Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the member for Beaver River for an excellent and rational point of view on this whole issue.
The motion before the House today, an accusation from Bloc members of funds being squandered on propaganda, is a bit of a narrow-minded, hypocritical motion. I would like to point that out.
The balance of the motion states that instead of spending money on free flags and the Canada Information Office and in light of the cuts to the cultural institutions that more money should be spent on health care and education, et cetera.
I would like to point out to Bloc members that their former fearless leader who sat in this House, that same Lucien Bouchard who is now running and guiding the province of Quebec, in his next budget and the budgets in the ensuing years will cut spending on health care and education. He will have to make cuts and eliminate the waste in those areas because that is where savings can be had and that is where, even in welfare and other social programs, he is going to have to revisit.
This party, which claims it can do all and be all for everybody, will have to face the stark reality of what governments are all about. Governments are all about taking tax dollars and reinvesting them back into the country, for natural infrastructure and for human infrastructure. The group of people that best knows how to do this is the group that should be running this country.
For 30 years we have had politicians who have mismanaged these finances. They have mismanaged them so badly that they have had to borrow close to $600 billion to cover everything they wanted to do for the people of Canada. They would not live within their means.
The stark reality for everybody, no matter to what political party you belong, is that we are in a time of fiscal restraint. We are in a time of having to balance budgets. We are in a time of not squandering and wasting taxpayers' dollars.
When talking about this motion that attacks the Department of Canadian Heritage we must ask what is its purpose. Why do we have a Department of Canadian Heritage? The purpose of the department is to promote Canada. The purpose of the Department of Canadian Heritage is to invest in Canada so we can be proud of ourselves and our country.
Let me point out what the department currently does in dollar terms. According to the public accounts, the Canadian identity program costs half a billion dollars. We spend over $300 million on Parks Canada. We spend $1.171 billion on the CBC. We spend $95 million on the Canada Council which promotes Canadian arts and artists. We spend $190 million on Canadian film development and the National Film Board combined. We spend $91 million on museums of heritage, civilization, science and technology. We even spend $4.45 million to protect the battlefields of Quebec. We spend $23 million on the Canadian radio, television and telecommunications, plus an additional $10 million this year because the Liberal government now wants to give stable multi-year funding to the CBC for the next five years. We spend $19.6 million on the National Arts Centre which is right down the street.
We spend $98 million on the National Capital Commission, the fourth level of government in this area of Ottawa-Hull. I have a hard time with that. Is there a need for four levels of government in the city of Ottawa? There is the federal government, provincial government, municipal government and a National Capital Commission on top of that.
Nobody gives you a ticket around here because they are afraid to. If they do give you a ticket they do not force you to pay for it because nobody knows whose jurisdiction it is. If there was ever a city that needed to be cleaned up, it is Ottawa. Toronto is a megacity. Why do they not make this a megacity, combine
everybody and kick the National Capital Commission people out of here. Let us just have one city and be proud of the city called the capital of Canada?
Across the bridge, Hull, Aylmer and Gatineau are thinking about getting together and forming one city. It is a great idea and there will be savings. We will have fewer politicians to boot which is what we need in this House and all across Canada, fewer politicians.
The National Gallery of Canada, the National Library of Canada and the National Archives of Canada add up to $129 million. That is $2.9 billion, close to $3 billion, which is recorded in the public accounts, that we spend through Heritage Canada to promote Canadian identity. That is to promote Canadian human infrastructure and to communicate information about Canada through the telecommunications medium.
Is that not enough? Should we not now be proud Canadians? Should we not now be able to show all across Canada, across the 10 provinces with $3 billion that we are together and that we have it together? No, it is not.
This government throws money at every problem, from Indians to separatists to oil and gas people. It just throws money at everything. It does not throw what is really important at the Canadian public. What it does not throw is pride and the idea of being proud to be Canadian. There are better commercials from the private sector on being proud to be Canadian than what comes from this government.
We have to start promoting Canadians. One thing this government could do, which it does not have the guts to do-I know that is a parliamentary word, I know I can use it because it was used today in question period. This government and its Prime Minister do not have the guts, they have the power. But the heritage minister does not have the guts-yet she has the power-to do one thing on our census form. One simple little thing that would shut the separatists up. One simple little thing would bring us altogether from coast to coast to coast and that is to allow us on our census to put down Canadian, not Hungarian Canadian like I might have to put down, not French Canadian, not English Canadian, not Ukrainian Canadian, not German Canadian, not Polish Canadian but Canadian. Why do we not do that? Why is it that the government, with all its power, is too lazy and too stupid to do something so simple and so common sense?
We are all, first and foremost, Canadians, not French Canadian or English Canadian or Canadians from Quebec. We can be proud of the region we come from. We can be proud of our cultural distinctions and our differences but we are Canadian. Why do we not just put down Canadian? What would be wrong with that? How much would that cost? Very, very little and this government will not do it.
I have said that Heritage Canada spends close to $3 billion on Canada, on Canadian identity and promoting this country. What about bilingualism? The separatists sit here and say we are not giving them enough. The Official Languages Commissioner claims we spend at least $600 million, but that is ridiculous. We know the cost of bilingualism is a lot higher. The cost is probably more like 5 per cent of the gross expenditures of the government which is about $120 billion.
Therefore, it is safe to say that we spend a great deal on bilingualism, on having everything in two languages and on promoting French outside of Quebec and English inside of Quebec, which the separatists do not want. The separatists believe in democracy, freedom and respect. You can take Quebec out of Canada but you cannot take anything out of Quebec. You can protect language as long as it is French. You do not protect English. That is hypocritical of this party. The cost of bilingualism promotes Canadianism and Canada and is another expenditure that we have.
My main point is that the government has not done enough. It has spent $3 billion in Heritage Canada. It has spent anywhere from $600 million to $6 billion on enforcing official bilingualism.
In conclusion, national unity cannot be legislated. This fly a free flag program was a disaster. Where was the Prime Minister on Saturday? Where was the leader of this country? Where was his pride? Was there nobody to strangle this weekend? Was there nobody to get his hands on this weekend? Where was he? The papers state he was out grocery shopping. Yes, right. Why was he not proud of what his minister was doing?
National unity cannot be legislated. It cannot be done. You cannot make the separatists happy. They have it in their minds that they would be better off by themselves. They are not correct in that assumption. We have to do more for Canadians in Quebec. Why does the government, which has a lot of bilingual ministers, not go in there and do more for Canadians in Quebec, more for the anglophones and more for the francophones who want to stay in Canada? Just to fly a flag is not enough. It is a failure. It was empty rhetoric.
I would like to see Canada come together and stay together. The start would be with the census where we would mark down our origins as being Canadian. Everyone who is born here is Canadian no matter from which province.