Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before Committee this afternoon to discuss Budget 2012 and talk about other subjects for which Canadian Heritage is responsible.
You have already introduced my deputy minister and the director general of financial management.
1 am pleased to take this opportunity to update the committee on our accomplishments and priorities as we look ahead to the 150th anniversary of Confederation, for which programming begins with Budget 2012.
I would also like to thank the committee for its report on Canada's 150th anniversary, which we will continue to review over the coming weeks. I will be submitting my response to the report very shortly.
When I appeared before this committee in May, I outlined how budget 2012 maintained our government's support for arts and culture. That commitment remains firm, and, indeed, this year we have many accomplishments to be proud of. I know that all committee members, and this is true across all partisan lines, share a view that arts and culture are important generators of jobs and growth.
In challenging economic times, our government, in our two-year economic action plan, decided to make key investments in culture. Budget 2012 keeps those commitments moving forward. While other governments around the world and even in this country were making decisions to heavily cut their support for culture, our government chose a very different path. Our government is one of the few governments in the world that did not cut funding for arts and culture, that did not maintain funding for arts and culture, but made a deliberate decision to increase our support for arts and culture during the recession.
Contrast this with the decisions other governments are making around the world. In the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts runs on less money now than it did 20 years ago. Many American states and cities have eliminated their cultural supports. Since the recession, Arts Council England has seen its funding cut by 30%. In Canada, we decided to increase funding for the Canada Council for the Arts by 20%, the largest funding increase for the Canada Council in decades, and Budget 2012 maintained that record level of support.
Our government also maintained our support for our national museums. While other countries in the world were cutting back on culture and even closing museums, we increased our funding to all our national museums. In fact, we created two new national museums, and we have a third on the way. We created the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax as a Government of Canada museum, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, and the Canadian museum of history in Gatineau, which I will get to shortly in more detail.
I think Canadians in all regions of our country are incredibly proud of our museums because, taken together, our national and local museums in communities all across Canada are some of the best in the world. We value our museums. They tell our stories. The collections that they house and the role that they play in our culture are invaluable. Because of this, in budget 2012 we continued our path of supporting our museums with continued stable funding.
As a matter of fact, on top of the funding that we've protected for our museums, we've doubled the Government of Canada's indemnification program from $1.5 billion to $3 billion every year. This is basically the Government of Canada stepping in to support financially the costs museums incur in housing international collections or moving collections around the country to build thematics.
I know that many of you, and perhaps all of you, met with representatives of the Canadian Museums Association this week. They were in town. This was their number one budget ask. We listened to their concerns, agreed with their top priority, and it is contained in the budget.
Our government stood up for arts and culture when it was needed most, for our economy and our cultural organizations. We understand this sector's importance to ensuring that our economy remains strong. We believe that supporting the arts is essential to supporting Canada's economy and our quality of life.
We know that governments in other countries have made decisions to cut — and in some cases cut heavily — their support for culture. Not us; not this government and not this prime minister. We chose a different path and we have stayed on that path, despite being in a period of economic uncertainty. As our path leads to 2017 and Canada's 150th birthday, we are firmly committed to celebrating our country's rich history and heritage. That is the priority I would like to focus on now.
This year, 2012, marks the beginning of the five-year countdown to our nation's 150th birthday. It offers us an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate the things that define us as Canadians.
It has already been a very eventful year, as many of you know. This year we are celebrating the 95th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, the 50th anniversary of the Canadian Coast Guard, Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee, the 40th anniversary of Paul Henderson's goal in the 1972 Summit Series, 100th Grey Cup, which occurred last week, and yes, of course, the bicentennial of the War of 1812, as well as many more celebrations.
We will be celebrating many more milestones over the next five years, including: next year's 100th anniversary of the first Canadian Arctic expedition; in 2014, the 150th anniversaries of the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences; the centennial of women's suffrage in Canada; and the 375th anniversary of the creation of the city of Montreal.
Anniversaries like these connect us. They define who we are as Canadians. They remind us that we have much to be proud of.
Canada's museums are going to play a key role in this undertaking. I've already outlined the importance our government places on national museums. We are the only government in the world, I repeat the only government in the world, that has created, during the recession, three new national museums while doubling funding for programs such as the Canada travelling exhibitions indemnification fund and the Canada cultural spaces fund.
Last month I was very proud to announce that our government plans to create the Canadian museum of history, le musée canadien de l'histoire. On Tuesday, we took the next step in creating this new museum by introducing Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act.
This legislation would confirm the new name and mandate for the Canadian museum of history as well as the funding our government has committed in order to make this project a success. It would allow the museum to renovate over 50,000 square feet of its public space, roughly one-half of its permanent and temporary galleries.
The museum's new mandate is outlined in Bill C-49. I'll quote the language of the legislation because it's important.
When we started this museum, there were some, perhaps at this table, who instinctively came out and criticized the government. But I would encourage you to look at this legislation. We can have plenty of arguments, disagreements, and debates, and that's fine. We can have disagreements on what the priorities should be, but this is an institution which we think will certainly serve the interests of all Canadians. In my view, it ought to be beyond partisanship. It could be certainly a source of debate.
This is the exact new mandate of the new Canadian museum of history that we've put forward in the legislation. I think you'll find it agreeable. It reads:
The purpose of the Canadian Museum of History is to enhance Canadians’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of events, experiences, people and objects that reflect and have shaped Canada’s history and identity, and also to enhance their awareness of world history and cultures.
We want this new national museum to truly reach across Canada as well and to connect together Canada's museums all across this country, as well with our historic places. For that reason, part of the funding we've put forward, this $25 million, will be used to create partnerships between the new Canadian museum of history and museums across Canada that have the same or similar mandate, but they'll do it on a local level.
As you know, the Canadian museum of history, currently the Museum of Civilization, is the largest museum in Canada. It has 80% or so of its collection currently in vaults. We want that collection to get out and move across the country—there are great Canadian stories to be told—so that local museums can have access to the vaults and to the collections that are in this museum and to house them locally.
We've doubled the indemnification program from $1.5 billion to $3 billion so that we can get these collections moving around the country to help local museums host these items that are currently in the national museum, to have them in their local museums so they can build local thematics and tell great Canadian stories with a local context. It will help local fundraising. It will breathe new life into local museums.
I think about the Port Moody Station Museum in my riding. It has a great collection. It's a really charming museum, but when you go there, you realize that everything on display has been on display there for about the last 25 years. If they had the opportunity to have access to the new Canadian museum of history's entire collection and to host things as they choose with assistance from the Government of Canada, it would allow them to rejuvenate and to re-energize their mandate and to offer new things to local museums and local audiences. I think this is a very good thing.
As official partners, these local museums will have access to that. There are three-and-a-half million items, by the way, that are in the holdings of the museum. These museums will have access to that. The local museums will also have the opportunity to work with other museums around the country to build thematics, share ideas on best practices, and build regional thematics that make sense for them. This will become the pan-Canadian infrastructure for all of our museums that we're all very proud of in all of our communities, to work together and to be a pan-Canadian infrastructure for telling Canada's stories one to another.
Canada's history is far from dead. It is all around us. It just needs to be told. It needs to be championed. It needs to be celebrated. I am determined to ensure Canada's story is told to Canadians as we travel on the road to 2017.
I would now be very happy to respond to any questions, whether about this specific subject or more generally about something of concern to you in relation to Budget 2012.
Thank you.