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.

The House proceeded to the consideration of 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, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Speaker's Ruling

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

There are 15 motions in amendment standing on the notice paper for the report stage of Bill C-49. Motions Nos. 1 to 15 will be grouped for debated and voted upon according to the voting pattern available at the table.

Motions in Amendment

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

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 1.

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 2.

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 4.

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 11.

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 12.

Motion No. 6

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 13.

Motion No. 7

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 14.

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 15.

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 16.

Motion No. 10

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 17.

Motion No. 11

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 18.

Motion No. 12

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 19.

Motion No. 13

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 20.

Motion No. 14

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 21.

Motion No. 15

That Bill C-49 be amended by deleting Clause 22.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to these amendments. Many changes were needed. We still have very serious reservations about the bill creating the Canadian museum of history, which is quite unfortunate.

Normally, the creation, the birth, of a national museum should not be an acrimonious process. It is not reasonable for a government, even a majority government, to just announce a project like this and proceed without consultation and discussion among the parties in Parliament. It is certainly not right that this is being done despite the vocal opposition of experts, historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and ethnologists who are casting serious doubts on the merits of this government's project.

This is why we are rising to question this bill. In doing so, we also recognize that the government's proposal contains some very worthwhile elements. The minister is to be commended for his willingness to invest in this project—even if this is one-time funding for only one year—to get people talking about our country's history, and for the creative ideas that he has brought to the project. It is quite obvious that this project is very important to him.

However, other aspects of the proposal are problematic and quite serious. I am thinking in particular of the deletion of the words “research” and “collections” from the museum's mission. It would have been a good idea for the government to listen, if not to the opposition parties, then at least to the experts and, in particular, the witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage when the bill was being studied.

Sadly, the government did not listen. The amendments we proposed in committee—which would not have gutted the bill, but would certainly have improved it—would have allowed us to rectify the situation. All of the amendments were rejected, without consideration or discussion. Given that all of our amendments in committee were rejected outright, we are being forced to table a series of amendments today, which have been listed here in the House. This is a national, public museum; this could have been done more co-operatively. The government is forcing us to throw the baby out with the bath water.

We simply wanted to ensure that research remains part of the new museum and that any museum that takes the place of the Canadian Museum of Civilization remains an institution that maintains collections, as was the case with the Geological Survey of Canada more than 150 years ago. That function was enshrined in its mission, as stated in section 8 of the Museums Act. However, because of government intervention, that is no longer the case.

Today, we are faced with a government that is determined to rename and alter our most important national public institutions as it sees fit.

No one will change the government's mind, not even national associations representing historians, anthropologists and archaeologists, whose members still work at the museum and who are being ordered to work on this project as underlings. Even the architects of the current museum—which is known internationally for the work, creativity and talent of those architects—will not change the government's mind.

The few redeeming qualities of this project are being jeopardized by the minister's and the government's cavalier approach. Our doubts, along with those of experts, specialists and professional historians, have not been taken into account.

That is why we have to move much more significant amendments to get rid of the provisions that so many stakeholders found problematic. Our amendments would leave the name of the Canadian Museum of Civilization intact. That name is widely recognized, particularly in the tourism industry. It helps attract people to the Outaouais region and enhances Canada's international reputation.

The name is also recognized in the university and academic community, among researchers in history, anthropology, archeology and ethnology. Here and elsewhere, the name is a symbol of the excellence of our scientists and their contribution to human knowledge.

I suspect that many of those experts will be find it a nasty surprise to be associated with an institution that is no longer mandated to maintain a collection for research purposes. We are talking about a research institution that many researchers are affiliated with. Some of them have been for their entire careers.

Many of their international colleagues in museums like the Smithsonian and universities everywhere will ask them why Canada's flagship museum in Gatineau is slowly but surely getting rid of the leading lights that built its reputation.

Those who have been dazzled by the avalanche of announcements over the past few months, spectacular ads on TV and ostentatious initiatives can easily lose sight of that fact.

What is the museum now? The Canadian Museum of Civilization is not a showcase. It is a hive of research activity. The museum itself has two distinct aspects. It is physically divided into two structures. Those of us who have never visited the museum but who have at least seen it know that Douglas Cardinal's awesome design separates the museum into two gigantic buildings.

On the right is the part of the museum that is open to the public. It houses permanent and temporary exhibits on history and civilization. On the left is an equally important sinusoidal building that is no mere administrative or storage facility. It is the very heart of the museum, a building that houses the institution's expertise and its collections.

On behalf of the workers in that building, we are taking this opportunity to propose an amendment aimed at ensuring that research and collection development remain part of museum's mission, as is currently the case under the Museums Act.

I want to be perfectly clear: whether by accident or by design, the government is relieving the museum of its obligation to maintain collections for research purposes. I would remind the House that we wanted to put that wording back into the government's bill, but of course the Conservative majority rejected that in committee.

Why are the Conservatives so determined to undermine research and collection development? Can someone explain that to us? Is this request coming from the museum's management? We know the museum is having financial difficulties, so is management trying to reduce spending by eliminating research positions or getting rid of certain parts of the museum's collections? Since the Conservatives are so determined to eliminate the words “research” and “collection” from the museum's mission, we have to wonder if they do not plan to do the same thing at the museum as they have done elsewhere.

For instance, at Parks Canada, they have already cut staff—including curators—at our national historic sites. At Library and Archives Canada, they have deprived the institution of its experts by muzzling them and forcing them to obey a code of silence, even when their research projects required communication, discussion and peer review.

Generally speaking, the Conservatives have chosen to relieve federal institutions of their role as independent research bodies. Our country spent the past two centuries building spaces for creativity and independent thought, but the Conservatives needed only two and a half terms in office to reduce these institutions to a shadow of their former selves, subject to the whims of outside influences. What a shame.

As with these institutions, there is reason to question whether our museums are truly independent. With the summer recess just a few days away, our fears about the government's bill to repurpose the Canadian Museum of Civilization have been realized.

Our suspicions that the real purpose of the project was to allow the government to use the museum to promote its favourite topics are becoming a reality. The gap that must exist between the museum and the government has been narrowing over the past few years, and that is a growing concern given the subterfuge, half-truths and contradictions surrounding the minister's strange over-involvement in the museum.

We know that neither the museum nor the minister feels comfortable telling us when they talk and what they talk about. Do they talk on the phone? Is the minister in the habit of visiting the museum? What do they discuss during those visits? The museum's so-called independence means nothing as long as we do not have answers to these questions.

The independence granted to the museum in the legislation must also be granted in real life. We are concerned when we find out from the media about the shocking coincidences that are happening. Yesterday, we learned that, without any explanation, the museum suddenly cancelled the major exhibits that were supposed to be a key component of its programming, exhibits in which the museum had already invested $70,000. That means that the museum was doing more than just considering these exhibits.

On the contrary, it means that the head of the museum had to have known about and approved the details of the exhibit. He must have signed a cheque for and a contract with an internationally renowned museum, and he must have approved an advertising budget and the programming for this event.

It is somewhat ironic that one of the Canadian Museum of Civilization's current exhibits is called “Double Take”. The title is fitting since, after all those decisions were made and the museum spent $70,000 on an exhibit on underwear, the museum supposedly changed its mind unexpectedly. All of a sudden, the exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is not good enough anymore.

A cheque from Nigel Wright is not going to make the facts reported yesterday morning go away. First, the Canadian Museum of Civilization's senior management spent $70,000 on an exhibit on underwear, and then they cancelled it out of the blue.

What happened? There are two possibilities: either the museum's president made reckless decisions and shamelessly wasted more than $70,000 of public money on an exhibit, before realizing that it was not to their taste, which would be a fiasco—and is what they would have us believe—or the museum did not make the decision and someone else did. Someone told the museum that the exhibit was a problem, but who? This reminds me of the time not so long ago when someone told the Museum of Science and Technology that some of their exhibits were problematic. That is called political interference.

Today, our suspicions are aroused and heightened by undeniable facts, by a $70,000 shortfall, and by contradictory denials here and there that only cast more doubt over the museum's independence. These facts paint a picture of a museum that should normally be independent under the Museum Act, but gives in to phone calls from the minister's office when certain exhibits are not to the minister's liking.

What we know today is that none of that ever happened. Experts at the museum were notified of the museum's new name and change in mandate. Experts outside the museum were consulted six months after the announcement, when the museum was already being dismantled. All those decisions were made somewhere between the museum's upper management and the minister's office. It seems that even travelling exhibits on underwear cannot escape outside scrutiny. There is nothing redundant or ridiculous about asking that our public institutions be free from political influence and interference.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was very pleased to second my colleague's amendment. Indeed, I worked on this bill with him as part of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

Clearly, what he says is very true. We heard several amendments to allow for changes, but with a much more responsible approach than the minister's current methods. We talked about consultation, and that is a fact. We also discussed research work, which, according to the changes proposed here, will be seriously compromised, in my view.

I would like to talk some more about consultation. It was one of the key points of the debate as well as a key element of our position on this bill. Indeed, there is a reason why we try to keep history separate from politics. I know, because I have studied history myself. There is an expression that says, “the victors always write the history”. Well, we do not want this to happen here. We do not want a majority government to decide to rewrite our history. We are certainly aware that we have to keep up with the times and that things cannot remain the same forever. However, we need to hold consultations and prevent political interference.

I would like to ask my colleague to comment on this very important issue.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. He is quite right. I would like to point out that he did excellent work on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. In light of his area of expertise, the member contributed a great deal to our committee.

We noticed that, on many occasions, very competent people and authorities in this area felt ignored in the process. Even worse, they were being disregarded. The last witness to appear before the committee realized that no one was listening and that plans had been made in advance. The day after he was elected, the minister already knew what he would do—including recent changes that were announced about this exhibit—to have the museum that he wanted. Clearly, there was an obstacle in the minister's path, and it had to be pushed aside to make room for his plan.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague something.

I realize that the bill is a little more complicated than the question I will ask him. However, I think that what the Conservatives are doing with the Canadian Museum of Civilization is rather silly, for lack of a better word. I am concerned about many things, but especially about the name change.

If I go to my riding, Nickel Belt, and talk to people about the Canadian Museum of Civilization, they know exactly what I am talking about. Now, the government is changing the name to the Canadian Museum of History. History and civilization are almost the same thing. That is why I think that what the Conservatives are doing is rather silly. Furthermore, they are spending a lot of money on the name change.

I know that my colleague proposed many amendments to this bill. I would like him to talk a little about the amendments he presented and explain the reason for some of the amendments.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his very pertinent question.

He is quite right. The name of the museum speaks volumes. That is why we wanted to keep the name Museum of Civilization and simply add “history and”. This would have added another dimension to the museum's mandate, which, of course, is very pertinent at this particular time. Canada's 150th anniversary is coming up, and now would be a good time to reinvigorate our history and museums sector. We completely support this initiative. I understand that some museums are excited about the possibility of receiving artifacts from major museums like the one in Ottawa.

The problem is that in order to do so, the act has to be used. At this time, what the minister and the current president of the museum want to do is destroy what is already in place, rather than complement it. The proposed name change would maintain the focus on research and the study of civilizations. This is extremely popular and relevant.

I would simply like to say that, fundamentally, our rationale for these amendments is that we simply do not trust this government and do not want to give it carte blanche. Clearly, any time we give them an inch, they take a mile. Everyone can see that the close ties that appear to exist between the museum management and the minister and his ambitions are very troubling, and that is what we are trying to limit.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, today in Canada an entire generation of Canadians are largely unaware of our history. In fact, only 40% of Canadians could pass a citizenship exam that tests the general knowledge of Canadian history. But Canadians want to know more about our shared history, but they recognize that a better understanding of our history gives us a better understanding of who we are. It gives us a common purpose and inspires us to rise to our full potential as a people.

That is why last fall we introduced Bill C-49, which would create the new Canadian museum of history. It would be a national institution that tells the story and stories of Canada. This museum would build on the Canadian Museum of Civilization's reputation and popularity to create a new museum that would showcase our achievements as a nation.

The vast majority of Canadians, including museum and historical associations, historians and professors, are thrilled with the change. A few people though, mostly partisan elitists, are concerned. They think that it is too Canada-centric. It is okay to be humble, but the days of government-sponsored self-loathing are gone. Canadians are proud to be humble, so to speak, but we are getting sick and tired of being told by some academic or government official that being Canadian is something that must be apologized for. Our history and our heritage is not something that needs to be swept under the rug.

Of course, our country has only been around under Confederation for almost 150 years and that is nothing in the scheme of things when compared to all of civilization. For that reason there are some people who are worried that changing the Canadian Museum of Civilization to the Canadian museum of history would be one giant leap backward, a massive reduction of scope of the subject matter of our national museum. Of course, they missed the fact that it would be the Canadian museum of history and not the museum of Canadian history.

Most people who are worried about it belong to a handful of partisan radicals who actually give credence to the fact that the Prime Minister and his Conservatives are hell-bent on intentionally destroying the country. It makes me feel like this oversight is caused by a slight case of dyslexia. We understand that our history does not begin in 1867, that Canadian history is a shared history and that our present is also shared with the rest of world, the rest of civilization. Canada is made up of peoples and cultures from all around the world.

The name change and mandate change to the museum would not be done at the expense of civilization or all that the current museum has to offer. Let me read the mandate of the new museum according to the legislation:

The purpose of the Canadian Museum of History is to enhance Canadians’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of events, experiences, people and objects that reflect and have shaped Canada’s history and identity, and also to enhance their awareness of world history and cultures.

