Bill C-49 (Historical)

Canadian Museum of History Act

An Act to amend the Museums Act in order to establish the Canadian Museum of History and to make consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Museums Act to establish a corporation called the Canadian Museum of History that replaces the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It also sets out the purpose, capacity and powers of the Canadian Museum of History and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

Second Reading

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, if it is true that museum employees will be autonomous, why did the minister make his decision without even consulting Canadians or experts?

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the word “autonomous” means that they can do it on their own, and if the minister granted autonomy for the staff to do that, then what is the question? They asked for autonomy and they have autonomy. I think that is fair enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member uses the term “autonomous”. I want to ask him about this, because it seems to be thrown about here. The independence and the autonomy of this particular board and the curators in this institution are at question here. We have to realize that curatorial independence is most sacrosanct in this, no matter what we do to change in name or to change in narrative. I agree that artifacts should be shared with the rest of the country, but it comes down to that central independence that is what they need.

I would like the member precisely, within the legislation, to tell the House exactly where that curatorial independence remains despite these changes. Where is it in the legislation exactly?

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to quote chapter and verse as to where this issue rises, but I will share this with the member. It is now in place. The new museum will indeed have curatorial opportunities like the old museum did. There is no change. It is a lateral kind of move, so to speak.

[Rick Norlock, Conservative, Northumberland—Quinte West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member was quite eloquent in the way he described the creation of the new museum of history. When we speak in the House, we often refer to what matters to our local constituents. As we approach Canada's 150th anniversary, I know that his constituents, like mine, are looking forward to being able to celebrate that great history of our country, a century and a half of one of the oldest democracies on earth. We have great heroes we need to celebrate and we will celebrate.

I wonder if the member could expand on that and talk about the importance of the museum and what it will mean to his constituents to finally have a place they can go to that will expand on our knowledge of our great country.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we are going to have an expanding museum. It is important for us to note that the government has increased funding to the museum, up to a 20% increase over what we supplied for the last budget year, so there is a definite amount of money going into it for planning for the 150th anniversary of Canada. We know that the museum will take a lead role in setting up all the activities for the 150th. There is money set aside to support that, without additional money being earmarked. It is going to be handled through the internal economy of the budget as it exists today.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to follow my colleague, the member for Palliser, the very name of whose riding honours a great historical Canadian hero. I think his speech was very much in that grand tradition that has given us this tremendous country of over 10 million square kilometres and the opportunity to fashion a Canadian museum of history that will do justice to the length and breadth of that history.

Our government supports heritage institutions and organizations through a range of measures to increase their professional knowledge, skills and practices and to enhance their ability to preserve and present Canada’s heritage and history.

We do this so Canadians will have access to, and an enhanced appreciation for, our museums’ treasures and our collective legacy, not just here in Ottawa and Gatineau, but across the country.

In the upcoming years, we will give particular consideration to initiatives that will celebrate Canada's 150th anniversary, and the Canadian museum of history will play an important part in this celebration.

With the establishment of the Canadian museum of history, we are providing long-term access to heritage collections so that Canadians will have opportunities to learn about Canada’s history and heritage and appreciate the many events that have shaped our country’s identity.

The museum has created an online forum that gives Canadians the opportunity to provide their input on the defining chapters in our country's history. It will also introduce a new process linking Canada’s network of museums to the Canadian museum of history, so Canadians in all regions have better access to our shared history.

Mr. Speaker, you and all our colleagues in the House are quite aware that in Canada we have hundreds of regional and local museums and museums with a specific mandate to honour the history and roots of our regiments, our naval forces, wars that Canadian soldiers took part in, our natural heritage and our industrial heritage. With the linking of all these museums across the country to the Canadian museum of history in the nation's capital, we will all be able to enjoy this heritage even more.

Marie Senécal-Tremblay from the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums said, “This new museum will allow smaller museums to showcase their collections better and make them more accessible to far more Canadians and visitors”.

That is why there will be fundraising activities to solicit support from the private sector to complement the government’s investment of $25 million.

In order to support the government's investment, and to ensure that Canadians from all regions have an opportunity to become more familiar with Canada's history, the new museum will sign agreements with other museums across the country, in order to: organize mobile exhibitions outside the national capital region; bring exhibitions from the regions to the Canadian Museum of History; share expertise; and loan artifacts and other materials from Canada's national collection in order to enhance the exhibitions of local museums and their educational programs.

We are almost all very familiar with our regional history; however, here in Canada, we are not all very knowledgeable about what goes on in other provinces, in other regions, or in bygone days when there may not have been an established community in our particular region. Not everybody has in-depth knowledge of the history of Newfoundland and Labrador. Not everybody knows what transpired to open up the great north of British Columbia.

