Mr. Speaker, the very first basic recommendation is to have a cultural policy vision. We were surprised in the throne speech at the lack of any sign of a cultural policy at all. That is the starting point.
Recently I questioned the Minister of Canadian Heritage and the Status of Women in this House, to highlight the idea advocated by the Bloc Québécois for almost four years now of increasing the Canada Council’s budget from $151 million to $300 million. This is a request that keeps coming up and that is made in Quebec and the rest of Canada for the sole purpose of enabling more than half of our artists and craftspeople to have at least a decent standard of living.
The government may pride itself on being an international leader in cultural diversity and agree to sign and ratify conventions on diversity, but it must to look to its own house to see whether enough has been done to support culture through supporting creators, writers and craftspeople. It appears that this work has not been done.
Successive governments as well as this one—I would not want to prejudge; I will wait to see the facts—have not responded favourably to the expectations of the cultural community. If there was any hint in the Speech from the Throne of responding positively to the request from Canada and Quebec about the Canada Council budget, I think that someone would have mentioned it. This absence is of great concern to us, and that is why I spoke out today.