There is nothing wrong with understanding all of world history and civilization. In fact, the only way to fully understand Canadian history and its current culture is to better understand world history and civilization, but we think it is high time that we do so from a Canadian perspective. Indeed, I would argue that we cannot fully understand world history and civilization without some sort of perspective by which to examine it. What better perspective than the Canadian perspective?

Before someone gets all upset and calls me ethnocentric, I am not saying that the Canadian perspective is the best perspective. Well maybe I am, but even if we, for the sake of argument, say that all perspectives and all aspects are equal, and even if the Canadian perspective is not the best perspective, it is after all, our perspective.

Now let me address the main criticism to changing and updating the museum. Ironically, this main criticism is a politically motivated criticism. It is ironic because the criticism is that the driving force behind this change is politically motivated, that in some way it is designed to promote the Conservative Party of Canada. It is the same criticism that came with our government's decision to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, as if the Conservative Party fought and won that war all by ourselves.

It is the same criticism that came with restoring “royal” to the air force and navy. The same criticism that came with not just restoring the funds and updating the equipment for the armed forces, but also restoring the respect it deserves; that somehow this is all politically motivated.

Perhaps this argument could hold some water if the Conservative Party really was responsible for all our military victories, our royal heritage and all of Canadian history. That would be quite a coup if we could lay claim to all of Canadian history, but we cannot. Canadian history and all its achievements belong to the Canadian people. The notion that the long overdue acceptance and even embracing of our history, including our nation-building military history, is a Conservative political stunt is not only insulting to this government and the millions of people across the country who elected us but to all Canadians, regardless of political stripe, and to those generations of Canadians who made the great, even epic sacrifices to build this great nation.

These are the stories that need to be told over and over, not just to young and old, new or fifth-generation Canadians. Ours is a story made up of stories worth telling the world and, without a doubt, the world wants to hear it.

Not only is this current museum outdated, it is also out of reach for most Canadians. My mother immigrated to Canada when she was two years old in 1954. Please do not do the math; I assure members she is only 30 years old. In the almost 60 years that she has been in the country she has never been to Ottawa. She has never been to that magnificent museum across the river. This will be even more tragic once that museum goes through its transformation. Thanks to the partnership program included in its mandate, the museum could now come to her. The new museum would sign partnership agreements with museums large and small all across the country. As partners, these local museums would have access to the new museum's collection, allowing them to provide greater opportunities for Canadians to learn more about our history.

In committee we were told by some experts that this move to bring the museum to the country would be a mistake because some artifacts are just too important for the general public. We were told that a focus on updating exhibits is not important, even though the current Canada Hall exhibit ends in the 1970s and only starts with the European contact with North America. However, they said that as long as a handful of academics could do their research in some back hall, all would be well.

We are told that this updating of the exhibits and sharing them with the rest of the country was “popularizing” history. Of course history is not caused by a few famous individuals but is the interplay of every human being who has ever lived.

Wolfe and Montcalm were not the only people on the Plains of Abraham. That is exactly why this partnership program would flow in both directions. Not only would local museums like the Galt Museum in Lethbridge would be able to display exhibits from the national museum, but the Galt Museum, the Raymond Museum and the Gem of the West in Coaldale would be able to share their records, stories and artifacts with the rest of the country and even the world by sharing their materials with the Canadian museum of history here in the capital. It is a wonderful idea. It is a unifying, nation-building idea. In that sense, one may be able to say the move is political. However, one cannot say it is partisan.

To be clear, the vast majority of Canadians are happy with this move. The vast majority of museum curators and historical associations are happy with the change. The president of the current Canadian Museum of Civilization is delighted with the decision.

Our government understands that the key to building a better future is found in a better understanding of our past. With the creation of the new Canadian museum of history, we would be building a modern, national infrastructure to help Canadians discover, understand and share our nation's proud history. That is why today I ask all members of this House to support Bill C-49, which would establish the Canadian museum of history.

I would ask my francophone colleagues to speak slowly and clearly if they ask questions in French because I do not have access to the interpretation right now. However, I can understand them if they speak clearly and slowly.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things I found rather stunning in the member's speech was his statement that the government would help the museum come to people in their communities, yet this is the very government that cut the funding for all the local museums.

I sat in this House several years ago, and on our side we fought against the cuts to local small museums, many of which have had to shut down. I find it rather puzzling that his argument to these changes now is to enable the fantastic collection in our Museum of Civilization to go to these small museums, many of which have now shut down.

In 1967, the government made the decision to give money to all the local communities to celebrate the centennial, and that was a fantastic idea. The decision of this government is to concentrate the money in the museum here instead.

The hon. member mentioned the fact that many families do not have the resources to come to this museum, so I find it very puzzling. It is a very nice idea that we could have this collection go to local museums, but many do not exist anymore.

I would also remind the member that I stood up and fought the government that would have reneged on providing support to the Royal Alberta Museum. It finally lived up to its word and provided that funding. If we had not fought for that, the government would have cut that too.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to helping the museum share its collection with large and small museums all across the country, we are helping provincial governments and networks of museums share within their own provinces as well.

Yes, we do live in the real world where things cost money. If we do not plant potatoes, it does not matter how hungry we are, we do not get to harvest the potatoes.

Decisions have to be made. We have made a commitment to balance the budget. However, at the same time, we can balance budgets and share this great treasure with all Canadians, not just the ones who have the privilege to come to Ottawa.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened carefully to the comments by the member for Lethbridge. I will give my comments in English so that he will not have to go through the translation device.

Twice the member referred to history and civilization together in the same sentence, with which I totally agree. History is a component of civilization, and so are culture and arts and other matters. One of the criticisms that has been directed at this initiative is that it is reductive in nature, in the sense that it reduces the current mandate, which is of civilization, to history, which is a component of civilization.

To reflect the will, it seems, of the government to proceed in any event, there were recommendations by the previous executive director of the museum, Mr. Rabinovitch, that the museum be called the Museum of History and Civilization.

The member referred to that twice in his speech, and I am wondering why the government members of the committee vote against that particular suggestion.

[Jim Hillyer, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, there have been criticisms that this is reducing the scope of the museum because it is changing the name to the Canadian Museum of History. That is actually unfounded. Anyone who reads the act would see that it does not in fact reduce the scope. Anyone who talks with current museum management, who are pleased with this change, would see that management is excited because they get to expand the scope of the museum.

As I said in my speech, it would not just expand and update the museum itself; it would expand the audience, the number of people who could benefit from this.

We are making a shift in focus because Canadians want to be more aware of our history. The more aware of it that they are, the more proud we will be of it.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, for a number of reasons I, too, am deeply troubled by this initiative and the way it has been presented.

I sat in on some of the committee sessions, including the one where Mr. Rabinovitch and five other witnesses were presenting their views, half of whom opposed the changes. There were some very constructive changes that came from them. One of those recommendations was that instead of the name being the Museum of History, it would be the Canadian Museum of History and Civilization. The reasoning behind that was quite straightforward: why change a great brand? To say anything else would be inaccurate because the Museum of Civilization is a fairly significant brand.

Mr. Rabinovitch said, “The Museum of Civilization is described throughout the global tourism industry as one of Canada's must-see landmarks. It actually receives a three star billing from the Guide Michelin; Parliament only receives two stars”. It may be only one star these days. He also mentioned Frommer's Travel Guides, Lonely Planet and on it goes, as examples of guides stating that people must visit this place.

He further stated, “Visitor recognition of the name and the style of the CMC is enviable. It's one of the country's bright spots in showing itself. Foreign diplomats make this point repeatedly, and they use the museum as a key orientation point for new staff who arrive, and also for dignitaries”.

I thought the recommendation that the name be changed to “The Canadian Museum of History and Civilization” was very constructive, but it was unfortunately not even taken into consideration.

The other point that was brought up, and was far more troubling, was the abandonment of the research component. Again, I understand that the member for Lethbridge said the current president, Mr. O'Neill, supports it. However, he is in a bit of a quandary. If he did not support it, that would leave him very few options, since he is the one who is currently employed there. If he did not support it, I think we would probably see another Munir Sheikh appear on the national stage. The fact, though, that two previous presidents, Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Rabinovitch, are both adamantly opposed to this speaks volumes, yet the Conservatives refused to listen. Therefore, it is troubling that they would do that.

What were the reasons advanced for it? The Conservatives said that the government is going to put $25 million into the museum and that it needs to change the name. Sorry, that does not wash. If they are going to encourage the museum to share its collection, I am absolutely in total agreement there. No one in his or her right mind would oppose that. The question is very simple: Do they need to change the name of the museum to do that? The answer is no. The Museum of Science and Technology does it, and the Museum of Aviation does it. We have not seem them change their name. Although, the Museum of Aviation actually did change its name by adding the word “Space”. That was very welcomed, but that did not stop it from making exchanges. Therefore, this notion that they need to change the name of the museum in order to encourage them to share their exhibits is total nonsense.

On the other matter, do they need to change the name to enter into agreements with other museums? Absolutely not, yet that seems to be advanced as one of the reasons.

The other thing is the $25 million. I am sorry, but I would be very curious at the end of the day to see how much of the $25 million will have been used to renovate this museum. That seems to be where it is being directed, yet we would say it is going to be used for these further exchanges. If that is the serious intent of the government, it is not nearly enough, and we will see that.

There are other significant problems. We were given some assurances by some of the government members in this House during the time we had second reading debate on this. The member for Leeds—Grenville said, in part, “the Grand Hall and the First Peoples Hall, which present the history of Canada's first peoples, would remain an integral part of the new museum”.

Also, the member for Wild Rose said, “It is important to remember that the Grand Hall and the First People's Hall, which present the history of Canada's first peoples, will remain an integral part of the new museum, as will the Children's Museum”. If that is the case, I have some questions.

I would like to quote a story that appeared in the newspaper this week about the removal of one of the significant pieces in the museum, the Nishga Girl. The article confirms that the showcase in the First Peoples Hall is going to be removed from the museum, to the surprise of those who donated it, yet assurances have been given to us in the House that things like that would not happen. What is going on? Have we been misled? Have the people of Canada been misled? If that is the case, there is a serious breach of fiduciary obligation and respect for Parliament. That is not the way we should conduct ourselves.

The other thing is that Mr. Morrison, who has been recently hired to work there, is quoted in that story as saying, “We have a new mandate here”. He was trying to pooh-pooh the comments of the previous president, Mr. MacDonald. With all due respect to Mr. Morrison, he does not have a new mandate, at least not yet. Parliament has not yet passed this bill. It has not gone through report stage or third reading, and it has not gone through the upper house yet. For employees of the museum, no matter what position they occupy, to say that they have a new mandate is disrespectful of Parliament.

I received an invitation from the historical foundation to an event that will occur in October. I think all members have it. It will be an evening of celebrating Canada, a great event. When I saw on the invitation that it was to occur in the Canadian Museum of History, I was a little taken aback. The Governor General is associated with that evening. How is it that people who understand Canada's history, democratic principles, and the legal mandate that flows from Parliament, the House and the Senate, are presupposing the decisions we will be making? They have invited us to a museum, when the bill has not even been approved at second reading.

I did get a letter of apology from Deborah Morrison, who is the president, because she realized it was a mistake. However, the government is treating this bill as if it is a fait accompli, a given decision. It speaks volumes about the government's attitude. There were some very serious, thoughtful and constructive amendments proposed at the committee stage, and they were all turned down.

I will not reveal with whom, but I have had private conversations with members on the government side. They thought the amendments were helpful and constructive. I thought for a brief moment, naively, of course, that perhaps the government would approve some of the amendments. If we are going to create a national institution, it is better if it is approved by multiple parties in the House and Senate, as opposed to being approved by the dominating one. That is not how to construct a society, not by ramming things down people's throats and making affirmations that are not accurate. There are words that we are not allowed to use in parliamentary language.

Affirmations were made that were not accurate, such as receiving assurances that there would be no changes, yet even before the mandate is changed, there are changes occurring in the museum. Mr. Speaker, there is something dreadfully wrong, and you might want to look at that. It is disrespectful of Parliament. How is it that there are changes going on in that museum now when the mandate has not been approved? I hear no one from the other side saying that is fine, or not fine, which would be the more appropriate thing to say.

We have a situation where a very strong institution has been a great showcase throughout the world for Canada. It is all encompassing. When we talk about civilization, we are not talking about just one component of civilization, which is history, though that is absolutely an important one.

I am with the gentleman who was at the committee the other night who said that he would love to have a museum of history in this country, but not by carving out the Museum of Civilization.

I would hope that the government, and I know it is probably wishing against hope, would seriously consider what it is doing, because I do not think it is constructing positively for the future of our country. I think the Conservatives have to rethink their approach and consider very sound proposals by past directors of this museum, past presidents, to make it, perhaps, much more acceptable to everyone in this country.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciated my colleague's speech on the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which, indeed, is Canada's most popular museum. I welcome the opportunity to make just a few brief comments.

One of the things that always strikes me about the Conservatives is that they claim to be interested in history, but they have already gutted Canada's knowledge and research communities throughout the government and all over Canada. It has fired and muzzled archeologists, archivists and librarians. It has gutted the national historic sites, Parks Canada and our national archives. If the Conservatives were truly interested in Canadian history, cuts, mismanagement and interference would stop now.