As a result of these exchanges and mobile exhibitions, Canadians from all regions will be become better acquainted with the history of other localities.

I would like to remind members that the government's commitment to celebrate the history and heritage of Canada, and the objectives of the Canadian Museum of History, will be supported by the many existing programs at the Department of Canadian Heritage.

For example, the Canadian Heritage Information Network already administers two of the investment programs of the Virtual Museum of Canada. Together, they invest approximately $2.2 million annually in the development of digital heritage content by Canada's museums.

Are all members familiar with exhibitions such as “For Valour: Canadian Airmen and the Victoria Cross”, developed by the Air Force Heritage Park & Museum in Manitoba? The exhibition showcases the fascinating stories of seven airmen and their experiences during the first and second world wars. It goes without saying that the Canadian aviators were among the best in the world during both world wars.

Consider also the McCord Museum's "Where To Draw the Line?", based on Quebec editorial cartoons from the period spanning 1950 through 2000. This exhibition tells of the rich history behind the events that made headlines in Montreal over that period. For most of that time, Montreal essentially considered itself the capital of major political events in Canada.

The support programs for the Virtual Museum of Canada will allocate a portion of their annual budgets to proposals in relation to the main anniversaries that will take place from now until 2017. Approximately $2 million will be invested in these projects.

There will also be the Canada Travelling Exhibitions Indemnification Program, an invaluable program for small regional museums and national museums alike. This program will give them the opportunity to enjoy Canadian and international treasures.

In addition, exchanges among museums will create new opportunities for Canadians, as Ms. Marie Lalonde, the executive director of the Ontario Museum Association, noted. According to Ms. Lalonde, with the new museum's co-operation, local museums will now be in a better position to offer their visitors special exhibitions and initiatives that would otherwise be impossible.

In the run-up to 2017, the Canadian Conservation Institute will encourage clients to submit applications for the treatment of artifacts that are of special importance to their community and that may be associated with key moments in the history of Canada.

Let us talk about Confederation, Sir John A. Macdonald, George-Étienne Cartier and all their colleagues from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, western Canada and even Newfoundland, because Newfoundland attended talks for a period of time. Those people knew their history, that of the War of 1812, of the British and the French empires, the history of Europe and the history of Asia and the Americas, relatively recently rediscovered by Europeans.

The quality of their contribution to the history of Canada was determined by the quality of their understanding of that history. That is what we want to give to a new generation of Canadians by means of this museum and the connection we are making between the museum and the 150th anniversary of Confederation, which will take place in a few years.

Our government is proud to have adopted several measures that will help preserve and celebrate Canada's history and heritage. Those measures include tax incentives to encourage Canadians to make donations to the museum and to charities, $5 million in new annual funding for summer internships at the museums, $100 million allocated between 2008 and 2013 to the National Gallery of Canada, the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Canada Science and Technology Museum and the National Arts Centre to meet the capital and infrastructure needs of four of our national museums and the National Arts Centre.

The list is long and the task a major one, as is the ambition of our program and policy, but we are dealing with this country, its land, its history and the diversity of our backgrounds.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech.

I would only point out that with this bill, the Conservatives are relying on an approach to history that will celebrate heroes, leaving out women as well as everything that involves Canada's diversity. This bill also represents a contradiction in the Conservatives' approach, in light of the budget cuts they have specifically made to the institutions that preserve our heritage and culture.

Could my colleague explain why the government wants to change, even reduce, the mandate of one of the most popular museums in the country?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member could not be more wrong.

I just quoted two renowned women in Canada who gave their unequivocal support to our agenda. Obviously, many of the 20,000 comments we received through the consultation process were from women. Canadians do not want to diminish, but rather to enhance our understanding and the strength of our identity as it relates to the role of women throughout our country's history. This was very clearly expressed to us.

The government will make sure that Canada's diversity is reflected in everything our museums do. That is why this government was the first in Canadian history to turn Pier 21 in Halifax into a national museum focusing on the immigration of women and men to Canada. Is the hon. member not aware of our initiatives in this area?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to the issue of independence.

I would like to ask the hon. member if he can point out within this or related legislation where curatorial independence will be maintained after the passage of this legislation.

As well, does the member feel that there should be a review after a certain period of time to help maintain that independence?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as the member well knows, the independence of the current Museum of Civilization has been maintained, in curatorial terms, at every step, and it will continue to be maintained under an independent and very professional board.

Our Parliament has the responsibility to legislate for national museums. That is what we are doing. We are responding to an extremely loud and multi-faceted set of enthusiastic comments from Canadians who want to know more about their history.

