House of Commons, Library and Archives Canada

The Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage answers a ques­tion on the role of Archives Canada within the ongo­ing cel­e­bra­tions of Cana­dian history

Octo­ber 16th, 2012

Mr. Pierre Nan­tel (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, NDP):

Mr. Speaker, since the Con­ser­v­a­tives came to power, they have done their best to under­mine Library and Archives Canada. Their cuts and neglect are jeop­ar­diz­ing the preser­va­tion of thou­sands of his­toric documents.

If the Con­ser­v­a­tives really love Cana­dian his­tory, they must pro­tect our archives. This is about our his­tory and our her­itage, which must absolutely be preserved.

The Con­ser­v­a­tives would rather rob Peter to pay Paul. Instead of rewrit­ing and politi­ciz­ing Cana­dian his­tory, and leav­ing tax­pay­ers on the hook for mil­lions of dol­lars, can the min­is­ter con­firm that Library and Archives Canada will main­tain com­plete con­trol over Cana­dian archives?

[Eng­lish]

Hon. James Moore (Min­is­ter of Cana­dian Her­itage and Offi­cial Lan­guages, CPC):

Mr. Speaker, Library and Archives Canada will actu­ally be an impor­tant part of the new Cana­dian Museum of His­tory as we move for­ward, because it is the guardian of a lot of our past. It will be a very large part of this project as we move forward.

I hope that the NDP will actu­ally decide to sup­port this ini­tia­tive, because this is in fact an effort to bring all Cana­di­ans together to talk about all of Canada’s sto­ries. There­fore, I would hope that my hon. col­league would put away the rhetoric he has used yes­ter­day and today in the House and would work with me and other mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to make this insti­tu­tion what it should be, which is an insti­tu­tion for all Canadians.