Canadian Heritage Committee on June 5th, 2013

[John McAvity]

I would not agree with that. There's the willingness and the desire to do it. What there may be is a problem with environmental controls at some of those very small museums, and that would be a legitimate reason, because we have to be very concerned about temperature, light, humidity control and so on. The Museum of Civilization would have legitimate concerns that they would have to meet standards.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

The museum, presumably, would put in place standards. But as far as your understanding, there are a number of local museums, local officials, local curators, who could handle such collections.

[John McAvity]

Yes.

The other point I'd like to make is that today we're spending a lot of time talking about history, but I think a lot of people are coming at it from the point of view of putting a capital-H on “History”, and local museums, as you've mentioned, are using small-h history, with much more emphasis on social history and a broad definition of what history means. I do not believe we are talking at the new museum about a museum with a capital-H, restricted, academic approach toward history. From everything I've heard, I think we are looking at a much broader approach to history, from before day one to late last week.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

We also heard this from Mr. O'Neill:

The content for this new exhibition is being developed by a multidisciplinary team of experts at the museum, led by Dr. David Morrison. This team is made up of researchers, curators, and museologists working in close collaboration with advisory committees composed of historians and experts from across Canada.

I believe that Dr. David Morrison has Ph.D. in archeology from the University of Toronto and is the author of many books, with some 20 years of experience in the field.

So yes or no, Mr. Turk, do you know Dr. Morrison?

[James L. Turk]

I do.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Is he a good man, somebody who's capable of putting this together? Or is there something I need to know about education at U of T that I need to be concerned about?

[James L. Turk]

All I said was that virtually all of the academic organizations that specialize in this are indicating they have not been properly consulted at all.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

But you would agree that that is something.... Clearly, we haven't passed the bill yet, and the museum hasn't changed, so obviously—

[James L. Turk]

Well, the museum purports to be undertaking consultation, and you were indicating—

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Well, I think Mr. O'Neill mentioned the massive consultation that has gone on across the country. But obviously, as we go forward with the collections, you would agree that the right approach to take would be to have somebody like Dr. David Morrison, and that it would be important to include “researchers, curators and museologists working in close collaboration with advisory committees composed of historians and experts”, thus a broad cross-section of people who can—

[James L. Turk]

But the very mandate of the bill ties the hands of Dr. Morrison—

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Specific to that question, are they the types of people—

[James L. Turk]

—because he can't do research. That's not the focus.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

—we should have in place?

[James L. Turk]

It doesn't matter who you have in place if research isn't part of the mandate.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, may I ask my honourable colleague to be a little more respectful of people coming in to witness—

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

He's just talking to Mr. Turk.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Yes. It's not the same at all, and you know it, Mr. Young.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Nantel.

Mr. Calandra, you have a minute-and-a-half left.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Mr. Smith, let me ask you this: places like the Wendat village in my riding—

[Dr. Victor Rabinovitch]

Mr. Chairman, there was a comment made about the Huron-Wendat collection—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Sorry, Dr. Rabinovitch, the person asking the question has control at the moment, because of the limited time. Maybe you will get another opportunity, but Mr. Calandra is directing his question to someone else now.

Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Your organization has done a spectacular job in connecting people with their history. In my hometown, I see things like this Wendat village, and I realize how important it is to our local community that we do a better job of connecting Canadians with their history, especially in light of the things that your group is doing.

[Anthony Wilson-Smith]

Fundamentally, we as Canadians don't know our history. We don't know enough about Sir John A. We have polled repeatedly on this over the last 10 years, and we've not shown any significant improvement. People don't know that Sir John A. was the leading Father of Confederation. Some of them don't even know what he looks like, even though he's on the dollar bill that a lot of people see in large numbers every day. They can't identify who D'Arcy McGee was. They don't know Canada's contribution in World War II, which is something that came up earlier. On virtually every mark they fail, and that's probably because they don't learn.

In terms of our history and our heritage, the system is failing us, so something has to change within. When you talk about local museums, I go back to Tip O'Neill's observation that all politics is local. So is history to a large degree. It's about communities, whether we define them geographically, through ethnicity, or through culture. It happens through reaching out and touching each other. We have to get better. It has to change fundamentally. To get somewhere, you have to leave somewhere behind.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Calandra.

Madame Boutin-Sweet.