I am really concerned about the direction we are taking with this bill, and I want to ask the member specifically about women.

This is the history of the government. When I was first elected in 2006, they started with taking equality out of the mandate of Status of Women and cut the funding. They now have also blocked efforts, most recently at the UN, to address sexual violence against women. The Canadian Association of University Teachers has pointed out that a history narrated by the classic heroes risks relegating women to a secondary rank.

I wonder if the member would tell us whether he thinks it would be more appropriate that the content of the museum be defined by museology professionals, such as historians, anthropologists, archivists, and librarians, than of by politicians?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as a result of what we are witnessing here today, I suspect that if the museum becomes the Canadian museum of history, future generations will see this period in our history as a dark period, when equality between men and women actually took a major step backward.

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

Mr. Speaker, we only need listen to that garbage that has just come from that speech to understand why it is so important that Canadians continue to have a principled Conservative government governing this country. If anything mentions Canada or Canadian pride, the opposition members, Liberals or New Democrats, run for cover. It is embarrassing to them to be proud of their country.

I have in my hands the Liberal amendments to this bill. He talked about the thoughtful amendments the Liberals brought forward. I have these amendments here. Ninety-nine per cent of them deal with changing the name of the museum. Those are the thoughtful amendments.

Once we decided we were not going to water down the focus on Canadian history in the new Canadian museum of history, that we wanted to have that focus for all Canadians, and we turned that down, 99% of the Liberal amendments were also turned down.

What we are hearing them also say today is that somehow, Dr. Morrison, who has 20 years of experience as an archeologist, is an author and is very experienced, is not capable of putting together museums and exhibits that all Canadians can be proud of.

When it comes to something that is so important to all Canadians, I have never heard such nonsense as I just heard from this member in his speech, not to mention the question just raised by the opposition NDP member.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member is going to criticize, I would hope he would criticize with facts. The amendments we put forward included re-establishing the research component of the museum, which is crucial.

Also, what I said about Mr. Morrison was not that he cannot do his job. He said that they have a mandate. That is not accurate, because until Parliament changes the mandate, the mandate of the Museum of Civilization stands. There is no new mandate until Parliament says so, no matter how much he would like it.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, while I am proud, I would say that this museum has nothing to do with pride. The Conservatives want to reduce history to military history. We already have the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. It could be turned into a military museum, which would solve the problem.

The War of 1812 is not the be-all and end-all. It was one event in history. Yes, we should be proud of it. On a VIA Rail train, I was served a new kind of wine with a label commemorating the War of 1812. There is no need to get carried away.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization touches on sociology and civilizations, and the history of women in particular. Women make up 52% of this country's population. If the museum is forced to use a dated structure, and everything that comes along with that, the focus will be on the masculine.

When will women start to be part of our history? There is no focus on women, yet we make up 52% of the population. What does the member think about that?

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, museums must be able to do research and critical analysis. Museums are not supposed to glorify anyone. I am very proud to be Canadian. I always have been and I always will be.

However, it is important for national institutions to be created in a spirit of harmony and respect, for their mission to be objective, non-partisan and not focused on a reductionist approach to our society as a whole.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again to talk about this legislation, especially after following such a disrespectful speech to the people who are in charge of Canada's national museums, who are charged with the task of updating a museum that has not been updated for a long period of time. Only the opposition would criticize a $25 million investment in such an important national institution as the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which will become the new Canadian museum of history.

In his speech, the hon. member touched on the important landmark the Museum of Civilization currently is. We agree that it is a very important landmark. It is something we should be very proud of. That is why we were proud when the architect Douglas Cardinal, who the member mentioned, said that he supported the conversion of this museum to the new Canadian museum of history and how excited he was that the museum can continue to grow.

There was a time when the museum was called the Museum of Man. Times changed, and we updated it to become the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Let me refer to the museum president's testimony at committee. He said this about the museum:

“In the Canada Hall, the regions of the country presented are frozen in time and exist entirely under themselves. Whole categories of endeavour, politics, sport, culture, our contributions to the world among others, are poorly covered or not covered at all. Women's history is, at best, peripheral and the journey through time ends in the 1970s, so almost half a century of our history is left unexplored”.

He goes on further to say:

“As a result of this, while walking through Canada Hall you will learn about life in New France, but you will find no mention of the Quiet Revolution, or anything else about Quebec. You'll learn about the early whaling industry in Newfoundland, but nothing about why, how or when the colony joined confederation. You'll see recreations of grain elevators and oil rigs, but you won't learn about the phenomenon called Western alienation.

Although modules on the rebellions of Upper and Lower Canada have been added very recently, Confederation itself is reduced to a multimedia timeline. You'll find no mention in Canada Hall of the Flag Debate or Constitution, no mention of Paul Henderson's goal in Moscow, or the wartime internment of Ukrainian or Japanese Canadians. You'll find no reference to the residential schools or peacekeeping, or Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. No meaningful reference to the Great Depression, the Conscription Crisis, or even a hint as to where Canada might be headed. But perhaps the most egregious flaw in the Canada Hall itself is its starting point. If you've been there you will know that its telling of our national story begins not with the arrival of the First Peoples in time immemorial, but with the arrival of Europeans in the eleventh century. Colonization as a term or concept is not mentioned in Canada Hall”.

As proud as we are of the museum, if one has gone through it, it becomes quite clear that it needs to be updated. That is why, in addition to the enormous resources we have poured into arts and culture, with some $142 million for our museums, we are investing another $25 million in this museum to update it.

Some opposition members have referred to research. They have said that as a result of some of the changes, the museum will no longer be doing research. Had they actually read the bill, as we have been saying through second reading debate in this place, and I will say it again, they would see that it is actually right in the act that research will continue to be important to the museum of Canadian history. I will say it again. Paragraph 9 (1)(f) states “undertake or sponsor any research related to its purpose or to museology, and communicate the results of that research”.

It is on the second page of the bill. One does not have to read that far to get to the fact that the museum will continue to do research. I know that opposition members do not typically read bills. All I am asking is that they read to the bottom of the second page, and they will find that the museum will continue to do research.

Again quoting the statement of the president of the museum:

“[W]e will continue building our national collection and undertaking scholarly and other types of research, despite claims from some to the contrary. In fact, our national collection fund now totals $9 million and in consultation with academics across the country the corporation has developed a research strategy, the first in the museum's history. This strategy will guide the work of the museum in its research activities over the next 10 years”.

It is one of two things. Either they have not read the bill, in which it specifically talks about research, and do not believe the museum president who talks about how important research will be going forward, or they are deliberately trying to confuse Canadians into thinking that a museum of history will not actually do research.

It goes even further.

I see that my time is actually running out, Mr. Speaker.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Having noticed that it is 11 o'clock, the hon. member will have four minutes after question period to finish his remarks.

We will move on now to statements by members.

The House resumed from June 14 consideration of 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, as reported from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Report Stage

[The Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage has four minutes left in his debate time.

Could I ask all members who are not going to stay for the debate to depart the chamber now and those who are staying to stop talking in your loudest voices, please. Try whispering.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

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

It is okay, Mr. Speaker. I have no problem talking over the opposition.

It is a pleasure to rise again to complete my discussion on the Canadian museum of history. As I said in questions and comments earlier, it is really a shame that for the 50th time we have had to force the opposition to debate a bill in the House. The opposition has been so afraid to do work that, for the 50th time, the government has been forced to bring in time allocation, after eight and a half months of those members delaying and refusing to deal with the important business of the people of Canada. We have been forced to bring in the motion so we can deal with the important matters of governing. It is truly amazing, and I am sure the massive amounts of people watching at home are wondering to themselves what would happen in this country if we ever let the opposition govern. Nothing would get done. Those members would probably talk themselves in circles.

We have heard a lot about what is actually in the bill. Opposition members keep saying we did not listen to them with respect to amendments, and it keeps talking about how we brought in time allocation. As the minister said, this piece of legislation has been before us for eight and a half months, and as much as the opposition has talked about the things it does not like in the bill, 99% of the amendments it brought in were focused on one thing and that was the addition of one word to the name of the museum. Opposition members focused on that in committee. They were okay with calling it the Canadian museum of history, but they wanted us to add the word “civilization”. That made up 99% of their concerns.

After eight and a half months and hours of debate, this legislation sailed through committee. It did not even take us the full amount of time in committee to deal with the proposed amendments. As a result of there being so little opposition by the parties opposite, the legislation sailed through. Because we did not agree to adding that one word, they want to continue debate for many more months.

A number of things have been brought forward by the opposition. I will focus on the opposition critic, the member for Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, who talked a lot about critical understanding. Using his own words in his speech, he said, “What a scary word. The museum will no longer have the mandate to share its wealth of knowledge with the rest of the world”. That was one of the reasons he will not support the bill. Had he read paragraph 9(1)(h) on the second page of the bill, he would have seen it says that the museum will be continuing to do research.

That member also talked about how the people of Ottawa and Quebec and the tourism commission would react to this legislation. We already know that the mayors of Ottawa and Gatineau support the bill. The original architect Douglas Cardinal supports the bill. Thousands of Canadians participated in discussions and consultations with respect to the new mandate of the museum.

Hundreds of Canadians across Canada are excited about this new Canadian museum of history. Communities across the country are excited at having the opportunity to share in the collections that are currently in storage. Even more important, as we approach Canada's 150th birthday we would have a new institution that would tell the stories of Canada, not only to Canadians but to people around the world. We live in the best country in the world and we should not be afraid to show that off, not only to Canadians but to people around the world.

I commend the Minister of Canadian Heritage for bringing the bill forward. I also commend all those members on both sides of the House who will be supporting it.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite has said that no substantive amendments were brought forward, but in fact there were two very substantive amendments. He is mistaking substantive with simple. They were simple and substantive at the same time. Those members over there have a problem with some of this stuff. The amendment was around research and posterity. It was a motion that included bringing research and posterity back into the language. This is important because we heard witness testimony from the former head of the museum stating that, time and time again, he and his staff referred to the mandate of the museum as a way of guiding them in their internal decisions. That is why we thought this amendment was so crucial.

There was another amendment that included just adding the word “civilization” back into the title of the museum.

Both of these amendments were simple and substantive, and the government voted them down. Those members are mischaracterizing the debate that went on in committee. They allowed only one day for witnesses to come forward for this study. Also, earlier this afternoon we heard another motion for time allocation.

Why does the member opposite have such a hard time parsing simple and substantive, when both of those measures were simple and substantive?

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

Mr. Speaker, it is funny listening to the member because he tried to pull this in committee. He said we only allowed one day for witness testimony. Then the Conservative members called him on that and actually went back and unanimously decided to release the minutes of the committee meeting to the public where it had been unanimously agreed how long we would spend dealing with witnesses. They had agreed to how long we would spend talking to witnesses. The New Democrats say one thing in private and another thing in public and they have been caught out on it.

This is the same thing. They ask why we have to bring in closure. It is because they say one thing in public and another in private. The Government of Canada has a responsibility to move forward with things like the Canadian museum of history, as well as jobs and economic growth. We do not have time to play the silly, childish games of the NDP.

Specifically to some of the other questions, the member talked about research. Had he read page 2 of the bill he would have seen that in paragraph 9(1)(f) it talks specifically about research. He talked about putting history in the name. The whole mandate of the museum is Canadian history. I do not know what more we have to do to put it in. He talked about curatorial independence. The only people who are asking the government to interfere in the museum's independence are the New Democrats.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned something about only a very small portion of the amendments dealing with the name change. In our case actually that represented less than 20% of the amendments that we put forward.

One of the amendments that I thought was a reasonable one was that a review process would be set up, similar to what was proposed in Bill C-11, the Copyright Act. I said every three years, but would have been open to five years. By doing that, we would get to review the mandates of each of the museums, not just this one. This was a golden opportunity to open up all these national museums, because we are now getting into an area where we are looking at these national museums, this one in particular, sharing their resources with the rest of the country.

I thought this was a good way to review how this process would be being played out for the sake of the institutions across the country that want to share in this. How does he feel about this review process?

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

Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Canadian heritage committee, we have jurisdiction to do that any time we want. We do not have to wait three years to review the mandate of any museum.

The Liberals and the NDP have a number of opposition day motions that they can bring forward for us to debate in the House. At committee, we can discuss anything we want whenever we want and call whatever witnesses we want. In fact, if the member looks, he will find that at Canadian heritage committee many of the motions that we have brought forward and that we have discussed recently have been motions that were brought forward by the opposition.

Do I think we should be reviewing it? Absolutely. That is our job. Does it need to be in legislation? No, because I do not think as parliamentarians we need to be told when and how we should be reviewing any of the functions of government.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very keen to rise today to voice the opinion of many Canadians, especially many of this country's historians, and to debate the Conservative government's Bill C-49 to amend the Museums Act in order to establish the Canadian Museum of History.

In my humble opinion, this is not a very good or a very welcome idea. Of course, that is quite the opposite of what we have been hearing for a number of hours, but I believe that I have some points that deserve to be shared, considered and discussed.

Why is it a bad idea? First of all, I strongly suspect that the Conservative government—particularly the Minister of Canadian Heritage—does not know what history is, who makes it, and the issues related to teaching, education and Canadian history. In fact, the last few minutes of debate have bolstered my convictions. I am talking about history with a capital “H” because we are talking about the science, not Canadian history.

