Mr. Speaker, I thank you and the members of the House.
On behalf of our heritage critic, the member for Timmins—James Bay, we would like to offer the NDP's support for this initiative, although there is one glaring error, which has been mentioned by our critic, and we would like to straighten that out as we go along. The reality is that there is no professional artist on the board of directors of Telefilm. We think that to be more open and transparent, especially to Canadian taxpayers and the Minister of Heritage, there should be a professional artist on that board. It would add more diversity and we think the board would actually be improved by it.
I cannot think of a better professional artist to be on that board than the great Wendy Lill, a member of Parliament from 1997 until 2003 and the last election. She is an artist. She is a novelist and a wonderful playwright and I believe she would be an excellent addition to the Telefilm board of directors.
I see my colleague nodding her head indicating that she is an absolutely good choice. We would hope that the Liberal Party and members in other parties would take that recommendation. Although Wendy would probably kill me for saying this, I think she would be an excellent person on that board to fix it up and move it along.
I want to correct something that has been said in the House many times by members of Parliament. It is a glaring error. One hears the term “the two founding cultures of Canada” and that is wrong, wrong, wrong. There are actually three founding cultures: the aboriginal people, the French and the English. We always forget the aboriginal people when we talk about culture.
As a person who grew up in B.C., I have to admit that my favourite show was The Beachcombers . Who could forget the great Relic? My British Columbia colleagues would know of that beautiful town of Gibson's Landing, British Columbia, with Molly's Reach and everything else. It was a fantastic show. For 17 years that Canadian show was on television. As a kid growing up, I could not wait to see it every week. It was absolutely fantastic. That is part of Canadian content.
Then I moved to the Yukon where I listened to and watched CBC North and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Watching the culture of the aboriginal people on their own television network was an absolutely wonderful way to understand native and aboriginal culture in this country, especially that of the north.
Moving now to Nova Scotia and the wonderful films and shows that are coming out of there, it is absolutely fabulous. It makes one even more proud to be a Canadian citizen. The culture and diversity in this country are spellbinding and know no limits. This is why we think the Canadian government has a role to play in Telefilm.
We are throwing this little salvo out to the finance minister, or Scrooge McDuck as some would call him, to say not to touch the CBC budget. In fact, he should enhance the CBC budget. There was a time in this country when we used to speak to each other through the CBC. Now we seem to be getting away from that. I think that is something that should be reversed and enhanced.
With regard to this bill, we in the NDP support the initiative in the bill, but again, we would like to see a professional artist on the board of directors as an enhancement to that board.
I want to say that aside from growing up watching The Beachcombers , as a little kid I had another favourite show, which I forget the name of right now off the top of my head, but we all know his name. He was a great guy. He had the rooster and his comfy chair.