Mauril Bélanger

[April 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully when the parliamentary secretary was talking about how valuable the artistic community and artists are to one's society. He is preaching to the converted. He does not have to convince me of that. I have always supported the artistic community, either in private or public spending.

What I did not hear is whether or not the government will respect a commitment that the government made. When she was the critic the minister said, “We will respect a commitment,” and then when she was minister she said, “We are not going to honour any Liberal commitment”. Then on the weekend she said on the radio that she was speaking for herself when she said, “We will respect a commitment”.

There is a great deal of nervousness in the arts and culture community in our country because of the contradictory statements coming from the government. The only hope the artistic community has is that it will see some money in the budget.

If the government is just throwing up smoke screens while we are waiting for the budget, so be it. However, I would hope that it will also think about the effects its words are having on the artistic community as we wait for the budget. People in the artistic community should not have to be put through such stress.

[April 27th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to take part in one of the first adjournment debates of this 39th Parliament. My remarks deal with the very first question I asked of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, concerning the funding for the Canada Council for the Arts.

We will recall that, last fall—more specifically on November 23—the previous government announced a commitment of $342 million over three years not only for the Canada Council for the Arts, but also for other institutions in the same field.

This investment would have seen the annual budget of the Canada Council for the Arts grow from $150 million to $300 million over three years. This represents an increase of $50 million for the fiscal year that started on April 1. Another $50 million would have been added each subsequent year. This was responding in a tangible way to the pressing and repeated demand of cultural and artistic communities across the country to increase from $5 to $10 the per capita amount allocated to the Canada Council for the Arts in support of our country's cultural and artistic communities. In those days, the heritage minister was the critic for the Conservative official opposition. During her election campaign, she said:

“We will honour the commitment that they have made, that the artistic community has received”.

The word We was used.

In saying, “We will honour the commitment,” the minister, who was then the official opposition critic, was speaking for her party. However, we heard her say on the radio on the weekend that she was speaking for herself. That has caused a great deal of concern in the community as to whether or not the government indeed will honour the commitment that was made by the previous government of doubling in three years the funding for the Canada Council for the Arts.

It was a commitment that was made after long discussions and consultations with the community. It was a commitment made in good faith. Money had been accounted for it in the fiscal framework, which would have seen the budget go from $150 million to $300 million over three years.

Unfortunately, in the estimates that were tabled earlier this week, we see that there is no increase. Some of us are still hopeful that the government will come to its senses, respect the commitment of the previous government, respect its own commitment that it gave to the community during the campaign through the voice of the Conservative Party's own critic that they would respect that commitment, and indeed increase the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts.

We are hopeful that come May 2 the government will honour that commitment. It is one that is the appropriate response to the repeated demands and representations from the artistic and cultural community of Canada.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, to try to link the accountability act to absolutely everything is an interesting proposition. I do not think we need to even go that far, assuming that one could go that far, because we are not talking about the need to link accountability and the Auditor General.

For instance, I believe the minister has had a report on this matter for three weeks now and nothing has happened. There is a need for both the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada, through their appropriate ministers, to get on the same page to ensure the city has a great festival, which obviously it can have because it did, but there have been some difficulties in recent years. Through our respective agencies, SODEC or Telefilm, we have the means to ensure that gets straightened out. It takes a little leadership from the government to do that.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member opposite—I say opposite because he seems entirely linked to the government—must understand that a change has taken place in this House and that we now form the official opposition. If he has questions about government initiatives, he should direct them to government members.

I will use the time I have left to address another very worrisome aspect of the throne speech, concerning the linguistic duality of this country. The government's wishes to cancel established agreements with all of the provinces on the subject of child care is a major concern to official language minority communities, particularly francophone communities.

When those agreements were signed, the previous government had agreed with the provinces in question that each agreement would include language clauses so such communities everywhere could benefit from a budget envelope to create child care spaces.

Cancelling those agreements forces these communities to start over from scratch. All of the actual and potential gains made possible, thanks to the language clauses in those agreements, will be lost. The government opposite does not appear concerned about it.