Perhaps there is an excuse. After all, he is the Minister of Canadian Heritage, not the minister of history. That would explain the confusion because when we talk about heritage, it is easier to draw up a list of cultural assets and items that attest to the identity of a country, a people or a nation.

Historical objects are a part of heritage. However, history itself, the historical narrative and the Canadian identity are not as easy to put on display. If that were the case, historians would have stopped producing works about Canada's colonization, the establishment of the parliamentary system in our country or the emancipation of women in our society.

The fact that we continue to debate these phenomena is proof that our understanding of them is not static. When I say “we”, I am referring to historians rather than politicians. By putting these phenomena in a museum, we run the risk of ending debate and dissimulating the reality.

In even clearer terms, creating a museum with objects that represent Canadian history and identity stems from a particularly dated concept or vision of history. There are not many historians left in Canada or the world who describe the science of history in this way.

Many historians would say that this idea could only come from a conservator. I mean that in the sense of a conservator who wants to preserve something in its existing state and perhaps even wants to have something preserved by the state. Who knows? The idea that history is an unchangeable, written, eternal truth that lends itself to being put in a museum is an idea that no longer holds true in this day and age. That goes without saying.

There may be one exception. There was a major history museum project in France, championed by President Sarkozy. However, after much opposition, the project completely fell apart. No, we should not be following France's example. I agree. However, when it comes to museums, it could be useful to look at what our partners are doing. France does have a certain amount of museum expertise that warrants our respect.

It seems that the history museum was, by his own admission, the Minister of Canadian Heritage's idea. I heard him say it. Since when do politicians deal with history-related issues? Leave that to the historians.

As politicians, we may have the luxury—perhaps even the duty—of creating history through our actions and our contributions, but we should never impose our perspective on history. Politicians are involved in commemorating and celebrating historic events, but they are not involved in history with a capital H. Those issues are far too serious for us as politicians. It needs to be said: we are not experts in teaching history.

For pity's sake, let us leave history to historians and museums to museologists, or at the very least, let us consult them before going any further. Moreover, the Canadian Association of University Teachers expressed a number of misgivings, particularly about the way things were done. The members of the association said:

We call on the federal Department of Canadian Heritage to stop its process of redesigning that museum until a panel of distinguished figures in historical and museum work is created and has an opportunity to prepare recommendations on a more appropriate direction for re-developing this outstanding heritage site.

Note the use of the verb “call on”. This is rather strong language. The members are not saying, “we ask”, “we advise” or “we suggest”, but rather, “we call on the Department of Canadian Heritage”.

Clearly, therefore, it is not simply a matter creating a new museum out of thin air, a museum that will grow out of nothing. It is about transforming a museum that already exists and that has already acquired a sterling reputation.

As I stated, these issues are far too serious for the humble politicians that we are. Let us leave history to historians and museums to museologists. Let us allow them to decide among themselves how best to define the parameters, the strategic directions, the problems and the subject matter that will be exhibited at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which will eventually be renamed. The Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation is a crown corporation set up under the Museums Act. The Minister of Canadian Heritage is therefore responsible for it and the act determines the museum’s mandate.

Before changing a winning formula—one of the most-visited museums in Canada, and certainly one of the best-known outside our borders—why does the minister not consult the various interested parties more broadly? For example, he might consult the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, stakeholders in the Outaouais region, historians and the first nations, who are heavily involved in and well represented at the current Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Once the announcement was made, public consultations were held in about a dozen Canadian cities, but the consultation process seemed bogus because the decision was already made. Earlier, I heard that contracts had already been signed. I therefore wonder what we are doing right now in the House.

The examples of decisions made on this issue unfortunately leave me no ray of hope. The sudden closing and hasty dismantling of the Canadian Postal Museum show the total lack of transparency around the process. There were tightly controlled consultations, which had limited success. However, the consultations did not allow Canadians to question the decision to transform the museum, despite opposition from a large number of Canadians who traveled to take part in them. The minister is intervening in an area that is not his cup of tea, and without extensive consultation with experts.

Mr. Speaker, I would be lying if I said I had total confidence in this bill and in the future of the museum. Over the weekend, just when I was telling him about the bill, a friend of mine who is a historian said the following. I am quoting him, because I would have great difficulty putting it any better: “It is difficult to express an opinion on the real intentions of a Conservative government that is as reluctant to show exactly what is underneath this matter as it is to show exactly what is underneath women’s clothes.” We spent the rest of the time just having a friendly discussion.

There is another aspect of this bill that bothers me. With the change in the mandate and the name of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the public is being introduced to the idea that political power, that is, the Conservative government of Canada, may decide on its own about the content and significance of the exhibits that will be presented there, or at least strongly influence them. I find the possibility of partisan politics interfering in a world-renowned scientific and cultural institution to be absolutely unbearable.

The artist that I am, or that I am modestly trying to be, is completely averse to any use of culture and the arts for partisan purposes. While scientists and artists look at the world with creativity and critical judgment, the political world is generally quite risk-adverse, especially the party opposite.

As my time is quickly coming to an end, I will leave out some of the arguments that I had kept in reserve. I will conclude by saying that it is because I am certain that Canadian history and Canadian historians deserve better that I cannot support such a bill.

The role of a government in the area of culture is to allow debates to be held and to provide locations for meetings, research and expression. I cannot support this partisan initiative, as it promotes Conservative symbols, such as an attachment to the monarchy, an insistence on military values in a civilian context, an inordinate celebration of old wars, and so on.

This is a deliberate strategy designed to rewrite Canadian identity. This is not the role of the House of Commons, and it is not the role of a member of Parliament or a minister.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will focus my comments and my question specific to the member's discussion with respect to content in the new museum. He talked also about one of the witnesses at committee, the representative of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, James Turk.

At committee, I asked Mr. Turk if professors taught the same lesson plan year after year. Professor Turk answered back as I expected, that they certainly did not. I asked if they modified it and updated it and he said yes. I asked him why they did that and he said that knowledge and information changed. Therefore, I thought that somehow within the teaching of education things changed, but our museums were supposed to stay the same forever. They were never supposed to change.

More specifically, he talked about the content of the new museum and who would put it together.

We heard from the president of the museum. After the consultations, when we had hundreds of thousands of responses from Canadians across the country, he said:

Those comments, suggestions, and pleadings will inform our every decision going forward. The content for this new exhibition is being developed by a multidisciplinary team of experts at the museum...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.

Does the member know something about Dr. David Morrison, who has a Ph.D. in archaeology, is very well published and has years of experience? Is there something about him that we should know that makes him unqualified to lead the research into these new exhibits?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. I am all the more comfortable answering it since I myself changed my lesson plans to adjust them to each new element that shed light on what I was teaching, on my assigned mandate.

The idea today is not to determine whether new light can be shed. The bill in fact changes the purpose of the course. The difference is like night and day. It goes without saying that a qualified teacher who says that updates are always welcome is absolutely right as long as the objective and the subject of the course remain the same. However, the aim of this bill is to change the subject of the course.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, contrary to what the Conservatives tell us, this bill does not just change the museum's name. Several amendments have been made to section 8 of the Museums Act. The purpose of those amendments is to change the museum's areas of interest. Thus, instead of covering all of Canada and other countries, it will focus solely on Canadians.

In many instances, culture is also a way of engaging in diplomacy. Under the Conservatives, unfortunately, Canada has become the laughingstock of the international community in negotiations on climate change and in its lack of support for Canadian culture.

As my colleague said, Canadians and Canadian history deserve better than the Conservatives. Does he have any comments to make on that subject?

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Rivière-des-Mille-Îles for appropriately raising that point.

One of the legitimate fears regarding Bill C-49 is that it will become a symbol of an inward-looking attitude. The Museum of Civilization, as we currently know it, is probably one of the Canadian museums, if not the Canadian museum, with the greatest international reputation. We would be depriving ourselves of that and would stop developing our international brand in order to turn inward and focus on our history. Not that we should stop studying our history, far from it, but we would be studying Canadian history without viewing it in a distinctly broader international context.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak in support of Bill C-49, which would create the new Canadian museum of history. The Canadian museum of history would provide the public with the opportunity to appreciate how Canada's identity has been shaped over the course of its history. Canadians deserve a national museum that tells our stories and presents our country's treasures to the world.

The Canadian museum of history would strive to be a national and international destination, but would also focus on its role as a leader, a hub in the network of Canadian history museums and a centre of expertise. The Canadian Museum of Civilization has always had an international role as a knowledge-creating institution. This will not change. Indeed, the museum will continue to conduct scientific research and share its expertise on collections, management, research and conservation with other museums around the world.

It is important that we all understand that the focus of research in the archaeology, history and ethnology sections of the Canadian Museum of Civilization has always been the advancement of Canada's human and military history. The new mandate confirms that focus and nothing in this legislation will diminish that role in any way.

In fact, it is expected that the museum would create its activities working closely with the network of Canadian museums to make its national collection available through loans and travelling exhibitions. It would also provide a permanent venue and an additional 7,500 square feet at the new museum for other Canadian museums to showcase their collections and contribute to the national narrative.

I am pleased that these partnerships would do four things. First, they would further the collective telling of Canadian history. Second, they would leverage strengths of partners, for example, in the area of loans expertise and exhibitions. Third, they would focus on gaps in the collection. Finally, they would achieve financial benefits, such as cost-sharing and joint initiatives. Partnerships would promote collaboration and co-productions, the sharing of artifacts, the development of online projects and the exchange of professional expertise.

I would like to outline how the museum plans to establish three levels of partnership. These plans include a history museum network, a museum affiliate program and formalized partnerships with federal organizations and other key public and private institutions.

First, the history museum network would consist of several of the largest museums in the country, museums that have significant capacity and have the mandate to cover the history of Canada. There will be many advantages to members of this network, including a venue at the new museum where exhibitions and programs produced by members can be showcased, the ability to receive exhibitions and programs developed by the Canadian museum of history, opportunities for co-production of exhibitions and programs, visual brand association and identity and links to the Canadian museum of history and Canadian War Museum websites.

Second, the museum affiliate program would consist of a group of generally smaller institutions across the country that, subject to criteria and standards, would be able to borrow or co-operate on collections, programs and exhibits. These advantages to affiliates would include, but not be limited to, the ability to borrow collections, programs and travelling exhibits from the Canadian museum of history, the ability to partner with the Canadian museum of history as a research affiliate and opportunities to showcase affiliate-produced exhibitions at the Canadian museum of history.

I am particularly excited that the smaller museums will be able to borrow collections at the national level. This means that these exhibits, which display our rich history, will travel across the country. Also, affiliates will be invited to an annual affiliates conference in conjunction with the Canadian Museums Association, which will be an opportunity to share expertise and ideas that will benefit all.

Third, the Canadian museum of history would have formalized partnerships with key public and private organizations. It would play a leadership role as the hub in a network of Canadian history museums.

I am pleased to relay that all of the partner museums will have a role to play in shaping and reshaping the network over time. It will be a collaborative effort with local museums being able to contribute and share knowledge.

The museum network will be able to take coordinated, common approaches to the history and exhibits of key moments in Canadian history. These moments will not be defined at the national level, but rather defined by local museums from one end of the country to the other.

The years leading up to 2017 will provide many great opportunities for our history museums across the country to celebrate Canadian history. The millions of people who visit Canadian museums of history will not only see exhibits created by staff at that museum, but they will see exhibits created by museums of all sizes in all part of Canada. They will, perhaps for the first time, be presented with key historical events, people, experiences and objects that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

We all have museums in our ridings. In many ridings, museums are housed in an old mill or factory, or maybe an old school or train station. In these museums, there are often not any employees, only volunteers. These are people who may not be recognized around the world for their expertise in museums, but who are certainly recognized in their communities for their dedication to doing their best to conserve and display objects for future generations.

The network of Canadian history museums is just one of the reasons why I urge my colleagues to support Bill C-49. This is one of the most important bills before us.

Our government believes in our national museums and we recognize the tremendous value they hold for all Canadians. As we approach Canada's 150th birthday, it is an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate our history and those achievements that define who we are as Canadians.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that this is only the beginning, because if we want to explain history to Canadians, it first must be written. We will have to remember what happened in a country where a war of conquest took place, where slavery once existed, where aboriginal populations were repressed and where colonial laws have reigned for the past 150 years.

Who will write it and whose version of history will we be able to agree on?

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Canadians themselves.

[Marc-André Morin, NDP, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing more controversial than history. We have not yet finished learning about our past. Soon we will have no more archeologists to carry out digs where they are urgently needed.

It will be such a disaster the day they begin trying to tell their version of history. We have to wonder who will write this history and how it will be used.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the hon. member asked about the chaotic development of a museum. I am not quite sure what the question was. He kind of rambled around from the history of long ago to the history of today and which venue of history we would believe in.

However, there is only one venue to believe in, and that is the historical truth of Canada. We will rely on museums that are in existence and we will rely on expertise that can help us develop those museums further. As I said in my speech, we have dedicated 7,500 extra square feet to do just those kinds of things.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague spoke about the Canadian museum of history, he talked about the 150th birthday that Canada would soon be celebrating and the importance of the museum.

Could he reflect for a moment on its importance to his riding, how this museum would tie directly into his riding and how his constituents would then celebrate our 150th birthday of Canada?

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, 150 years are fast approaching. A couple of years from now we will be there.