All my life I have faced newspaper articles, professors and teachers who lamented the loss of Canadian history and the lack of knowledge of Canadian history, not just of my generation but of generations before and after.

This museum is our attempt to put the mandate back into the hands of professionals to retell that story, and to tell it more richly, more broadly and more deeply than ever before.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Mr. Speaker, my question will be around funding.

We have heard from opposition parties that our government has not funded arts and heritage. I know that in my own riding I have made numerous announcements of funding for the arts and for heritage. Could the member for Ajax—Pickering provide us with some further information as to our government's funding for arts and heritage?

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great opportunity to mention some of those very large numbers that have been put into budgets by this government for museums.

There is $142 million for museums, a 20% increase in the budget for the Canada Council and $100 million for the construction of a new human rights museums in Winnipeg, which will show an entirely different facet of our history. These are new initiatives. They come in addition to our commitment to telling the story of immigration at Pier 21 and to the Canadian Museum of History, right here in the national capital. It will be a centrepiece in that growing portfolio of very powerful vehicles for maintaining our identity and for telling our stories.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Saint-Lambert.

As an archaeologist, I really wanted to be able to talk about the proposed changes to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Bill C-49.

There are major differences between an anthropological museum and a history museum. Either the Conservatives do not understand this difference or they want to give the museum a much narrower mandate to better manipulate the institution, or both.

Bill C-49 introduces major amendments to the museum's mandate. The current mandate talks about establishing, maintaining and developing for research and posterity a collection of objects of historical or cultural interest. That sentence is completely missing from the new mandate. The museum's current mandate talks about working throughout Canada and abroad. The new proposed mandate only deals with Canadian history and identity.

It is important to understand that Canada is and was influenced in the past by the rest of the world. I see that this new narrower vision does not do justice to that.

According to the amendments proposed by Bill C-49, the museum's approach would be limited to understanding and appreciating just dates, events, historical figures and objects. This approach, which is completely outdated in the social sciences, leaves out a number of important aspects of a society's development. A study of historical heroes often leaves out women, children, aboriginal peoples and minority groups, not because they did not have an impact on our history or make cultural contributions. No, it is because unfortunately this impact is too often left out in the Conservatives' approach.

All kinds of moments and processes in our country's history could be lost because of this approach. For example, the development of the Lachine canal in Montreal and its role in the industrial revolution in the rest of Canada; the poor treatment of Polish settlers in the west who, left to their own devices, had to build dugouts to survive the winter; the fact that slavery existed in New France; the evolution of women's rights; and the evolution of the rights of the workers who built our economy.

Allow me to use a few archaeological examples to illustrate my remarks. Artifacts, in and of themselves, are interesting, but they only reveal a portion of the important information. The context in which the artifact is discovered is just as important.

In Mobile, Alabama, in the early 18th century, the lives of the colonists from New France were very difficult. Yet in a carpenter's house, archaeologists found a cup made of fine porcelain, an object rarely associated with a worker in a colony where life was uncertain. In attempting to understand why such an object was there, the archaeologists realized that to survive, the French settlers forged an alliance with the Spanish, who had access to imported goods from Asia thanks to their trading posts in Mexico.

The cup itself was magnificent, but the context laid bare its true history, which involved neither heroes, nor any date or event of great importance. If the approach to research and other areas favoured by the Conservatives at the Canadian Museum of Civilization is adopted, this kind of information will never become available.

Another example is our rich aboriginal heritage. It did not start with the arrival of the Vikings 1,000 years ago. It began at least 12,000 years ago when the ancestors of the aboriginal peoples first set foot on Canadian soil. Under the proposed new approach, with its narrow focus on characters, dates and events, most of this heritage will be swept under the rug, not to mention the oral traditions handed down from one generation to the next by the aboriginal peoples.

When the Canadian Museum of Civilization was built, its originators recognized the important contribution of aboriginal cultures to culture in general, and so they chose an aboriginal architect, Douglas Cardinal, to design the museum's structure.

The Conservatives have a bad habit of being led by preconceived notions, which they try to back up with so-called evidence, after the fact. For example, the Conservatives stated that the museum focused more heavily on, and allocated the lion’s share of its resources to, non-Canadian exhibitions. That is not true. At least 70% of the exhibitions presented in recent years focused on Canada.

