Mr. Speaker, he is impugning our motives. I want to emphasize that. The minister came and testified before us in committee. We did not hear her speak transparently, clearly, about her intention to consider the motion we are debating here this morning.
I had to propose a motion like the one here today, looking for my Liberal colleague to approve it in the debate. If the minister or even the parliamentary secretary had provided us with clear information, I do not think that we would be here debating this morning.
Deception is one of the arts of the Conservative Party. We felt forced to have this debate today in the House as a precaution. If the parliamentary secretary makes a public promise today, many people and the media will probably report it. But this was hardly the case at first. His position on this matter was not public, or else why would we have had this up for debate here this morning?
As I said, this debate is based on the precautionary principle. We do not know what they want to do, we do not know where they are headed, but we do know what they said they intended to do.
I reject outright the parliamentary secretary’s impugning of our motives—those of my colleague from the NDP, my colleague from the Liberal Party and myself.
This debate is justified. I already said so. Television is important. It is a public institution that we are debating here. If it were ever allowed to fall under the dictate of private interests, the diversity of information would be at stake, as well as the health of the CBC's very mandate for television, which we must acknowledge is the only medium today where the people still have a say.
It is important to talk about museums, but there has been a host of studies on museums. A multitude of reports are gathering dust. They need only consider these studies and reports and propose a policy. Just do not try to take us off to play tourist all over. The work on museums has been done. They should do their work now; that is what they were elected to do.