In the riding of Palliser there are many museums. One of the finest is in Moose Jaw. It is air conditioned and heated to the tune that it will house any kind of painting. It is the only facility like that between Toronto and Vancouver. There are many opportunities for other smaller museums to enjoy borrowing a display from larger museums for a number of days, returning it and taking another display. I am thinking of those in Assiniboia, Rockland and Avonlea, which are small but unique museums.

That 150th anniversary will be an exciting time, and we are looking forward to it.

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

Mr. Speaker, how are those museums that the hon. member mentioned going to afford to do that? Do they get in on that $25 million as well? Perhaps they have their own way of doing it. It could be problematic if there is no financial support for these places to be able to share in this national collection.

[Ray Boughen, Conservative, Palliser, SK]

Mr. Speaker, to answer my hon. member from across the floor, some dollars would be earmarked for the exchange of artifacts between museums. That amount has not been determined. Restructuring of existing dollars may well handle the whole operation without any further drain on the taxpayer.

The museums themselves often stage various fundraising events that make a lot a money. I am always surprised how small communities of 700 or 800 people are able to raise $10,000. There are avenues to explore other than just government grants. I am sure they would do that.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House and speak on this subject, although the trajectory of some of the changes that are being considered in the bill saddens me to a certain extent.

The government announcement was that the new Canadian museum of history's emphasis will be on dates, events, heroes and narrative timelines: basically, in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. That is how many of us learned history back in the day, and it is one of the reasons I hated history.

I have since learned to love history for the simple reason that there have been teaching methodologies, teachers in particular, who have created a link between history and what it means to young Canadians today. They have brought out the relevance of that history.

My concern with this redirection of history into more of a “great man” approach—this person did this on this date, that person did that on that date—is that we lose the context of how certain things came to be. We lose the context of the contribution of so many different groups of people, so many different individuals who have done heroic things but may not be considered heroes in the context of great events.

We all know the adage that history is written by the victors. As the government likes to remind us far too often, Conservatives won a majority back in 2011. They have used that majority as a battering ram, as opposed to taking a responsibility to make sure that not only the majority are taken care of, but the minority as well. What we do not want to see in this situation is a majority museum, where the exhibitions, the explanations and the narrative speak to a selective memory of history, to selected events. It is an environment that is troubling to the work being done right now in the Museum of Civilization. It is something that is troubling even to teachers of history.

According to the Canadian Association of University Teachers, this initiative:

...fits into a pattern of politically motivated heritage policy that has been emerging over the past few years. Alongside the great quantities of public funds that were directed into the celebration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, this initiative reflects a new use of history to support the government's political agenda—that is, the evocation of particular features of our past as worthy of official endorsement and promotion.

This is even concerning teachers. They fear that instead of the Canadian history museum creating something that is inclusive of the contribution of people and telling some of the hard truths in the building of this nation, this adage of history being written by the victors is going to take place.

This is a great nation. I have worked very hard over the years to tell its story in our fight to make sure that we have Canadian content on our television stations, that our broadcasters are obligated to tell Canadian stories with Canadians, by Canadians, for Canadians.

That leads me to my second point. The idea of this museum being created to conserve Canadian history is rather ironic when we look at the Conservative cuts to the agencies that are tasked with preserving Canadian history. The budget of 2012 cut $29 million from Parks Canada, which is responsible for over 167 national historic sites across Canada. More than 80% of Parks Canada archeologists and curators lost their jobs.

Following the 2012 budget, the number of conservation professionals in the service of Parks Canada fell from 33 to 8. That means 8 employees along with 12 archeologists who are still employed by Parks Canada around the country have the daunting task of taking care of 30 million archeological objects under the jurisdiction of Parks Canada. It means that basically 20 people are taking care of 30 million pieces of our history.

It does not take a rocket scientist to see that is a rather daunting task. If we are talking about preserving Canadian history, cutting the number of people who are responsible for the preservation, discovery and care of those pieces of Canadian history does not seem to be a very supportive move.

Parks Canada also had to eliminate three research positions at national historical sites associated with the first nations people, and the Conservatives fired 50% of the Library and Archives Canada's digitization staff. There is a big push to digitize Canadian history and the work that Library and Archives Canada does, but now it is to do that with 50% fewer individuals.

The situation is also exacerbated by the consultation process, or the lack thereof, in the development of this idea of the Canadian history museum.

It was the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages himself who came up with the idea and then launched the consultation process. It seems to me that the naming of a museum should be left to museum professionals, historians, anthropologists, archivists, librarians and such, as well as individual groups who have a vested interest in how their stories are told and in ensuring that their stories are told. Examples are our first nations brothers and sisters, the Inuit and Metis. The contribution by women to Canadian history always tends to be marginalized in the history books in the context of mentioning that a certain person did something. As well, there is the inclusion and consultation of members of the cultural community, in particular the African-Canadian community and its contribution to the building of this country.

It is really important to educate people about how Quebec contributed to building Canada and New France.

We must consider all the issues on the subject of the museum of Canadian history, because Canada is made up of a multitude of different types of people from different areas and we have to make sure this history museum takes that into consideration.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague gave an excellent speech.

He seems to know what he is talking about, since he has done a lot of work in the arts. As he mentioned, he has spent much of his life telling our stories. That is basically the role of museums, as we know.

With regard to the name change, as well as the change to the museum's mandate, I think we can all agree that a big part of the activities of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in its current form is to promote and teach Canadian history, including the history of New France as well as more modern Canadian history.

I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the Canadian Museum of Civilization's mandate and how it will be altered by Bill C-49.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization's exhibits are the most visited in Canada.

Canada Hall is one of the most visited exhibitions. It goes deeply into the building of Canada and its history. Unlike what the website for the Canadian history museum purports, it starts at the arrival of the Vikings, which was some thousand years ago. Some 10,000 years before that, there were people who were living in this country, which would be later named “Canada”.

Right off the bat, we have a sense of the limitations and the exclusion of the people who built this country and contributed to building this country.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the members opposite have actually been to the museum. This is what the president of the museum had to say:

As a result of this, while walking through Canada Hall you will learn about life in New France, but you'll find no mention of the Quiet Revolution or anything else about Quebec. You'll learn about the early whaling industry in Newfoundland, but nothing about why, how, or when the colony joined Confederation.

He said that there are modules about Upper and Lower Canada, but there is very little about Confederation. It is only listed on a timeline. He went on:

You'll find no mention of...the flag debate or the Constitution, no mention of Paul Henderson's goal in Moscow, or the wartime internment of Ukrainian or Japanese Canadians. You'll find no reference to residential schools or peacekeeping, or Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. There is no meaningful reference to the Great Depression, the conscription crisis, or even a hint as to where Canada might be headed. But perhaps the most egregious flaw in the Canada Hall is its starting point. If you've been there, you will know that its telling of our national story begins not with the arrival of the First Peoples but with the arrival of Europeans in the eleventh century. Colonization as a term or concept is not mentioned in Canada Hall.

If members had actually been to the museum, they would have known that none of this is actually in there, which contradicts everything the member just asked in his question and that the other member just talked about.

Are these not important things that should be in our Canadian museum, whether it is called the Museum of Civilization or the Canadian museum of history? Do we not owe it to Canadians and to the rest of the world to update the stories in there?

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed important that all the information and all the aspects of history he mentioned be included in the venues that represent Canada and its history.

Rather than basically changing the whole thing, why not create the means to give the resources to the Museum of Civilization to expand its mandate or to include them? I agree that these things should be there. Do we need to make a whole new museum to do that?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-49, the Canadian museum of history act.

As this bill has progressed through the House and through committee, there has been much discussion and debate about the specific language used in the bill. Every change to the language has been examined for confirmation that nothing in this bill could interfere with curatorial independence, reduce the research abilities of the new museum or end the ability of the museum to manage and maintain its collections.

It is important to understand that none of the changes to the clauses describing the capacity and powers of the museum are particularly new. Instead, changes have been made to ensure consistency with modern drafting standards, including clear, straightforward and understandable language, concordance in understanding between the English and French and language that is as non-restrictive as possible.

Legislation is drafted in both official languages, and both languages have equal validity under the law. They must therefore be interpreted in parallel. For this reason, many small changes, often the change from “and” to “or” or vice versa, were made to ensure concordance between the English and French versions.

The language used in Bill C-49 is, for the most part, not new language. It is completely consistent with the language used to create the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, the most recent amendments to the Museums Act.

It is clear, straightforward and understandable language with concordance in understanding between the English and French language that is non-restrictive. Legislation is drafted in both official languages.

It is important to remember that the Museums Act was drafted almost a quarter century ago. The drafting conventions in 1990 where quite different from what they are today.

Purpose statements drafted for the national museums in 1990 tended to include not just the purpose of the museum but also language related to how that purpose could be carried out. Over time, the purpose statements have evolved to provide language that keeps as broad a lens as possible.

It is left to the section of legislation dealing with the powers of the museum to list the possibilities for how to carry out the purpose. The purpose statements for the national museums are now drafted to ensure that the capacity and powers of the museums are as broad as possible, that the language is more focused and that the mandate does not unduly restrict the activities of the museums. In other words, decisions on how to implement the mandate are made by museum professionals and experts.

As has been pointed out many times, the museums' ability and even responsibility to carry out research is addressed under powers and capacities and is quite clear. The president of the museum, Mark O'Neill, could not have been clearer. In his presentation to the standing committee, he said that research will remain a key function of the museum.

In fact, Mr. O'Neill announced that the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation has recently, in consultation with academics across the country, developed a research strategy, the first in its history. That strategy will guide the research activities of that museum over the next 10 years.

Mr. O'Neill also confirmed that the strategy will remain in place when the museum is transformed into the Canadian museum of history. Nothing in the revised purpose of this museum will in any way diminish the research capacity of the museum, nor will it interfere with the curatorial independence of the new museum.

Research at the Canadian museum of history will continue to be carried out by qualified, competent researchers as it has been carried out at the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

I also have confidence in the management and board of trustees at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. I am sure that they will continue to guide the corporation through its transformation into the Canadian museum of history.

I would also like to suggest to my colleagues that we should pass this bill, create the new Canadian museum of history and let the museum get on with its business, the business of creating Canada's newest national museum.

If I may, I will take a minute to congratulate my colleague, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, who announced last week important new initiatives to promote Canadian history, including the Government of Canada's history awards to recognize outstanding students and teachers who promote excellence in the study of history. I had the opportunity to attend that very important event, and I know that it was well received by many of the people there.

The minister also announced the strengthening of programs at Canadian Heritage to improve funding for local and national organizations to promote Canadian history in their communities.

In particular, I note that the terms and conditions of the museums assistance program will be modified to remove barriers to the circulation of museum history exhibitions interprovincially and to assist small museums in borrowing objects and exhibitions from the Canadian museum of history. This is good news for the small history museums that can be found in every corner of the country. There are many of these in my riding of Leeds—Grenville. These museums will now be able to receive assistance to borrow objects and exhibitions from the new museum and will also be able to access funding to develop exhibitions of local and regional interest that will travel within a province.

In closing, I urge my colleagues to support Bill C-49. As we approach Canada's 150th birthday, it is an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate our history and those achievements that define who we are as Canadians.

In my riding of Leeds—Grenville, where Canada's early history still lives today, we are looking forward to this anniversary. Canadians deserve a national museum that tells our stories and presents our country's treasures to the world. Passing the bill would be an important step in moving forward the creation of the Canadian museum of history.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if we were to say that we wanted to improve the museum, it would not a big deal. I think we would all be in favour of that; it is how the government is actually trying to change the museum in its entirety.

Let us look at the waste of money. There is no problem investing in the museum and adding more stuff. There is already a lot, and they are going to be storing what is already there. We know that there are problems storing pieces of history. The preservation of it is unique.

When we look at administrative costs for this new museum at a time when we are trying to have a bit of restraint, we can see that it will be an estimated $500,000 to change the name and logo, et cetera. That would add to the more than $400,000 that has already been spent on consultations and promotional material for the museum.

How can the member justify putting all of that financing, a waste of money, in redefining the whole museum?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have heard that an investment in celebrating our history is a waste of money. Canadians from coast to coast to coast would find that rather offensive. As one who has worked very much over the years in helping present our history and helping Canadians understand that history, never before have I actually heard that it is a waste of money.

By changing the name of this museum such that Canadians can clearly understand what it is attempting to do would be something that would help ensure that young people, especially, learn our history.

There are only four provinces in Canada where it is currently mandatory to have a history course as part of the high school curriculum. We have been able to commemorate the War of 1812 with all the events that have been going on, especially in my part of eastern Ontario. It has helped young people learn more about our history and how our country was actually created.

It is not a waste of money.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague. I was here when the bill was debated on May 28. The hon. member gave some assurances, which I thought were significant, and I will quote him. It is on page 17197 of Hansard:

It is important to remember that the Grand Hall and the First Peoples Hall, which present a history of Canada's first peoples, will remain an integral part of the new museum, as will the Children's Museum.

Yet on June 11, the Ottawa Citizen ran a story about Nishga Girl, which is a fairly significant centrepiece of the Hall, which was being removed.

What value are the assurances, and to what extent are they real, that he and another one of his colleagues gave to the House on May 28?

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, much of what is currently there could be incorporated into moving forward with this new mandate. I know that some of what is there could be part of that presentation, but there is so much more that we could add to that. Canadians, especially outside of Ottawa, and people in my riding, are looking forward to having the opportunity to partner with the Canadian museum of history.

