Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to talk about the CBC.
I commend the member for Winnipeg North. It has been a long time since I heard the “hidden agenda” reference, so I congratulate him for being able to throw one of those into this debate. I am sure he will try in subsequent questions to throw in a “George W. Bush” because no debate he is included in would be complete without a “hidden agenda” and a “George W. Bush” reference. I want to commend him for that.
When we look at the CBC, it is important to look at it in a broader context. It is always difficult to hear the Liberals defend anything, and I am sure my colleagues on the NDP side will agree with me. When the Liberals were in office, and the NDP referenced this yesterday in another debate we had, their attacks on the CBC were legendary. They absolutely decimated funding to the CBC.
Now the Liberals get up in this place, on this debate, and talk about how important CBC is, and that “My gosh, if it wasn't for Mr. Dressup, they would not be here”. What did they think of Mr. Dressup and Finnegan when they cut $400 million and more from the CBC? I guess it was not important then, this national treasure of the CBC.
The member for Winnipeg North called CBC a “national treasure”, but the Liberals decimated it with cuts. They did not just decimate the CBC, they also went after health care, social transfers, post-secondary education. What they did to the military was a decade of darkness for it. That is the Liberal record on just about everything.
The Liberals talk a good game, but when it comes to providing good government for Canadians, they push that out the door and focus on what is good for the Liberal Party and their pockets.
The Liberals talked about sponsorship, so let us talk about sponsorship and commercials. What did the Liberals do? We all know about the sponsorship scandal. Imagine what the extra $40 million, which was stolen by the Liberal Party, would do in the context of today. It would be there for Canadians to use. We are still looking for that money.
I want to take the opportunity to commend not only the current Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages but also the current Minister of Industry, who was the former minister of Canadian Heritage. We knew on this side of the House, unlike the Liberals when they were in government, how important arts and culture are to the Canadian economy, not just how Canadians felt about their country or their communities and the provinces.
We understand the pride we get from our artists, the pride we have when a Canadian artist is successful in other countries. We have pride when we go abroad and see Canadian artwork hanging in important museums. It is not just that, but it is how important it is to our communities. We understand that.
That is why in 2008, when the economy took a turn for the worst, when the global economy was at its worst and when every other country in the world was making cuts to arts and culture, we took a different path because we understood then, as we understand today, how important it was to protect and enhance that community, which gives us so much pride.
As I said, we increased funding to arts and culture. We are one of the only G7 countries that has augmented or increased funding to arts and culture, and the results have been spectacular.
I remember at one point a couple of years ago when the Minister of Industry, who was the minister of Canadian Heritage at that time, referred to the fact that five Canadian artists were at the top of the Billboard charts.
I know some of the members of the NDP referred to the importance of jobs when it came to arts. Absolutely, it is important. Arts and culture is responsible for so many jobs in our country, more than 127,000 jobs across the country. It is not just, as the opposition sometimes likes to focus on, about the actors, it is not just about the directors, it is about the other people who help support these productions. These are the types of people we are providing assistance to through our tax cuts, which opposition members constantly vote against. This is about the carpenters, the electricians, the seamstresses, the hairdressers, the makeup artists, and all the people who help support productions in their communities across the country.
I will be happy to continue with my remarks after question period.