Mr. Speaker, I am happy as well to see my friend the hon. minister back at the late show. Unfortunately, I am not satisfied with the answer received yet again tonight.
Let me just, for the edification of the chamber, read section 16 of the Library and Archives of Canada Act which states:
Despite the Surplus Crown Assets Act, all publications that have become surplus to the requirements of any government institution shall—
It is not “may”, but “shall” mandatorily.
—be placed in the care or control of the Librarian and Archivist.
There is no evidence based on the eyewitness accounts of the destruction of these libraries that there was any inventory properly taken. Now many of the materials, by the way, coincidentally, have been shipped to the Institute for Ocean Sciences, which is in my riding on West Saanich Road, but they are not yet available. They are still sort of in sarcophagi.
We do not know what was destroyed. There is a mandatory duty on every government to protect the documentary heritage of Canadians. In this case it was not done.