When I first heard about the concept last year and the possibility of having different displays come out to the smaller communities in other parts of Canada, I talked about it with some of the folks in my riding and they really looked forward to it. Having that and having displays going in both directions would definitely be a positive.

We should definitely look at some of the things that are currently there to make sure that they are part of that presentation.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, several of my colleagues have shared their fears and concerns about how this bill is yet another Conservative government attempt to rewrite history. This bill would change the museum's mandate as we approach the 150th anniversary celebration of Canadian Confederation in 2017.

Here are just a few examples of the Conservative Party's efforts to politicize Canadian symbols: replacing two paintings by Alfred Pellan with a portrait of the Queen on a wall of the Foreign Affairs building; directing Canadian embassies abroad to display a portrait of the Queen; renaming the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force; installing a stained glass window depicting the Queen at the entrance to the Senate; changing many street and building names; and drawing tremendous attention to the commemoration of the War of 1812, a move still criticized by many historians.

Members of the House are not the only ones who are worried. Some historians say that this change comes at a time when the Conservative government is eliminating tools that are essential to history, culture and education. It has made cuts to Statistics Canada—particularly the long-form census—Library and Archives Canada, Parks Canada and many of our historic sites.

We do not object to the idea of a Canadian museum of history. After all, it is quite common for a country to have a history museum. Some people, including Pierre Anctil, a history professor at the University of Ottawa, fear that “Canadian history may be manipulated or politicized”.

According to Université du Québec en Outaouais professor of museology and heritage, Éric Langlois, “This is not just a change in name; it is a change in mission. It is tendentious.” He is concerned that the government will once again focus on the history of the British military and the monarchy in Canada with a sidebar about the War of 1812. He believes that this could “add fuel to the fire of differences in perspective between Quebec and the rest of the country”.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers echoed that sentiment, rallying over 60,000 professors against changing the museum's mission. In its presentation, the association says:

Alongside the great quantities of public funds that were directed into the celebration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, this initiative reflects a new use of history to support the government’s political agenda – that is, the evocation of particular features of our past as worthy of official endorsement and promotion.

Some journalists have echoed the questions and concerns about this change in mandate. They have said the change is a reflection of “the Conservatives' narrow vision of culture. A vision based primarily on old-fashioned patriotism at the expense of the openness embodied by the Museum of Civilization”. This quote was from a column published in La Presse.

Although museums are supposed to be independent under the Museums Act, that did not prevent the Canadian Museum of Science and Technology from opening an exhibition on different energy sources in Canada in November 2011. This exhibition included a section on Alberta's oils sands that took the Conservative government's pro-development stance. The exhibition was financed and designed in part by the oil sands lobby.

When the Canadian Museum for Human Rights was created, the minister at the time, Josée Verner, created an advisory committee whose mandate was to hear from the public and experts about three matters.

One of the matters was the museum's mission. The people who participated in the web-based consultations and focus group testing expressed concerns that the Canadian Museum for Human Rights could be influenced by political activities or special interest groups, in a manner that could affect, or be perceived to affect, the integrity and balance of its exhibitions and programs.

In addition, the committee's 30th recommendation states:

Be, and be Seen to be, Independent--The Board will need to not only ensure that it remains autonomous and free from influence, but also to be seen to be autonomous and free from influence.

Those are just two examples, and then there are the cases in which the government cuts funding to all the supposedly independent and autonomous organizations when they do not promote the government's values.

The government cannot simply claim that the act will prevent the minister from personally interfering in programming or in the choice of exhibits if it wants to reassure the public and the House about the real reason behind this change.

The Canadian Museum of Civilization is the largest and most popular museum in Canada. Indeed, it welcomed over 1.3 million visitors last year. It is an unrivalled success story.

Yet, in his announcement the minister claimed that:

Canada needs a national institution that celebrates our achievements and what we have accomplished together...They define who we are as Canadians. They define our history—Canada’s history.

Diane Pacom, a professor specializing in arts and culture, is not too concerned about the change and pointed out that according to its guiding principles, the Canadian Museum of Civilization is the “national institution responsible for preserving and promoting the heritage of Canada, and contributing to the collective memory and sense of identity of all Canadians”. Therefore there is no inconsistency in terms of the new name intended for the museum. That is precisely where the problem lies.

The museum already had a mandate and mission primarily focused on Canadian history and culture, under the Museums Act. Why change them, then? What changed?

In the new museum's mission, the expression “objects of historical or cultural interest” has been replaced with “objects that reflect and have shaped Canada's history and identity”.

The reference to objects of historical or cultural interest initially contained in the museum’s four capacities and powers is kept in only one of the powers of the new museum, that of collecting. They have withdrawn from the new museum the power to sell, give away or lend these types of objects, or to organize travelling exhibits with them, which is quite strange given the new collaborative approach between the Museum of History and the regional museums that this government is promoting.

In addition to removing the reference to “objects of historical or cultural interest”, the bill takes away the new museum’s international vocation. It will no longer have the mandate to increase interest, respect and critical understanding; it will simply have a mission to increase knowledge of and respect for Canadian achievements. It is hoped that the new museum will promote events, experiences, people and objects that reflect and have shaped Canada’s history and identity, and that it will make Canadians aware of world history and other cultures. The mission of the Canadian Museum of Civilization was instead to promote 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.

The new museum will not have the power to undertake or sponsor research, primarily basic, theoretical or applied research. In the future, it will have the power to “undertake or sponsor any research related to its purpose or to museology”.

Two minor changes also in the two powers listed in the bill could pave the way for the appearance of a lack of independence. The mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization included establishing and fostering liaison with other organizations with similar purposes. It will now be up to the Museum of History to establish and promote—not foster—liaison with other organizations with a purpose similar to its own. The mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization included sharing the expertise of its staff by undertaking and sponsoring programs for training and apprenticeship in the professional and technical skills involved in the operation of other organizations with a purpose similar to its purpose. This will be replaced by “share the expertise of its staff by undertaking or sponsoring training and apprenticeship programs that relate to its purpose.”

In light of all these ambiguities and concerns arising from this bill, I have the impression that the Conservatives are getting a taste of their own medicine, in that their characteristic mistrust, arrogance and partisanship come through in this bill, rightly or wrongly. This means that if the bill had been introduced by a different government, perhaps no one would have made any fuss about it. It is sad and it is dangerous. With this bill, the government is going to learn that it cannot get away with playing with symbols as it is doing in this case and as it has done in a number of other cases in the past.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, last weekend, we had the Minister of Canadian Heritage come to Winnipeg to announce the museum of history and what it meant to sign a partnership with Winnipeg. The excitement of the people in the museum and the children who came was just a fine example of what they were looking forward to in this country.

What they are looking forward to is sharing the artifacts. One point that was made was that a lot of our artifacts in Winnipeg have never been outside the city of Winnipeg, and people have not had the pleasure of being able to view them. This new initiative is very exciting to Canadians. They could share and enjoy history. They would not have to come to Ottawa to do that. Everything would be shared across the country.

I have a question for the member opposite. Does this member not want to share our great history with our great nation, from province to province to province, and do it in such a way that ordinary people could see it without having to spend a whole lot of money to come to a national museum in Ottawa? Does he not want them to have it right in their home town or city, where they could learn about what has happened all across our vast nation? I would just like his opinion on that.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat confused about the point of the government member's question. There was no demand for a Canadian museum of history before Bill C-49 was introduced.

Our offices were not contacted by large numbers of constituents who felt that the Canadian Museum of Civilization absolutely had to be replaced by a Canadian museum of history. That was a government decision.

The fact that people in Winnipeg, Vancouver or Montreal supported or opposed the change at meetings or conferences organized by the government to promote the idea is no surprise. In fact, if any idea is proposed, some people will support it, while others will oppose it.

Consequently, it is utterly false to say that there has been any popular demand to create this museum. There was no specific demand by Canadians for such a museum.

I obviously want to know more about the history of Winnipeg and about the artifacts that the museums and organizations in Winnipeg, Montreal and Vancouver have. That is why there are travelling exhibitions.

The Sea Museum in Rimouski commemorates the Battle of the Atlantic and the sinking of the Empress of Ireland. Exhibits and historical artifacts from that museum travel across the country. One exhibition was at the Canadian Museum of Civilization last week. It will now travel to Vancouver, Toronto and other cities. There are already mechanisms in place that enable us to share Canadian history.

I do not think that there is any justification for changing the purpose of the Canadian Museum of Civilization and turning it into the Canadian Museum of History.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very interesting speech and for the excellent work he is doing in his riding of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.

The issue of changing the name of this world renowned museum is of course a concern. From a commercial standpoint, the name is an invaluable and profitable brand. This museum is quite simply known around the world. A change to its name risks reducing attendance.

As my colleague said, this is a very popular museum about which we had heard nothing regarding a name change. My constituents definitely never phoned me, even once, to ask that its name be changed.

Does my colleague think that changing the museum's name could have an impact on attendance?

I would also like him to talk about the changes to the museum's mission. For example, instead of operating across Canada and internationally, the new museum will target only Canada.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I see that I will not have time to answer two questions, so I will just answer one.

I am a regular at the museum. What is more, I studied communications at the University of Ottawa and, as part of a student project, we had an unpaid contract with the Canadian Museum of Civilization that involved putting together exhibitions on Canadian history. The exhibition I worked on focused on New France.

Civilizations from both Canada and abroad have always been a key component of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

I visited two major exhibitions at the museum: one on the history of ancient Greece, and the other on Egypt called “Tombs of Eternity”. The Egyptian exhibition was the most visited exhibition in the past five years. It showcased the history of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt.

The change to the Canadian Museum of Civilization's mandate means that the museum will no longer be able to house exhibitions that have a foreign focus or that emphasize key elements of the history of civilization. The fact is that those kinds of exhibitions were very popular.

Yes, I do have concerns about the future attendance at the museum.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak in support of Bill C-49, which proposes amendments to the Museums Act to create the Canadian museum of history.

I could talk about all the wonderful things that Bill C-49 would do. However, given some of the misleading information being spread by the opposition, I would like to take the time to talk about what Bill C-49 would not do.

The bill would make a number of necessary changes to the section dealing with the current Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation to allow it to become the Canadian museum of history. However, one section of the Museums Act that would not change is the section that ensures the independence of the national museums, which is subsection 27(1).

Subsection 27(1) says that no directive shall be given to a museum with respect to cultural activities, including the acquisition, disposal, conservation or use of any museum material relevant to its activities; activities and programs for the public, including exhibitions, displays and publications; and research related to those activities.

The legal protection afforded to all national museums is comprehensive and includes the ability to conduct research. The independence of all the national museums has been guaranteed by law in the most comprehensive manner possible.

This is the case for all national museums. It is the case for the Canadian Museum of Civilization and it would continue to be the case with the Canadian museum of history.

The phrase “arm's length” is more than a concept. It is specific, it is comprehensive and it is the law. Bill C-49 does not propose to change section 27 of the Museums Act.

We all know that, from time to time, museums, including our national museums, present exhibitions that challenge and that arouse debate. That is the mark of a great museum.

Everyone has an opinion. That is normal. From time to time, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages has expressed a personal opinion about an exhibition presented by one of our national museums. That is his right. What the Museums Act prohibits is political interference in decisions related to cultural activities. Bill C-49 would not change that.

Yet, there are still concerns about the curatorial independence of the Canadian museum of history. It has been proposed that we amend the bill to specify that a particular minister, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, and a particular government department, Canadian Heritage, could not infringe on the new museum's curatorial independence.

As we have said before, such an amendment is unnecessary and redundant because comprehensive independence already exists in the law. More importantly, this kind of amendment could have unintended consequences.

Subsection 27(1) ensures the independence of all national museums. The addition of a clause that would apply only to the new museum could call into question, or even appear to diminish by comparison, the independence of the other national museums that fall under the act. In other words, all the national museums would be independent, but one would be more independent than the others.

By singling out a particular minister and a particular department, does that somehow create the impression that others are somehow now being given the option to infringe on the independence of the museums?

As I have already said, the amendment in question was proposed in good faith, and I am sure that none of the possible results I have described were intended. However, this shows that drafting legislation is a really tricky thing. We must consider the wording in legislation very carefully. That is the job of legislative drafters and jurilinguists, professionals trained to watch for the type of unintended consequences I just described.

The independence of the Canadian museum of history would be assured under the existing subsection 27(1) of the Museums Act. Intervention by the government in its activities would be prohibited by law. The new museum would table its annual report in Parliament as a crown corporation, as is the case with all the national museums. It would be accountable to Parliament.

Let us consider the highly qualified professional staff of the museum. There would be specialists who have dedicated their careers to a particular field, whether it be archeology, ethnology, history, folklore or museology. As such, they would also be answerable to their peers. To suggest that, up until now, they have acted independently of government and that with the adoption of Bill C-49 they would suddenly develop feet of clay would be unfair. The idea that we might be seen as calling into question the integrity of the men and women who work at the museum is something I know we all want to avoid.

The Museums Act will continue to guarantee the independence of the national museums and it would guarantee the independence of the Canadian museum of history. Let us support that long-standing legal protection as it currently exists.

