Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to the member on this question.
As the member made it abundantly clear, the allegations that she and other Bloc members are making around this issue occurred under the previous Liberal government. The issue around CINAR and the RCMP investigation that occurred at Telefilm occurred under the previous Liberal government's watch. There were findings made at that time and recommendations subsequently have been made to the minister.
The member well knows that this Conservative government has no interest whatsoever in covering up any Liberal misappropriations of government funds. In fact, we would like to get to the bottom of it.
The first action we undertook when we became government was to introduce the Federal Accountability Act to clean up those types of issues. The sponsorship scandal, for example, was a flagrant misuse and abuse of taxpayers' money. In committee I have used the word “crime”, because I believe that the money taken from Canadians did reflect criminality, but unfortunately, there has been no finding of crime by members of the previous government. That is unfortunate.
I did bring a motion to the ethics committee last week. The Bloc members did not support that motion. I wanted to know where the missing funds are, more than $43 million of the more than $360 million in sponsorship scandal money, or adscam money, that was taken. I want to know and I want to know who is responsible. I want to know who in the prime minister's office decided to write the cheques. Justice Gomery talked about that. He called it an elaborate kickback scheme that ran from the Liberal prime minister's office of the day. I would like to know who made those decisions.
I would like to know which Liberal riding associations in Quebec ultimately benefited from that, and by extension, the members that those riding associations represented, but the Bloc did not support me on that last week. I wish the Bloc would have supported me because I would like to get to the truth on that. I am not done. I will keep working to try to shine the light on that issue because I do think Canadians need to know.
I do want to talk a little about Telefilm, because CINAR was funded through Telefilm, which is an arm's-length body. Since the member has afforded me that opportunity, I want to talk about the value of Telefilm because it is important.
Telefilm was created in 1967, more than 40 years ago. The company's mission is to foster and encourage the development of the audio-visual industry in Canada. As a cultural investor, the company contributes financially to the health of a community by sharing the risks and revenues of production selected by a rigorous process. The revenue generated by its investments in the production are then reinvested into new productions.
Telefilm supports Canadian businesses and creators, ensuring Canadian voices are heard and accessed. The company is not only a cultural investor in leading Canadian film, television and new media, but it is also a promoter which promotes the growth of a Canadian audio-visual industry of international significance.
Through the Canadian feature film fund administered by Telefilm Canada, the Government of Canada provided approximately $90 million in 2008-09. This fund supports the development, production, distribution and marketing of Canadian feature films. We have seen many successes on this front recently, from Passchendaele, De père en flic, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, Cruising Bar 2, Trailer Park Boys, Les 3 p'tit cochons, Nitro and Away From Her, to co-productions such as Eastern Promises, Silent Hill and L'Âge des ténèbres.
Last year alone, more than 40 feature films were created thanks to this fund, and it triggered financing from other public and private sector sources.
