Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Saint-Laurent—Cartierville for his important contribution to the debate. I taught history for years and I am still quite passionate about it.
I would like to hear what the hon. member has to say about one of the things that bothers me a bit here. One of the proposed changes to the mandate, to section 8, suggests eliminating the phrase “critical understanding”.
One of the first things I teach is that even though history tries to shed light on events that have happened, the understanding of these events is never over and evolves over time as historical documents and artifacts give us the points of view of everyone involved.
By replacing critical understanding with the simple notion of general understanding, does this shift not run the risk of resulting more in propaganda and less in a true understanding of historical events?