Our government believes in our national museums, and we recognize the tremendous value they hold for all Canadians. The Canadian museum of history would provide the public with the opportunity to appreciate how Canada's identity has been shaped over the course of our history. Above all else, Canadians deserve a national museum that tells our stories and presents our country's treasure to the world. I am calling on all my hon. colleagues to support Bill C-49 and support promoting and increasing Canadians' accessibility to our shared heritage.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to know if my Conservative colleague can tell me whether there is actually any popular support for changing the museum's mandate?

Personally, nobody in my riding has asked the government to change the mandate of the museum, which truly is a Canadian treasure. We also know that it will be very expensive. The administrative cost alone is estimated at $500,000. And that is on top of the $400,000 that has already been spent on consultations and promotional material for the new museum.

What is more, the Conservative government is cutting the budget of Library and Archives Canada, thus depriving Canadian historians of the tools they need to do their jobs.

Can my colleague comment on this?

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the claims made by my hon. colleague are quite misleading. More than 20,000 Canadians were consulted before we took action on this.

In listening to the speeches of the opposition and their claims that somehow this would not be accepted by Canadians, that it would change the course of history or that somehow it would create a history of Canada that Canadians do not want, I do not know where it all comes from. I truly believe we should all embrace the idea and show the world that we are not a cultural desert, that we are a country with a heritage. We have a lot to be proud of and to show to the world.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his inspired presentation.

I have heard a lot of the speeches and questions this afternoon. It is interesting that the last questioner asked whose idea this was as he had not heard anybody in his riding talk about changing the name or recommending that it was a good idea. Once the minister of heritage made the announcement, many people in my riding said it was a great idea and it would be the next generation of a great institution in this country.

With that thought in mind, I should mention that this facility has not been renovated in decades. The $25 million investment in the facility would really boost the quality of the facility, the display space and presentation ability. I wonder if my colleague could tell us how that money would be used.

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the investment would be used to renovate about half the space of the museum. Part of it would stay the way it is. The IMAX, the Children's Museum and the First Peoples Hall would stay as they are, but the rest would be renovated and we would truly be proud of it.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was particularly interested in the very last part of my colleague’s speech, when he said that the government believed in our national museums. It practically sent shivers down my spine.

My question is quite simple. If the Conservatives believe in our national museums, why do they refuse to preserve the name and mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization?

[Wladyslaw Lizon, Conservative, Mississauga East—Cooksville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, they claim in their speeches that somehow we are trying to change history and show it the way we want. I am so surprised that it comes from their side. Not that long ago, it was their member who insulted our First World War veterans and praised commies.

How can anyone come up with this view of history? Communism claimed about a hundred million victims in the world. How can anyone look at the Ukrainian famine, the Holodomor, look into the eyes of the survivors of Tiananmen massacre, or the children and grandchildren of officers who were killed as prisoners of war with a single shot in the head in Katyn, Russia? How can anyone come with this kind of distorted picture of history?

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

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in support of Bill C-49, which proposes amendments to the Museums Act in order to create the Canadian Museum of History. Today, I would like to discuss the rich and long history of the museum and its transformation over the years. After all, as we approach Canada's 150th birthday, it is an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate our history and those achievements that define who we are as Canadians.

The institutional origins of the Canadian Museum of Civilization are older than Confederation, dating back to 1841 when Queen Victoria granted £1,500 for the “...creation of the Geological and Natural History Survey of the Province of Canada...”. I would like to remind the House that the Geological Survey of Canada, the GSC, was officially founded in 1856, after the Province of Canada had passed an act enabling the GSC to establish a geological museum open to the public. The museum was originally located on James Street in Montreal, where scholars and scientists collected geological, archaeological and biological material. In 1864, the Province of Canada passed an act making the Geological Survey and its work a permanent provision.

In 1877, an act of Parliament ensured the continued existence of the Geological Survey, making it a part of the Department of the Interior. The GSC's official mandate had been broadened to include botanical, zoological and ethnographic specimens, traditions, languages and artifacts. It also suggested that the GSC and its museum be moved from Montreal to Ottawa.

In 1881, the GSC and its museum moved to a former luxury hotel at the corner of Sussex and George streets in downtown Ottawa. The museum attracted some 9,549 visitors in its first year, far more than it had in Montreal. It was in 1890 that the government passed an act making the Geological Survey a department within the dominion.

Construction of the new museum began in 1906. By 1907, the GSC became a branch of the newly created Department of Mines. The GSC museum received approval to add anthropology studies to its official mandate. In the spring of 1910, a new anthropology division was established under the direction of Edward Sapir, which included two sections in charge of archaeological and ethnological fieldwork. By the autumn of that same year, the GSC and its museum occupied the new Victoria Memorial Museum building on Metcalfe Street here in Ottawa.

When fire destroyed most of the Parliament buildings in 1916, the decision was made to house the Parliament of Canada in the Victoria Memorial Museum building. The GSC collections were put in storage until 1920 when the new Parliament buildings were constructed.

In January 1950, the GSC became part of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, and the National Museum joined the Department of Resources and Development. The GSC and the National Museum then remained together in the Victoria Memorial Museum building. By 1956, the National Museum of Canada had been subdivided into two branches: natural history and human history.

I would like to also remind this House that in 1968, under the national Museums Act, the Corporation of the National Museums of Canada was established. The museum's human history branch became the National Museum of Man, and the natural history branch became the National Museum of Natural Sciences. The new National Museum of Man continued to be housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum building on Metcalfe Street. In 1969, the Victoria Memorial Museum building was closed for renovations and museum staff and collections were moved to temporary locations throughout Ottawa.

In July 1980, the Corporation of the National Museums of Canada was transferred from the Department of the Secretary of State to the Department of Communications. The transfer was made in recognition of the increasingly close links between culture and communications.

In 1982, the Canadian government announced its intention to house a National Museum of Man in a new building in Hull, Quebec. In 1986, the National Museum of Man was renamed the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the CMC.

In 1988, the National Postal Museum became a division of the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the majority of the material history collection and staff were transferred. Other parts of the collection, including pieces of art, were transferred to the National Archives of Canada.

In 1989, the Canadian Museum of Civilization opened a new facility in Hull, Quebec. Internationally recognized as one of the world's modern architectural wonders, the complex was designed by architect Douglas Cardinal to reflect enduring features of the Canadian landscape. The world's largest indoor collection of totem poles is housed in the facility's stunning Grand Hall which has also been the site of numerous high-profile receptions for visiting heads of state.

In 1990, the federal government passed the Museums Act. The museum became a crown corporation and officially changed its name to the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation which came into effect on July 1, 1990.

I would like to remind my colleagues that the subject matter of many CMC exhibitions, current and past, has been Canadian history. Bill C-49 does not represent a massive change. The mandate of the Canadian Museum of History merely indicates an unequivocal focus on Canadian history, something that I know will be done well for many years to come. It is important to note the historical change to the museum, because the name and mandate of a national museum is nothing new.

The Canadian museum of history would provide the public with the opportunity to appreciate how Canada's identity has been shaped over the course of our history. Canadians deserve a national museum that tells our stories and that presents our country's treasures to the world.

I remain ready and able to take any questions or comments that any member may wish to pose at this time.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague opposite.

It was quite fascinating to take a look at our history and to see that some progress has been made in the past. We would like that progress to continue, but unfortunately, the government seems to be taking us in the wrong direction. A total of 80% of archaeologists across the country are being laid off, yet meanwhile, the Conservative government is telling us that it believes in Canadian heritage.

If the government really wants to preserve and promote Canadian culture and heritage so much, why has it laid off 80% of archaeologists employed by the public service? Why is it keeping artifacts in storage across the country?

The regions are asking that their artifacts be made available, but unfortunately, there are not enough staff to get the items out of storage. The Conservatives want to rename the museum. However, there is a huge collection of artifacts in storage and we cannot see them.

Why does the Conservative government not invest money in making these artifacts available and visible as a means of celebrating Canadian culture, rather than eliminating 80% of the archaeologist positions across the country?

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

Mr. Speaker, since 2006 when this government took office, in three parliaments this government has added some $142 million to national museums and culture across this country. In addition, we have created two new museums, one in Winnipeg and one in the Maritimes.

If the member recalls much of my speech to the House, he will recall that there have been huge transformations to how Canada conducts our museums and how we recognize our past, but one of the most important things, at least to the people I know and to my constituents and to Canadians at large, especially the over 250,000 new Canadians who have chosen to come here, is that this would be a museum that would talk to them about how this country was formed, about our beautiful history. That is something that is currently lacking and one of the principal reasons why the bill is before the House and the change in focus as Canada begins to grow into the 21st century.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as we face our 150th anniversary, a very special time for all Canadians, would my colleague tell us how people in his riding will celebrate such a special time and how the Canadian museum of history will impact his riding and the museums and facilities that are local to him?

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the salient parts of this whole act, and a thing that excites me, quite frankly, is the fact that we have so much right across the country. In my riding, I can think of at least five or six museums that exist and then there are neighbouring museums. One of them is in Stirling, Ontario. It celebrates the agricultural past and present of our country and some of the great advances in agriculture and machinery. I really recommend that Canadians go to the museums in their vicinity.

What this act would allow, and this is what I am most excited about, is the exchange of artifacts from the national museum and bringing in artifacts from the rest of Canada so all Canadians can enjoy them. Canadians come to Ottawa to see some of our national treasures as they are located in a central location.

What a wonderful opportunity for museums right across the country to share their culture and their past with all Canadians and visitors to Canada. That is what the act proposes to do. It is a wonderful opportunity that we should not miss.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today in the foreshortened debate on Bill C-49. After only one hour of debate, the Conservatives decided it was time to shorten the debate even further by imposing time allocation.

The minister referred to this legislation as having been on the books for eight and a half months. We are not in control of the agenda; the other side is in control of the agenda. If it chose not to bring it forward over the past eight and a half months, that is not our fault. The minister might want to speak to the government House leader to find out why it has taken so long for the bill to come forward.

Members opposite keep saying that we are creating a museum. This bill would not create a museum. It would destroy one museum and out of its ashes build another. It is a good idea. We on this side think a Canadian historical museum would be a good thing to have, but we should not destroy the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which has an entirely different mandate and an entirely different purpose than a Canadian museum of history.

The mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization is:

—to increase, throughout Canada and internationally, interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of and appreciation and respect for human cultural achievements and human behavior 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.

This is a very broad and ambitious goal and the museum has met some of that goal over the course of the past 23 years that it has been in existence.

I have been there. It is an absolutely amazing place. What it puts forward is way more than just history. It is in fact about the culture and civilization of not just Canada, but of many places in the world, and of Canada not just the country, but Canada as it existed before the white man arrived. This is also in that existing human cultural achievements.

The new mandate of the Canadian history museum is

—to enhance Canadians’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of events, experiences, people and objects that reflect and have shaped Canada’s history and identity, and also to enhance their awareness of world history and cultures.

I emphasize the word “Canada's” history and identity because we now lose the notion of civilization. Canada did not exist officially until 1867. Does this mean we are only to discuss things that happened from 1867 forward, that the contributions of the fact that this continent was peopled by native North Americans long before any of us Europeans ever arrived on the scene? Is that not to be considered as part of Canada's history? It is hard to tell from the statement of mandate of what the intention of this history is.

We have in the Canadian Museum of Civilization an internationally regarded icon of something more than just history, and it is associated with the war museum. In France, there is no museum of war. There is a museum of peace and it too is internationally regarded as a place to discuss something other than historical artifacts leading to war, or historical art leading to war or whatever wants to be discussed. That notion of discussing peace lends itself to an international recognition. The notion of discussing civilization lends us to an international recognition, which I fear we will lose by focusing on only history and only the history of Canada.

In terms of the amendments that were proposed by the various bodies in the foreshortened again committee stage, one of the ones that the minister referred to earlier, was the suggestion that there should be curatorial independence. Curatorial independence means that the museum, whether it is the Museum of Civilization or the museum of history, should be in a position to decide itself what it wants to display, how it wants to display it and whether it should take on controversial displays.

The minister said today in the House, “As the minister, I have never once, nor could I ever interfere with the decision of a museum to put on an exhibit or not”. When he said that, I could not believe my ears, because it was just a few short months ago that an Ottawa museum, the Museum of Science and Technology, put on an exhibit that the minister said, “The exhibit does not fit within its mandate. Its content cannot be defended and is insulting to taxpayers”.

The minister will stand and argue that he did not actually tell the museum not to run it. When a minister gets up and publicly states that something is not within its mandate and is insulting to taxpayers, he is questioning the curatorial independence of that museum. To stand here in the House today and suggest he has never done it is beggars belief.

When the museum put on that display, it was clearly going to be controversial, a display that the museum itself and its curators decided was important and within its mandate, but the minister interfered.

Is that making a statement publicly that something is not within its mandate and is insulting to taxpayers somehow not interfering in the mandate of the museum or in the ability of the museum's curators to have curatorial independence? In my view it does. Whether the minister actually pulled the display off the shelves with his own hands is not really the question. The question is whether the minister publicly went against the decision of the museum itself. That is what we, on this side of the House, want to see more strongly placed in legislation as we get the opportunity because of the events of the past year.

The third point I will make is the concerns we have about creating a museum of history at the same time the government has gone about rewriting history. For example, even today, when the minister said that he never did that, yet he did a year ago, is rewriting history. It is suggesting that it did not actually happen.

