Mr. Speaker, that was a long 20 seconds.
I am happy to join in the debate this evening on Bill C-49, An Act to amend the Museums Act in order to establish the Canadian Museum of History and to make consequential amendments to other Acts.
In plain language, it is a bill to change the name and mandate of Canada's most popular and successful museum for reasons that make the Conservatives happy, but has others wondering if we will sacrifice a world renowned museum in order to celebrate some sterilized 1950s version of Canada in its place.
In addition to that, we know that while the government is changing the name of the museum, it is financially starving and constraining those individuals who do the work the museum is built upon. If it sounds ironic, it is because it is.
At the heart of this debate is a basic contradiction. The government claims it is interested in the country's history and wants to celebrate it and make the public more aware of it. However, the same government has undermined research into our history more than any other government.
With respect to the bill, the government is not listening to the historians, archeologists, archivists, anthropologists and ethnologists, the experts on our history who make it their life's work. Sadly, this is consistent behaviour for a government that seems to value its opinion more than fact and goes out of its way to starve and silence those who prefer the benefit of strong empirical evidence.
We see that across all manner of legislation and this is merely another in a long stream. When it comes to silencing, dismissing and starving critics, we could be talking about environmental research, the census or even the work of the NRC.
It is part of a larger pattern of behaviour to reshape Canada in dangerous and limiting ways. Certainly we have heard from professionals, researchers and experts that budget cuts combined with the federal government's consistent meddling in their affairs in research will have lingering negative effects on their work and the research that ultimately helps us understand our history better.
It would seem the Conservatives want to have their version of Canada become the official history of our country, which would certainly amount to official revisionism. Revisionism is a dangerous thing that can happen when a government does not like the portrayal of its country and sets about meddling in history to suit its sensibilities.
Not understanding our history or whitewashing it to reflect governing party values is revolutionary in exactly the wrong way, and we have certainly heard a lot about whitewashing this past month.
It reeks of anti-intellectualism and reminds me more of the actions of tin pot dictators than it does of modern western democracy. Last week my colleague, the member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, gave a strong speech showing how the government was playing fast and loose with Parks Canada, which maintains many historic sites, including some that are certified “historic” by UNESCO, which is the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture.
He explained how the government had laid off more than 80% of the archeologists and curators, those who take care of historic sites and preserve our precious artifacts. Now there are only about 10 archaeologists working for Parks Canada across the country, for all of our national parks, national historic sites and world heritage sites.
The member also gave a frank and clear warning that world heritage site status was not a given and UNESCO could revoke that status at any time.
I would hope the government had been listening to the member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, but will keep my expectation in check at the same time.
Tonight, the government has the gall to tell us that it wants to promote history when the facts are, through indiscriminate budget cuts, it is actually walking away from fragile historic sites across the country. For example, it is planning to remove carefully preserved artifacts from Parks Canada's regional facilities in Quebec City, only to put them in storage in Ottawa. It is unbelievable. That makes our history less accessible and can never be considered promoting it.
Sadly, this is in keeping with the actions of a government that continually says one thing but does another.
The Conservatives say they are interested in history, but at the same time they have set about weakening and destroying every single federal public institution responsible for protecting our history. They have cut deep into Parks Canada, which is responsible for protecting our 167 national historic sites as well as Canada's world heritage. They hobbled Library and Archives Canada as well. In fact, the guardian of Canada's archives for 140 years, both as the National Archives and as the National Library, whose experts, archivists, professional librarians and others are recognized and admired around the world for their work, did not escape indiscriminate cuts. Now those wonderful exhibition halls are closed and those people find themselves out of work. For a government that says it promotes jobs and the economy, that is not the way to go.
We have to be clear and understand that this is a government that cut millions of dollars from research and the preservation of Canadian history. This is a government that laid off hundreds of archivists, librarians, digitization experts, historians and professionals at Library and Archives Canada. This is a government that destroyed programs like the national archival development program, which supported small communities all over Canada to create their own local community archives, allowing Library and Archives Canada to accomplish an essential part of its mandate. This is a government that almost put a complete stop to the acquisition of historic documents and artifacts by cutting the Library and Archives Canada $1 million budget to $12,000 a year. Yes, members heard it right. The Conservative government cut the budget of Library and Archives Canada from $1 million to just $12,000. Unbelievable.
This is a government that has allowed irreplaceable manuscripts and relics of our history to slip through our fingers and be purchased by auction houses and speculators, and then be exported to shady warehouses in the United States.
When the Conservatives claim they want to promote history, we can be excused if we meet that claim with a good degree of cynicism. When they want to change the name and mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, they should be reminded that it has existed in one form or another for almost 150 years. In fact, some of the collection existed before Confederation.
The museum's mandate is “…to increase, throughout Canada and internationally, interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of and appreciation and respect for human cultural achievements and human behaviour by establishing, maintaining and developing for research and posterity a collection of objects of historical or cultural interest, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, and by demonstrating those achievements and behaviour, the knowledge derived from them and the understanding they represent.”
Now this has to change and the focus would be on Canadian history.
One should not mess with success in that way. The Louvre has not been rebranded to promote more art from France. The British Museum has been going strong for hundreds of years. These are just examples. My point is that a museum requires continuity to gain credibility and become well known. That is what has happened to the Museum of Civilization, and the government is not willing to admit that a rebrand would amount to a new start and building a new reputation from the ground up. This is because of a notion that we do not celebrate our history enough.
Canada Hall will be gutted to make way for this. The fact is, arguably, the hall contains the most impressive display of Canadian history in the world. We will also be walking away from a commitment to maintain a collection of objects for research and posterity, which is absolutely shocking.
Many of these proposed changes indicate an interest in adopting a simpler story of Canadian history. However, critics worry that there is a risk of excluding different experiences from Canada's past that may not fit into an unchallenging narrative. That is not the Canada most people see or want to see. A country's greatness comes in some ways from the acknowledgement of its warts. The colonization of first nations or the regrettable treatment of ethnic minorities are not items that should be forgotten or marginalized.
We are supposed to learn from our history, but there is no guarantee that is what we will do. In fact, most of the renovations are shrouded in secrecy and we are being asked to give this our stamp of approval, which is something New Democrats are not prepared to do.
In closing, let us not change what works. Let us acknowledge the Museum of Civilization as a great achievement that celebrates Canadian history as it is and be proud of our achievement and contribution to the great museums of the world.