I am deeply concerned for francophone communities everywhere in the country. I hope that the government, in its wisdom—which is not entirely apparent—will find a way to remedy the shortfalls facing these communities.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, April 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations on your appointment as Acting Speaker of the House.

At the outset, I would like to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Egmont.

In accordance with tradition—and a laudable tradition it is—I will begin by thanking the constituents of Ottawa—Vanier for giving me a fifth term as the representative for this lovely riding. I believe most of you go through my riding every morning and evening, and many of you visit it regularly, perhaps without even knowing you do.

This riding is located just east of the Rideau Canal. Located within it are the residences of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Governor General, and institutions such as the National Gallery of Canada and the National Research Council Canada. With all due respect to 24 Sussex, the NRC is probably the most important institution or address in the riding.

I am therefore very proud and very grateful to the constituents of Ottawa—Vanier for renewing my mandate. I will try to continue representing them well. I will concentrate on certain priorities, including the redevelopment of the Rockcliffe military base, which is probably the most important key issue for the riding and the eastern part of the region.

Like my Liberal colleagues, I must get used to sitting on this side of the House and intend to be here regularly. I have also been given new responsibilities as official opposition critic for heritage, which I gladly accepted.

I have gladly accepted these new responsibilities as heritage critic. I will focus most of my remarks on that, but not exclusively, however.

In the weeks leading up the opening of this 39th Parliament I had the opportunity to engage in consultations to establish certain priorities, what we would encourage the government to focus on in terms of heritage. I did not finish this consultation, but I did have the chance to meet with a number of groups and I must say, there was not much in the Speech from the Throne. That is what we are talking about.

In the Speech from the Throne, except for what our Governor General said about linguistic duality and this country's artists, there is nothing in what the government itself prepared. This is very disconcerting especially since last Thursday the minister, in response to a question I asked in the House, said that neither she nor her government intends to respect any commitment of the previous government. This is quite worrisome to the cultural community of this country.

Does that mean, for example, it will not honour the commitment we made to double the funding to the Canada Council for the Arts by 2008, for an annual increase of $50 million in order to bring this funding from some $151 million to $301 million? This would essentially double from $5 to $10 the contribution, direct or indirect, of every Canadian through their taxes for arts and culture in the country. This commitment was the result of a two-year or more consultation with the entire cultural community in the country, whose support was unanimous.

Now we are being told that the government has no intention of respecting the commitments of the previous government. This commitment, by the way, was not limited to doubling the budget for the Council for the Arts; it included other highly interesting aspects that were highly appreciated by the artistic and cultural community in terms of training and promoting our cultural products and artistic achievements abroad.

We do not know where we stand on this. We hope that in the assessments and in the upcoming budget we will get other indications than those we have received so far.

Another priority that we have identified, which touches on some of what the government has said, particularly the Minister of Canadian Heritage, is the CBC. The government has said that it intends to review the mandate of CBC Radio-Canada. The government has that prerogative and we do not question that. If it wishes to have a review of the mandate of the CBC it will proceed. However in so doing we advise caution. As some people will recall, we had the Clifford Lincoln report of the heritage committee where there was a dissenting opinion signed by the gentleman who is now the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage, where, by and large, what was recommended or contemplated was the privatization of the CBC English television. That was very disquieting.

One would hope that if the government proceeds with the review of the mandate of the CBC, it would also include in that review a request to look at the funding formulas because if the mandate is reviewed then the funding to execute that mandate should also be considered and implemented. Finally, on that front, we would hope that any review of CBC Radio-Canada's mandate would be an open and a vast consultation with Canadians who want to see the country continue supporting a public broadcaster of the quality of CBC Radio-Canada in all of its manifestations.

We therefore advise caution on this issue.

Lastly, during this first session of the 39th Parliament, in the spring or the fall, we invite the government to introduce a bill to update the Copyright Act. Copyright is a very complex and controversial issue. I know something about it because I took part in the deliberations on Bill C-32. We succeeded in modernizing the Copyright Act somewhat, but much remained to be done.

