House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 56% of the vote.
Arts and Culture December 2nd, 2008
Mr. Speaker, I am going to keep repeating myself until my friend understands. The fact is that we increased spending on arts and culture. For example, we increased spending on the Canada Council by 17% to $181 million. That benefits artists. The Canada Council gives artists money to meet their needs. We increased funding for that program. The Bloc voted against that. It is against the arts, against culture, against Canada, but for the Liberal Party.
Arts and Culture December 2nd, 2008
Mr. Speaker, in regard first to the 375th anniversary of the city of Trois-Rivières, we are proud to partner in this great celebration. We gave $2 million to the cultural capital program for this magnificent event and we are very proud of it.
Insofar as arts and culture are concerned in Canada, the Conservative Party is putting even more money into them, a total of $2.3 billion. We increased the funding this year by 8%. The Liberal Party voted against it. The Liberals voted against the money intended for the celebrations in Trois-Rivières. We are for Canada and for these programs that will help unite our country.
Arts and Culture December 2nd, 2008
Mr. Speaker, this is what we have done. We increased the spending on arts and culture in this country by 8%. We are spending $2.3 billion on the arts and arts and culture programming in Canada. When the Liberal Party was in power, they made cuts. We increased the budget because in our view, arts and culture programs are very important for our country and our economy. The Liberal Party voted against our increases. We voted for them because we think it is important to be on Canada’s side.
Points of Order December 1st, 2008
Mr. Speaker, it is true that at the start of question period I did say some things about the Bloc, the Liberal and the NDP coalition.
I never said the member's surname. That is not true. But if I did say something that was not within the rules, I apologize and I withdraw those words.
Arts and Culture December 1st, 2008
Mr. Speaker, we understand that it is important to our country and also to our economy and that is why our government increased support for the arts and culture by 8% to $2.3 million. We have programs and part of our cultural funding helps artists show their work on the international stage. Every time we presented a budget here, in the House of Commons, that increased spending on the arts and culture, the Bloc Québécois voted against it. That is shameful.
Arts and Culture November 27th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, the PromArt program my colleague is talking about was a Liberal program that cost taxpayers $7 million. In 2008-09, the program cost $7 million. Of that $7 million, only $2 million was spent on artists' needs. The rest, $5 million, went to administrative expenses. The Bloc Québécois wants a program that spent over 70% of its budget on administration, not on artists. That approach does not help Canada's artists. Our government is spending $2.3 billion on artists, and that money is being spent wisely.
Arts and Culture November 24th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, as I just said, we increased our spending on arts and culture by 8%. This is not an increase for the department, but for arts and culture programming. We will spend $2.3 billion this year. We increased spending. The Bloc Québécois voted against that. It was not present for Quebec. It was against these spending increases. We are the ones who are defending arts and culture in our country, and we will continue to do so in the future.
Arts and Culture November 24th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, we understand that arts and culture are important to the future of our country. That is why the Speech from the Throne says, “Cultural creativity and innovation are vital not only to a lively Canadian cultural life, but also to Canada’s economic future.”
If my colleague wants to walk the talk, she should vote for the Speech from the Throne. She should know that it was the Conservative government that increased spending on arts and culture by 8%. We are the ones who are defending arts and culture, and they are the ones who voted against that.
Culture November 20th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, we are not attacking anything. We have increased spending by 8%. Her statement that we gave that money to sports is false. That is false. We gave that money to the torch relay so that francophone communities outside Quebec could be involved in the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. That is because we understand that there are francophones outside Quebec. We, a national party, are the ones who understand Quebec, who understand Canada, and who understand francophones in all regions of this country.
Culture November 20th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, the accusation made by the member opposite is completely false. In the past, during our first term, our government increased spending on arts and culture by 8%. We spend $3.2 billion on arts and culture in this country. In the past, the Bloc Québécois voted against those increases. They were the ones who voted against them. We have increased them in the past. We are accountable to the taxpayers and it was the Bloc who voted against artists, not us.