Nevertheless, Canada's history was also influenced by that of other peoples, and museum goers really enjoy international exhibitions. These international exhibitions attract visitors who, in turn, visit the Canadian exhibitions. It is a win-win situation. For example, the exhibition Tombs of Eternity – The Afterlife in Ancient Egypt drew 240,714 visitors to the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

I am going to quote a passage from the museum's website regarding another exhibition:

Museum of Civilization reaches out across Canada and around the world Thanks to the phenomenal success of The Mysterious Bog People and other outreach projects, the Canadian Museum of Civilization’s travelling exhibitions program is connecting with a remarkable number of people worldwide.

Together, 10 of the CMC’s travelling exhibitions attracted 445,315 visitors between May 2005 and September 2006...

The Mysterious Bog People opened in Vienna, Austria, last week after a tour that began in Germany, with stops in England, the Netherlands, Calgary, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and, of course, Gatineau...The total number of visitors worldwide could top 1 million during The Mysterious Bog People's presentation in Vienna.

The success of the CMC’s travelling exhibitions program underscores the importance of international partnerships in organizing successful exhibitions. The Mysterious Bog People, which reveals the fascinating early history of northwestern Europeans, is the result of a collaborative effort between four museums in Canada, the Netherlands and Germany.

“Such international exchanges help forge strong scholarly and people-to-people ties between countries,” says Dr. Victor Rabinovitch, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. “More important, they deepen our understanding of other societies, and enable us in turn to share Canada’s rich culture and heritage with the rest of the world.”

Outreach activities also help the CMC display national treasures for Canadians from sea to sea.

This is forgotten with the new approach. The collective heritage of Canadians and human kind will be undermined.

The Conservatives say that they consulted Canadians about the new mandate of the museum. I said that their modus operandi was to go with a preconceived idea and then try to come up with the facts to back it up. That is how they proceeded as well with their consultations.

The minister made the decision to transform the museum and subsequently, people were consulted about certain aspects of this process. Canadians, and much less professionals, were never asked if they wanted this transformation. The department issued the following release, and I quote: “Representatives from the Museum are travelling the country asking Canadians what they would like to see in this new exhibition.”

Moreover, Canadians were asked to choose from among a limited number of events they wanted showcased within a predetermined timeline of 1,000 years, starting with the arrival of the Vikings. Among other things, this timeline excludes the Laurel culture which was already using copper in northern Ontario 3,000 years ago. This is a rather interesting fact, given that very few aboriginal peoples used metals.

Museum workers have already had to contend with staff reorganizations. The government has imposed changes and incurred spending related to the new mandate, even before the bill has been adopted. It has already begun to spend our money to make these changes which have not yet been approved by the House. This is arrogance, pure and simple. As always, the Conservatives want to impose their vision, but this time it is even worse. They want to rewrite history.

They spent $28 million to commemorate the War of 1812. This celebration of a long-ago war was completely out of proportion. Yet most of our history is a peaceful one. We survived few armed conflicts to become the nation that we are today.

Canadians do not want a politicized version of their country’s history. Decisions about the mandate of the museum and the content of its collection must be left to independent professionals, not to politicians.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization is the most popular museum in Canada. Why change this institution when no one has asked for this? Why spend $25 million to bring about this change, when more financial support should instead be given to small museums? Where will the department make cuts to find the $25 million?

If the Conservatives believe that Canada’s history is so important, why are they slashing $29 million from Parks Canada’s budget and eliminating 80% of all archaeologist and conservator jobs? Why have they cut all three research positions that relate to first nations’ national historical sites? Why have they cut deeply into the Library and Archives Canada budget?

The museum has built its reputation on research. Archeologists and historians have had access to primary source documents at the museum for their research for 135 years, or since 1877, at the museum’s predecessor, the Geological Survey of Canada. Researchers are very concerned. The collections are a huge resource for them.

Does the Minister of Canadian Heritage intend to make significant cuts to research and the acquisition of collections not directly related to exhibits? Unfortunately, that is the message sent by the recent abolition of the position of vice-president, research and collections.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the member actually read any part of the bill before her. First of all, she talked about curatorial independence. Obviously, subsection 27(1) of the Museums Act actually guarantees that in legislation. We are not touching that.

If we look at Bill C-49, what part of paragraphs 9(1)(a) through 9(1)(p) does she disagree with? How do they differ from the act that currently governs the civilization museum? If we look at paragraph 9(1)(e), it talks about travelling exhibits, both in Canada and internationally. Paragraph 9(1)(i) establishes and fosters liaisons with other organizations that have purposes similar to its own. Paragraph 9(1)(j) talks about staff working with other museums across the country. In paragraph 9(1)(k) it goes further and talks about how we can work with other museums to get these collections out there.

I am not sure she has actually read the bill. She talks about all the things she does not like in the bill, but they are actually already protected by both the Museum Act and this proposed act. What specifically in the new bill does she not like that was in the previous act?