Canadian Heritage Committee on June 5th, 2013

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

For whom?

[Mark O'Neill]

We're looking at sponsorship to allow the network to function—private sponsorship. That's right.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I got that, but what about Timmins? How does that work?

[Mark O'Neill]

We're hoping that if we raise some funds, we'll be able to assist the smaller museums as they participate in this network.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

But none of that money, the $25 million, is going to help these people get some of those artifacts that you have on display in your museum.

[Mark O'Neill]

The $25 million is slated for the renovation and the redevelopment of those two halls.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I would love for the small museums to find themselves on an even keel with the larger ones in the larger centres. It seems to me that if you're in a larger centre, then you would have an advantage in getting this material. But you want to help these smaller museums out?

[Mark O'Neill]

Yes, and they're eager to be part of this network.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

But you plan to do this through private means.

[Mark O'Neill]

If we can secure private sponsorship, that would be extremely helpful to us in offsetting costs. We do not intend to place any financial burden on the smaller institutions. They're eager to participate. At the beginning of this project, we're going to have to work out the ways in which we will be able to finance this. We believe that we will be able to do it through a reallocation of some of our resources and through some private sponsorship activities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Next, we will move to Mr. Calandra.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, sir. I appreciate your coming here and I appreciate all the information you shared with us today.

The minister talked earlier about the support of the Mayor of Ottawa, as well as the Mayor of Gatineau. In fact, the Mayor of Gatineau said,

...this decision is a step in the right direction... I think there is no cause for concern.

So it must be very helpful when two of the most important and relevant partners to drawing people to this brand new museum are so favourable to it and excited about it. It's actually part of building a consensus, which is on top of the extraordinary outreach you've done.

I wonder if you'd just talk about that, the need to continue to consult with Canadians as we move forward.

[Mark O'Neill]

Thank you very much again for the question.

We believe that the museum's history network will allow us an opportunity to reach Canadians where they live in a more concerted way than we have ever done before.

I just want to give you a sample of some of the institutions that immediately signed on and didn't hesitate to become part of this cooperative form of network: The Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, several months ago; The Rooms in Newfoundland, which also agreed to sign on; the Museum of Man in Winnipeg, which became part of this partnership just last week; and many smaller museums across the country. I have a list of about a dozen or so other museums that are hoping to participate—the McCord Museum in Montreal, for example—and many others.

What this will allow us to do is to collaborate on museological projects over the long term, which has not happened before for our museum corporation. Things like research projects, joint public programming, all of which do not have to be in the National Capital Region, we will be able to do with new partners across the country in ways that we haven't been able to do before.

We're also looking at partnering with institutions that are not necessarily museums—centres of excellence in one region, and perhaps community federations in another. We're attempting to build all of these relationships.

We want to expand the national footprint of our museums—the War Museum and the Museum of Civilization—so they really are national as opposed to federal in scope. We have a lot of work to do in that regard and we think that the network is a strategic opportunity for us to do this by building ongoing, long-term relationships that are reciprocal and do not exist now.

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

I will give the remainder of my time to Mr. Boughen, please.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Mr. Boughen.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Let me add my voice of welcome to our two guests. We're pleased that you're able to share part of your afternoon with us, because it's good to hear how the project is coming along from your firsthand.

We'll leave the datebook and the English lesson and distribution of displays for another day, and maybe get back to concentrating on the museum. It seems to me that the museum has been in the planning stages for a number of years now. The bill will update a museum that is at least 20 years old and this will indeed be a great opportunity for the museum to have a fresh start.

Could you share a little of what the plans are for that, first of all?

[Mark O'Neill]

Just to make sure I understand the question, it's about our planning forward and what the new exhibition itself might look like?

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Yes, are you looking at 10-year cycles with history tied in? People say that museums are a visual history of a country. Or are we looking at a broader timeframe?

[Mark O'Neill]

I wonder, Mr. Chair, if I might ask Dr. Morrison to answer that question? Would that be allowable?

David, would you like to—

[David Morrison, Director, Research and Content, Special Project 2017, Exhibitions and Programs, Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation]

Sure, if understood the question correctly, we do have a temporary exhibition program right now that goes to 2018-19, where we're filling in the slots of what kind of shows—either produced within our museum or borrowed and worked on in collaboration with other museums—we're going to bring in.

We have, of course, this big history hall initiative that's scheduled to open on July 1, 2017 for the 150th anniversary of Confederation.

After that, we have been tasked, when planning out this hall, to make it reprogrammable and changeable so that it's the kind of hall that we can update as things move along and historicity changes, but also to integrate new events so that the hall doesn't immediately become out of date.

The current plan is to bring the storyline of Canada right up to the year of opening—and as nothing ages faster than current events, we have to program this sort of thing into the hall. At the same time, we are under no illusions that a hall like this might not also, by the act of some future Parliament 10, 20, or hopefully 100 years from now.... Nothing lasts forever, even permanent exhibition galleries.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Right.

[Mark O'Neill]

I could add briefly to that, if the member wouldn't mind.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Sure.

[Mark O'Neill]

Part of your earlier question was about when all of this starts and how long these kinds of visions take place.

Here, I would note that John English's name was mentioned earlier. When I joined the corporation as corporate secretary in 2001, Dr. English, former Liberal member of Parliament for Kitchener, was the chair of the board of trustees, and he was until 2005. Dr. English, in fact, began talking about the need to bring more broad historical themes into the Canadian Museum of Civilization, even back then. It's one of the reasons that today he has agreed to be one of our advisers and on one of our advisory groups for this project.

The evolution of the museum into a national history museum really had its antecedence, well over a decade ago, in the museum corporation.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

In the planning, will aboriginal people be represented? Will the display represent them in historical concept, as other folks are represented?