Mr. Speaker, I and my colleague do, of course, have many discussions about tourism, as he is involved in the tourism caucus, and I certainly appreciate those.
However, I am troubled by his opposition and that of his party to a bill that would certainly assist some of our fine local small and medium-sized museums all across this country. As well, in terms of tourism, this bill is a great way to generate visitors to communities, because this measure would allow the new Canadian museum of history to share the artifacts it has, and vice versa: museums would share their artifacts with the Canadian museum of history as well, so that more Canadians could enjoy the rich history stored in many of the 2,500 museums across this country.
There is a museum in my home town of Olds, Alberta. My grandma was one of the first telephone operators in Alberta, and when the museum brought in some of the equipment that she used to work on, she was proud that people would be able to see that part of our history. Being able to share collections with museums like the one in Olds provides the opportunity for many more Canadians to be drawn in to a museum like that to see the things that people who built this country are so proud of. I find it troubling that the NDP would not support those kinds of things for their communities as well.