The House of Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage had a hearing regarding the Main Estimates on Monday in which the Heritage Minister was the main witness. After a 10 minute opening statement Minister Shelly Glover answered questions from committee members. The hearing lasted less than one hour and ended with approval of the Estimates as proposed.
During the opening statement and questions there was a single mention of Library and Archives Canada, and that related to the disposition of the archives of Radio Canada.
As a taxpayer I'm unimpressed; the committee spent less than an hour discussing the whole Department of Canadian Heritage and its portfolio agencies, then let the package go through on the nod. If parliamentarians spent more time in their offices in Ottawa and took less time away in recess there would be more time for scrutiny of programs that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
The Conservative dominated Committee is still basking in the light of its three-year old report preparing for Canada’s 150th Anniversary in 2017. So the Heritage budget is irrelevant to them. Also, some of the committee stalwarts (except Pierre Nantel) likely believed the bafflegab former LAC head Daniel Caron pontificated about when he spoke to the committee back in 2011-12 before his forced resignation. The new budget for 2015-16 is confirmation (again)that the present government has treated LAC like a poor cousin since 2006 and has persistently reduced its available revenue for collections, staff, and digitization (mostly outsourced to private groups or paid for by universities via Canadian.org. Of course, the media talking points are ‘all is well’ and LAC operates ‘at arm’s length’ from the government.
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