Dean Del Mastro

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 27th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to commend this member for his efforts in making sure that the stimulus package came through the finance committee very quickly. I have worked with him and I know we do not agree on everything, but we do agree on a lot of things.

He talked about the judgment that the official opposition has to use. I wonder if he thinks that judgment will help ridings in Quebec and obviously ones represented by the NDP members because they do not seem to care much about them.

[Arts and Culture, February 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to give the member some context. A direct hit would be like what the Liberals did in 1995 when they slashed CBC's funding by 40% in the 1995 budget. That is a direct hit.

However, that is not what we are doing. We are maintaining funding to the CBC. We are providing it with $1.1 billion in funding in this budget, with no cuts to the CBC. We expect that the CBC will still be able to deliver the product that Canadians have come to expect.

[Arts and Culture, February 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the member to read budget 2009, our economic action plan, a budget that puts more money behind arts and culture than any budget in the history of Canada and any government that certainly she would have been a part of in the past.

We are standing up for arts and culture in this country and putting more money behind it because we believe in it and we believe it is an economic driver. We believe it is part of the heart and soul of this country.

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, February 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member should know because of his tenure in politics, this is all part of the budgetary process. I can reassure the hon. member that there will be no funding cuts to the CBC. The CBC will receive $1.1 billion in taxpayers' money this year to support its operations. That is one thousand, one hundred million dollars. There will be no cuts.

[February 26th, 2009]

There is another solution, Madame Speaker. The members of the Bloc can start voting in support of arts and culture in this country. They can start supporting budgets that put substantially more money behind artists and behind arts and culture in this country. That is a choice the Bloc could make, but it has made the choice to vote against artists. Then it tries to divide Quebeckers and Canadians because it has a very parochial ideology. That is unfortunate, but it is not going to change the fact that this government is going to continue to support arts and culture in this country. We are going to continue to stand with artists because we believe in them.

[February 26th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise to speak to the questions asked. A number of things were raised by the member from the Bloc Québécois, and I will certainly do my best to speak to all of them.

I first want to address one of the things that offends me as a Conservative member, and that is the constant language used by the Bloc to the effect that there is some kind of ideology opposed to artists within my party, which there absolutely is not. However, there is a very parochial ideology within the Bloc, a very narrow ideology that causes them to be fixed on given issues to the exclusion of others.

The member talked about money that has been lost or potentially could be lost in industry in Quebec. Has the member stopped to think about how much money has been lost in Quebec through the Bloc's actions with respect to the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the Plains of Abraham? Has it thought of that? A lot of money has been lost. A lot has been lost by Quebec City, and the Bloc should think about that.

Tourists would have gone to Quebec City, spent money, provided employment and supported the city. The Bloc claimed it was a victory that people were scared away. There were 150 threats sent to the chair of the National Battlefields Commission, some threats so serious that the commission felt it needed to cancel the event to prevent people from potentially being harmed, including artists who were coming from all around the world. That is what the Bloc did. I will not be preached to about ideology. That is the most ideologically driven party in the House of Commons.

With respect to the Canada prizes that the member referred to, my party believes in rewarding Canada's most prominent artists, which is why it has introduced the Canada prizes. The $25 million endowment earmarked for the prizes will not only heighten the visibility of Canada as a leader in arts and creativity, but will also give Canada's emerging artists an unprecedented opportunity to showcase their talents to the entire world.

To ensure the model chosen will be in the spirit of our commitment to celebrate creativity and the arts, we are currently examining various models for the Canada prizes and consulting with the cultural community. We intend to make the Canada prizes the ultimate showcase for artists from across the globe. Standing shoulder to shoulder with them will be artists from right here in Canada.

With respect to the overall budget for arts and culture, Madam Speaker, you would know that this particular budget has the greatest amount of funding in support of arts and culture in the history of the Canadian government. That is not ideology. We did not put the most money in support of arts and culture in the history of the government of Canada because we are ideologically opposed; it was because we are ideologically supportive of the arts and culture in Canada. That is why we did it, and I am very proud of it.

[Broadcasting and Telecommunications, February 26th, 2009]

I promise, Mr. Speaker. I have just indicated that the government is providing almost $1.1 billion to the CBC. To give some scope, that is almost one thousand one hundred million dollars of taxpayers' money to the CBC, because we believe in that valuable Canadian institution.

[Broadcasting and Telecommunications, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, as we all know, all broadcasters, private sector and the CBC, are currently facing some challenges, but this government has stepped up. We are providing over $1 billion in taxpayers' money in support. We fully expect that the CBC will continue to deliver the quality programming that Canadians have come to expect of it.

[Business of Supply, February 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I suppose I am kind of concerned about today's opposition day motion. While I think it might be anchored in good sentiment, it is very poorly founded.

I had the pleasure of attending the National Governors Association meetings in Washington, DC this past weekend. Its whole theme was infrastructure. A number of the experts who came forward specifically praised the building Canada approach as it pertained to infrastructure. They talked about the importance of ensuring there was a state match and a municipal match to projects. This would ensure the projects were indeed in the best interests of the community as well as amplify the amount of investment that the federal government made.

We are talking about $12 billion in total infrastructure funding that will lead to $36 billion worth of projects being completed. This is great news for Canadians. It will employ a lot of Canadians. The member should support it.

[Liberal Party of Canada, February 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, today we see the same bad decision making from the current Liberal leader as we did from his predecessor. In 2007 the now rejected Liberal leader broke his promise by accepting back into the party, Marc-Yvan Côté, who had been banned for life for his involvement in the sponsorship scandal. Fast forward to today: new leader, same flip-flops. Beryl Wajsman was one of 10 Liberals banned for life for his involvement in the sponsorship scandal, yet he is now reinstated as an adviser to the Liberal leader. Apparently four years is a lifetime for the Liberals.

While the Liberals have forgiven the transgressions of their cronies, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, Canadians have not.

Let me quote from the Guardian, a newspaper in the U.K. This is a description of the Liberal leader:

--a chameleon, a shifty academic difficult to pin down, but perhaps more accurately he ought to be called an egotist who is sure of his own superiority and who seems to lack any real passion for the country he intends to lead.

When will the Liberal Party learn that Canadians do not want to go back to the days of scandals, flip-flops and hypocrisy? Why does the Liberal leader love to flip-flop? When will the Liberals find real leadership?