the issue of just collections of art, porcelain, or other items of that nature. Anything that is of value to society would be perfectly acceptable, as I understand it, to be the subject matter of a museum or another form of institution.

As a result, I would suggest to the member that what this bill does by putting in place this appeals procedure is it ensures that when the institution of which he spoke is set up and when donations are made to it, which they will be, those donations then will be properly accounted for. There is a procedure whereby if there is any debate about their true value it may be appealed to the courts and we can ensure that for the benefit of Canadians and Canadian society and other Canadian taxpayers that will be done in an orderly way. In that sense, the bill does contribute to enabling what the member would like to see done in his riding.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one would think we were debating today whether to establish or not establish a tax benefit for the donation of cultural property to the institutions of this country that have the mission of securing for future generations examples of art and literature in its many forms. We are not. What we are doing is debating a fairly minor amendment to the process by which that is done. That is in fact a situation that has been in place for some time.

The Reform Party has been critical of this. I guess I have to ask why. I have also heard the Reform Party say that there are things the government should get out of, that the government should be spending less money, that in any way possible government should be allowing the private sector to do what the private sector can do.

This policy, which has been in effect for many years now, of allowing the private sector to contribute to the preservation of Canadian heritage and culture and to receive a tax credit for their contribution is one way of ensuring that government does not have to do everything in this country-unless one believes of course that a nation should not seek to collect the best heritage examples of art,

of literature, of sculpture. I do not believe the Reform Party is of that opinion, but one would almost think so.

There is a bit of a contradiction here between saying allow the private sector to do more and let government do less and then speaking against a provision that encourages that very kind of private sector contribution to building the nation.

For many years I have had the privilege of living in the nation's capital. Part of that privilege is to share as part of my community the very fine national institutions our country has built over the decades: the National Gallery, the Museum of Nature, the Museum of Civilization, the Museum of Science and Technology. Over the years I have applauded the efforts of those institutions to take their collections and their knowledge to different parts of Canada and share with all Canadians the wealth of the collections and exhibits we have built in this country.

I do not think we can over-emphasize how important it is to the heart and soul of a nation to have a sense of its past. We cannot over-emphasize how important it is for young people to have an opportunity to be exposed to those things that express different points of view, through art of one kind or another, about the world, about ourselves, and about our nation.

My colleague from Rosedale just spoke about the attitude towards the impressionists when they first began painting. Our own Group of Seven, who are virtually universally revered, suffered the same lack of acceptance among their fellow citizens when they tried to express in a new way what the country meant and how it appeared.

I said it was important for children to have the opportunity to to experience many different expressions, visually and verbally, in music, views of their country and of the world. I go back to my own experience when our own National Gallery was housed in half of what is now the Museum of Nature. It was a very small collection. As a 10-year-old I had the wonderful opportunity of going there on a Saturday morning with dozens of other children, spreading a newspaper on the floor and using bottles of bright-coloured paint and being able to express myself. Then we would spend time looking at the masterpieces. We would have a world-renowned painter like Henri Masson spend his Saturday mornings with young children like me, commenting on our paintings and encouraging and discussing with us the other wonderful works that were in that very tiny gallery. These are the experiences that influence one's perception of the world and of oneself and that change one's future in many ways.

I hope nobody in this Parliament needs to be convinced of the value of a nation building up a reservoir for the generations to come of those things which have been an important expression of our culture and our history and our way of viewing the world.

We are not talking about whether we should or should not have provisions in the Income Tax Act to allow people to gain some credit, and it is only a partial credit, through the income tax system when they choose to donate something which is their own to their country and to their fellow citizens. That has been well established.

All we are talking about is making sure that the interests of the donor, the interests of the institution receiving the gift and the public interest are protected. We are here today to establish a process where the review board that determines the value of such a gift is subject to appeal, so that if a donor is not satisfied that the value that has been put on his or her gift by the review board is adequate, there is an opportunity to appeal.

Why is that important? It is important because a donor may choose to give or not give a gift to the nation, depending on whether it is valued as it should be. If I were to offer a gift to the National Gallery, which the gallery would first have to determine is of national and historical importance, and a review board were to say to me it is worth this much, when I know very well it is worth two or three times that much, I would choose not to give that gift under those circumstances.

If I have an impartial appeal process to go to, to say what is the real value of this and to have it established, then those gifts are far more likely to be made to the institutions of our country.

On the other hand, a donor may have an over-inflated view of the value of an artefact or a painting or a book which the donor wants to give to an institution, in which case the institution has an impartial process to go through to demonstrate to the donor that this is the value of that property and whether he or she still wishes to donate it or not, that is the value which the museum or art gallery is prepared to accept as its value.

I said it also protects the taxpayers and it does. While we want to give tax credits that encourage people to donate in that way, we also want to be sure that those tax credits are based on fair value. We want to make sure there is a process with an appeal built into it in case there is disagreement about those values.

We encourage charitable giving in many ways. We encourage charitable giving toward various causes: health research, programs for children, programs for young mothers, preservation of the environment. In all those cases we give exactly the kind of tax benefit that is being slightly modified in this bill. I cannot help but feel that giving something of great value to the mind and soul of a nation is equally important as contributing to research in a variety of ways. I am surprised that there are those in the House today who would question it.

In fact, I would take this opportunity to encourage the government to look further at how in times of tight financial situations we might achieve other national objectives through the same means.

For instance, there is no reason why someone should not be able to contribute an environmentally sensitive area to the nation for preservation and receive the same encouragement through the tax system to do that as they would do with the donation of an extremely valuable and historically important book.

Perhaps we should be considering a tax treatment that encourages people to preserve and to donate to the nation important historical buildings. Now the tax system seems more designed, according to the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, to encourage the demolition of heritage buildings and the construction of new buildings than to preserve existing ones.

I consider this legislation a safeguard of the public interest, the donor's interest and the receiving institution's interest. When a Canadian chooses generously to give something which he or she owns of great cultural value to all of us, I consider this act introduces a safeguard to ensure it is done based only on the proper value of that property.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

The question is on the amendment. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the amendment?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

All those in favour of the amendment will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mrs. Maheu)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen: