Mr. Speaker, I did indeed try to reach out to opposition members in this House, all parties, to try to gauge their support for this project itself. I approached the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, and showed him the language in the legislation before we tabled it in Parliament; equally with the NDP; as well I extended it to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who is the leader of the Green Party and showed her the legislation of what we had in mind. We consulted with the opposition before we tabled the bill. We invited them to support this legislation. It has broad-based support, not non-ideological, I can tell members, but broad-based support across this country, from historic institutions, museums, galleries, heritage organizations and communities all across the country that are supporting this initiative.
I did my best to reach out to the opposition, to invite them to support this legislation before we tabled it, showing them that this was a genuine effort to try to build a great national institution that would be national in consequence, not just a beautiful institution here in the national capital, but one that would benefit everybody. That is why we have broad-based support.
The Liberal Party, to its credit, did show some openness in the early days. Unfortunately, it backed away from that, yet we still have the support of the leader of the Green Party. We have the support of the member from Thunder Bay who was elected as a New Democrat. We have support from individual Canadians. Provincial governments, NDP, Conservative and Liberal, have all come out and openly supported this legislation and the creation of this museum because it would benefit every region of this country.
We are moving forward after eight and a half months of consideration on this matter. I think it is time. We are looking forward to the doors opening at this new, great institution, with this new vitality that would be injected as a result of our investment and this legislation and its new mandate.