Madam Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary just proved my point. Instead of talking about his love for the arts, instead of saying he was in awe of the creativity of our artists, he spoke about funding and investments.
But where was the Minister of Canadian Heritage when Google went after editors and told them it had digitized all their books and that they could sue if they were not happy? Where is the Minister of Canadian Heritage in the foreign ownership debate?
Members will recall that in 2002, Liberal heritage minister Sheila Copps fought and defended artists against her colleague, then-industry minister Allan Rock, to prevent telecommunications companies from being taken over by foreign companies.
The same thing is going on now, but this Minister of Canadian Heritage is not defending artists.