Technology is evolving so rapidly that the act is falling further and further behind the times. In addition, the act must reflect our international commitments under the international conventions our country has ratified.

We encourage the government to take action on this, and we will work with the government, because we think it is important that the Copyright Act be brought up to date again.

The heritage portfolio, which is a vast, complex and quite fascinating portfolio, contains other important files and dossiers. I will mention the renaissance initiative in Toronto where the Art Gallery of Ontario, the ROM, the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the National Ballet School, the Royal Conservatory and the Canadian Opera Company are looking to the government to match the Government of Ontario's top up of $49 million to their expansion project. I would encourage the federal government in its budget to match the Government of Ontario's contribution which was announced just a couple of weeks ago.

In Montreal there will certainly be files of interest, including the upcoming cultural summit, the theatre district and the film festival. We will invite the governments of Canada and Quebec to work together to resolve the film festival problem so that Montreal can proudly take its place again on the film festival circuit.

More locally, we certainly will encourage the government to maintain its support of national institutions and to focus on two local important initiatives which are the Great Canadian Theatre Company and the chamber music concert hall project.

I have just one minute left, so I will simply add that arts and culture, for which the Department of Canadian Heritage is responsible, are vital to Canadians' quality of life. Often, we ignore the commercial aspect, which is also important. On behalf of the official opposition, I would like to encourage the government not to ignore the cultural and artistic side of our lives: drama, performing arts, visual arts and literature. The Government of Canada has a role to play, and we invite it to play that role.

I would like to close by congratulating the creators of the film C.R.A.Z.Y. and Robert Lepage for his Projet Andersen.

I want to congratulate that gentleman, who is a native of London, Ontario, for being the first to win back to back Oscars for writing the script for the best film of the year.

[Canadian Heritage, April 10th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, that commitment was in the fiscal framework. I am sure her colleague the Minister of Finance will help her find it.

Last month, the government announced it was cutting financial support for the Canadian Unity Council. By cutting these funds, it is putting an organization at risk, namely Encounters with Canada, a wonderful student exchange program. We know that the government is currently looking at this matter and we encourage it to do so. However, time is passing.

Is it the government's intention to continue to fund Encounters with Canada and, if so, will it confirm its contribution by the end of the month?

[Canadian Heritage, April 10th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's commitment to double the funds of the Canada Council for the Arts by 2008 was the result of two years of widespread consultations with Canada's cultural community.

Last week the Minister of Canadian Heritage said her government had no intention of honouring any commitments made by the previous government. Does that include the Liberal government's commitment to defend cultural diversity, or to strengthen Canada's linguistic duality, or in support of aboriginal languages? Is the minister preparing to abandon all of these commitments, or just the one to the Canada Council for the Arts?

[Arts and Culture, April 6th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I asked the Minister of Canadian Heritage what her priorities were. In her answer, which was not an answer at all, she never mentioned the Canada Council. This is very worrying. Again today, she says that her priorities are to support performers and creators. However, the Canadian Conference of the Arts, the Mouvement pour les arts et les lettres and the country’s numerous other cultural and artistic bodies maintain that the top priority is to increase the budget of the Canada Council.

Are we to conclude, from the eagerness with which she did not answer the questions, that she has no intention of honouring the Liberal government commitment to double by 2008 the budget of the Canada Council for the Arts?

[Arts and Culture, April 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

First I want to assure her of our cooperation in the defence and promotion of Canadian culture. Judging by the lack of cultural priorities in yesterday's Speech from the Throne, she will be in great need of our cooperation.

Since not one of the new leaves mentioned yesterday by her government was relevant to culture, could the minister please inform this House of her department's priorities?

[Electoral Reform, November 28th, 2005]

Mr. Speaker, as the member will know, the government called for proposals to engage Canadians in a very thorough process of consultation so we will know what Canadians expect from their institutions and what values they wish reflected in their parliamentary institutions.

Only when we know what Canadians want to see, will this government move on that. We will then take the time to do it right.