Mr. Speaker, I deeply respect the member who has brought this motion before the House. However, it was discussed in committee as he will know, and I made a couple of points in committee which I may as well put on the record here in the House of Commons. I will read that motion again:
--the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage recommends that the government officially designate Exporail as Canada's National Railway Museum with dedicated long-term funding outside of the Museum's Assistance Program, and report this recommendation to the House of Commons.
The member will recall that my concern and the concern of the minister and the government is that this is piecemeal. The member did acknowledge in his speech that the government is in the process of drafting a new Canadian museums policy.
My own personal point to the minister, to the government and in public has been that we must come up with a way of determining national significance not only for rail, but for other artifacts. Without a definition of national significance or being able to describe how to arrive at whatever the artifact is in terms of national significance, it then comes down to the fact that the only reason an enterprise, a museum or an organization would be applying to the national government is that the national treasury has the deepest pockets, which is not a good enough reason. There has to be some national significance.
As part of the development of the museum's policy, the Canadian government has to take a look at what we have in the national capital, take a look at the 2,200 or 2,300 museums across Canada and make some determination so that we can move forward. It is regrettable that the previous government over a 13 year period was unable or unwilling to come forward with a museums policy. We are working very hard on that. The government will not be supporting this motion for that reason.
The second reason, which I am very familiar with because the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel is in my constituency, is that to designate Exporail as Canada's national railway museum with dedicated long term funding outside the museums assistance program is to say that the federal government is only going to fund Exporail, period, full stop, end of statement. That is completely unfair not only on a morality basis of why should Exporail get it and others should not, but it is unfair to the people who have taken the time to come up with some tremendous artifact collections that are complete train sets and represent a national heritage.
There is nothing in this motion as explained in the member's comments in answers to questions that says that Exporail would become a repository or be able to roll out some of its displays. There is nothing in this motion to stipulate that at all. The member is an honourable gentleman and we can take his representations in good faith, but there is nothing in this motion to stipulate that.
As a consequence, this motion is singularly inadequate. It ends up virtually pitting Exporail against the properties in Squamish which the NDP member drew to our attention. I am aware that one of the artifacts that is on display in Revelstoke in my constituency is actually on loan from Exporail. I realize that is ongoing.
Again, this motion is singularly deficient. For two reasons, number one, it is premature, and number two, it is imprecise and therefore deficient, our government will be voting against this motion.