Honourable senators, I would like to make a clarification to a response I gave yesterday. It will take me a minute or two.

Thank you, colleagues.

Following the speech I gave yesterday on Bill S-202, I was asked a question by Senator Housakos. I would like to clarify and provide a more fulsome answer in terms of how the parliamentary visual artist laureate is selected. The simplest way to do so is to read the relevant portion of the bill:

The Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Commons, acting together, shall select the Parliamentary Visual Artist Laureate from a list of three names reflective of Canada’s diversity and submitted in confidence by a committee chaired by the Parliamentary Librarian and also composed of the Director of the National Gallery of Canada, the Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada, the Chairperson of the Canada Council for the Arts and the President of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, or their designates.

It would be up to them whether they pick from among people they know or open it up to all Canadians. Regardless, that is the proposed new subclause of the bill that I wanted to read into the record.

Thank you.