Canadian Heritage committee  I'll try to be very brief so that we can move to the other speakers. As for how we can correct our history, I think the history has been corrected. That's what historians have been doing. The problem isn't that we don't know our history, but that we don't teach our history in o

Canadian Heritage committee  I do think that funding is an issue. I think though that funding for local museums needs to come from a number of different levels, from the municipal level to provincial levels. As a board members of a very small museum, I agree with you that we can ask and expect far more of st

Canadian Heritage committee  Survival is, for some of them, critical. Some museums operate on such a shoestring budget that there is very little leeway. I guess I would say that is going to have to come. There is going to have to be some commitment to funding some staff for museums. Other than that, there

Canadian Heritage committee  Let me say that the story we choose to tell says a lot about who we are. That particular pageant offered a very specific nationalist narrative of nation building that wasn't reflective of what actually happened. I don't think that there's a problem at all if individuals want to e

Canadian Heritage committee  I would argue that we certainly can, and I think this reflects on my comments that we need to use local heritage to connect it to the larger national story. So yes, I would argue that the enthusiasm, the opportunities, the local volunteers who exist in those places, who will be a

Canadian Heritage committee  All right, I'll try to be concise. I want to say that I can't imagine an historian who doesn't think that the past is there to guide us into the future. I would hate it if anybody assumed that I'm suggesting we gaze only backwards, because historians look back in order to move f

Canadian Heritage committee  In terms of praxis I could see a number of different methods or mechanisms for putting something into play that would allow individual communities to tell their own stories and make them part of the national story. I would be disappointed if we continued to focus on the bad th

Canadian Heritage committee  I'll start with your second question. I don't know if I can answer the third question, because I would say it would take us forever. Certainly, all of us come with our own perspective to history. I do think, however, that there is some agreement on a larger national narrative. I

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. I'd like to thank both the chair and the committee for the opportunity to appear. I am before you today as an historian, and am always happy to celebrate any opportunity to discuss the heritage of our great country. I'd like to focus my comments today on the sesquicen