However, we are concerned we have a government that wants Canadians to be more focused on battles, on wars, on the War of 1812, on the relationship with the British Crown, on the battles that Canada has been in since Confederation and maybe a little before, because we have been talking about the War of 1812.

Twitter uses hashtags to get people interested in a topic, and the hashtag is, “HarperHistory”. That hashtag was created because the Prime Minister started to rewrite history in the House of Commons in question period by making erroneous allegations about the NDP. That hashtag, “HarperHistory” resurfaced again in the past few weeks when the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage decided to undertake a thorough and comprehensive review of significant aspects of Canadian history.

There was a breakdown, a comparison of relevant standards of courses of study offered in primary and post-secondary institutions and there were considerable numbers of people responding to the hashtag “HarperHistory” who were—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

I just caution the hon. member. Generally speaking, we do not make reference to other hon. members in the House by their direct name. I appreciate the hon. member is including it in a hashtag, but in the same way that members' names are used in reference in citations, we cannot do indirectly that which is prohibited directly.

The member has made reference to it. Hon. members will understand what he means by that, but we do not use the names of other hon. members, except by their titles or by their riding names.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I only wish that the Twitter hashtag had been, “PrimeMinisterialHistory”, but unfortunately, that is not what it is and in order to accurately state it--and I will not state it again, because I understood your reference--I had to state the word which was the hashtag.

In any event, the concern has again been raised by the Twitter verse that the party opposite is attempting to rewrite history by its review of the standards that Canadian schools are teaching. I am not sure what the boards of education across the country are thinking, but they cannot be happy.

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

Mr. Speaker, I revert back to my speech of how museums from way back before Canada was the country it is today have transitioned. However, at the end of the member's statement he made a lot of erroneous statements. In fact, in the act itself there is a part that covers research, and this bill would not change the current direction of museums but rather focus attention on Canadian history.

What we hear, when Canada's official opposition talks about this, is that it cannot do away with its view of the world, that somehow learning more about the history of this great country would be a bad thing and that the bill is bad because the Conservatives want Canadians to know more about Canadian history. Members talk about what they would be giving up.

I have to say that, looking at battles such as the War of 1812, had we not been successful we would not be in this place. What is wrong with focusing on the events that made this country? Other countries in the world celebrate their history. For some reason, it would be a bad thing to celebrate Canadian history.

The hon. member needs to—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. The hon. member for York South—Weston.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I did say at the beginning of my speech that celebrating history is something we should do, but not at the expense of another museum. If the government wants to create a Canadian museum of history, that is a good thing and we would agree. However, to tear down an existing museum and remove its mandate and purpose only to replace it with another mandate and purpose is misguided. I would wholeheartedly support the creation of a museum of Canadian history if it were not for the fact that we would destroy the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the process.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the members across the way like to talk a lot about Canadian history. The member for York South—Weston has been involved in this so I will ask him this. There was a museum of aviation, which celebrated the Avro Arrow among many other planes and has been shut down because of lack of funding, because the government has called money in, because it was not able to stay afloat. The federal government ignored it and left it hanging to dry. I would like to ask the member about that lack of support for Canadian history by the government.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping to get to the Canadian Air and Space Museum, which existed for many years on the site of the former military base at Downsview Park. It was in a historically designated building, plant 2 of the de Havilland factory. The crown corporation that owns and runs Downsview Park decided to kick out the museum, tear down the historical building and build a hockey rink in consultation with the Maple Leafs. That was somewhat misguided. We should try to preserve, not destroy, Canadian history using whatever government resources are available. That was not done in the case of the Canadian Air and Space Museum.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to correct the record. In referring to the air museum at Downsview Park, the member for York South—Weston said in his remarks that it was situated within a historical building. That is not true. Downsview Park is located in the riding of York Centre, which I am privileged to represent. It was never designated a historical site of any kind whatsoever by the municipality, the province or the federal government. I would like to correct the record on that. I know the member would probably want to correct it himself and would appreciate my saying that.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the web page that states that it was a historical site, which was deleted by the federal government from its records the day after we got a copy of it. It is designated by the City of Toronto as a historic property as well as by the Province of Ontario. However, the difficulty is that the federal government believes it has the right to take down designated historic properties without any reference to any municipality. That is what the intention was with that site.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to Bill C-49, an act to create the Canadian museum of history.

World-class museums are widely respected centres of independent and inspired thinking. The curatorial staff members in these institutions are provided with the freedom to interpret the artifacts in their collections in a way that promotes independent thought and dialogue.

Our government believes in our national museums. We recognize the tremendous value they hold for all Canadians. To maintain the reputation of our museums as world-class museums, their experts must be given the freedom to present a narrative as they see fit. That is why it is imperative that museums remain independent of political influence.

Subsection 27(1) of the Museums Act makes it clear that our national museums operate independently of political sphere. Subsection 27(1) clearly states:

No directive shall be given to a museum...with respect to cultural activities, including

...the acquisition, disposal, conservation or use of any museum material relevant to its activities;

...its activities and programs for the public, including exhibitions, displays and publications; and

...research....

Bill C-49 would not change the arm's-length nature of the new museum, nor would it change the governance structure that determines the organization's guiding principles.

As is the case with the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the board of trustees of the Canadian museum of history would be “responsible for the fulfillment of the purposes and the management of the business, activities and affairs of the corporation”.

The mechanism would ensure that this arm's-length institution remains an independent and respected centre for research and for learning.

The board of directors of the Canadian Museum of Civilization uses five key objectives as its guiding principles. These principles are:

Knowledge

...focus on the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

Authenticity

...communicating accurate information which is balanced and in context.

Coherence

...aim to be consistent, united in purpose and easily accessible.

Choice and Respect

...we can never include all themes, all perspectives, or all proposed artifacts. Our choices are informed by respect....

Canadian Perspectives

...present Canadian contexts, comments, or reactions on subjects of wider significance.

In addition, let me bring to the attention of my colleagues, who have expressed concern about the independence of our national museums, the existence of a document developed by the Canadian Museums Association and the Canadian Art Museum Directors Organization.

In 2004, these widely respected organizations collaborated to develop the “Roles and Responsibilities of Museum Boards of Trustees”.

Museums across Canada have been encouraged to adopt these guidelines and use them as a reference point for a board's roles and responsibilities when dealing with issues related to museum policies and procedures.

An important statement is made at the very beginning of these guidelines:

All board members are fiduciaries who have the museum's collections, property, premises and resources in their care as assets in trust for present and future generations.

Clearly, this is a significant legal obligation that board members take seriously. They are in place to ensure the responsible stewardship of the museum, not to accommodate the wishes of members of Parliament.

The Canadian Museums Association's ethics guidelines speak quite clearly to the responsibilities of the board of trustees:

Whatever its formation, it is the legal entity that is accountable to the public and to the museum community for the policy, financing and administration of the museum.

It is evident that the board is not accountable to politicians.

The ethics guidelines also mention two key public trust responsibilities for museums: stewardship and public service. The guidelines state:

The trust of stewardship requires museums to acquire, document and preserve collections in accordance with institutional policies, to be accountable for them, and to pass them on to future generations of the public in good condition.

The trust of public service requires museums to create and advance not only knowledge, but more importantly, understanding, by making the collections...available to all the communities served by the museum. To this end, museums seek to be public focal points for learning, discussion and development, and to ensure equality of opportunity for access.

When we speak specifically of the case of boards of trustees for crown corporations, we can also turn to the Financial Administration Act, or the FAA, to provide very clear information on the responsibilities of boards of directors. Especially relevant to the topic, we see in section 109 of the FAA that “the board of directors of a Crown corporation is responsible for the management of the businesses, activities and other affairs of the corporation”. This is how we would ensure that the Canadian museum of history would operate freely and independently.

With all these measures in place, one must wonder why there are lingering doubts as to whether the Canadian museum of history would be able to maintain its independence when it came to its quality programming. Clearly, the museum would be equipped with many controls to ensure that it operated as it should.

Our government will continue to play a legislative role when it comes to our national museums, but when it comes to putting that legislation into operation, responsibility for content and exhibitions rests with the administrators, the curators, conservators, researchers, the board of trustees and all those who have helped solidify the reputation of Canada's museums as world class.

The management and staff of the Canadian Museum of Civilization are well respected and they have built a world-class museum. Nothing in Bill C-49 would change how the museum operates. Therefore, I urge my hon. colleagues to support this very important legislation.

As we approach Canada's 150th birthday, it is an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate our history and those achievements that define who we are as Canadians. After all, Canadians deserve a national museum that tells our stories and presents our country's treasures to the world.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for sharing his point of view. It is clear that he believes in this bill and is enthusiastic about it, but unfortunately, it takes more than a name to prove that you believe in Canadian heritage.

The number of people involved in the preservation of our artifacts will drop from 33 to 8, and 80% of the archaeologists in Canada have been laid off. Does this government really want to promote Canadian heritage or is it happy just to hide all the artifacts in the basements of museums with brand-new names? The items will still be hidden away; they will still not be available.

For years now, the people in the Gaspé have been asking for their artifacts to be sent home. It will not cost the government anything. The government will not even do that. It is not taking action, even though it will not cost anything, yet it is going to spend $25 million to change the name of a museum.

Does the member really believe in the value of Canadian heritage? Are the Conservatives really going to walk the walk and provide funding to make Canadian artifacts available and put them on display so that people can see them, rather than just going around changing names?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to be honest. I am not sure where the hon. member gets his facts. In fact, I am not sure he even believes what he just said.

Let me provide just a couple of numbers. As I stand for this bill, the Canadian museum of history would be an opportunity to celebrate who we are as Canadians. I have talked to curators and executive directors of museums from across the country who are excited about this bill and about the opportunity to share the artifacts, the history of our country, in their own communities. In my community of Don Valley West, in Toronto, the Ontario Science Centre is one of the facilities that very much looks forward to being part of a partnership that would manage and preserve our history. We heard from other speakers that this is happening across the country.

I encourage the member to read the bill and get on board with this. Let us bring this thing to fruition and celebrate our history.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member for Don Valley West comes from a part of this country where there are quite a few new Canadians. They chose to become Canadians. They are hungry to share in the rich history of our country. It means something to them. This is a country they chose to come to. It was not an accident of birth. They chose to come here because of the rich history of our country and because of who we are. We need to celebrate that.

I wonder if the member could talk to me about some of his constituents who are new Canadians and about what he believes the benefits of this change in the museum's focus will be.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have to believe that all of us in the House, regardless of the party we represent, truly celebrate Canada as a wonderful place to live and celebrate our history.

I just mentioned the Ontario Science Centre as one example of a facility in my riding that is looking forward to sharing in our great history. My riding is as ethnically diverse as any riding in this country. When there are PD school days or when teachers have an opportunity to bring children to the Ontario Science Centre to experience what it is all about, the lineups are unbelievable. They line up around the block to get into this place to see what it has to offer. That is the type of excitement coming from school children of all ethnicities who have come to this country to learn about Canada, to live a better life and to have an opportunity. They are going to go to that facility and celebrate and learn about the history we are all so proud of.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-49. I want to begin by reading the current mission of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Its current mandate is:

...to increase, throughout Canada and internationally, interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of, 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.

It is rather lengthy. It has long sentences with a lot of big words. Nevertheless, I wanted to read it because the debate on the museum centres on its mission. There are may factors at play in this bill.

Nonetheless, today's debate is not on the importance of Canada's history or on the people who may or may not have played a key role in our country and our identity. The debate is on the museum's current mandate and what the government wants to do with it.

Bill C-49 proposes new wording for the mandate. This could have major repercussions on future exhibits at the museum, its priorities, and how all that will be accomplished.

I will also read the mandate proposed in Bill C-49. If the bill passes, the mandate would be:

...to enhance Canadians’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of events, experiences, people and objects that reflect and have shaped Canada’s history and identity, and also to enhance their awareness of world history and cultures.

Does that mandate seem so bad? No, it does not. This new mandate proposed in the bill seems very worthwhile. However, compared to the old mandate, one might be concerned about what the new wording leaves out.

For example, what happened to critical understanding? It is now just understanding. Why is that? What was the rationale behind dropping the word “critical” in the expression “critical understanding”? Honestly, it is a question worth asking.

Is it because of a desire to dismiss criticism of our nation’s history? Perhaps, perhaps not; there is no explanation, yet when it comes to deciding to strike a word from the wording of the museum's mandate, this is no small matter. We need answers and we also need to understand what impact these changes might have on the direction the museum takes.

Another example of something that has been overlooked or distorted is the focus on social history and cultural achievements. The Canadian Museum of Civilization focuses heavily on social history and cultural achievements. It provides a critical perspective by including elements from outside Canada to compare and assess what is observed, take an interest in it, and develop various perspectives that differ from those based on our own Canadian history.

Under the new mandate proposed in Bill C-49, there is a far greater emphasis on the figures who shaped Canada’s history, and a far lesser focus on social history and cultural achievements. It is not as if the focus is no longer there at all. However, what I mean to say is that the wording was chosen for a reason and will have a bearing on how the mandate is interpreted.

It is, therefore, crucial that members be aware of the real impact that the choice of wording will have on the new terms of reference for museum exhibitions, and on the freedom museum curators have to carry out projects that they consider important and relevant.

I would also like to talk about how this bill ended up before us. In fact, the Minister of Canadian Heritage boasted that the museum was his idea. I like the Minister of Heritage. He is, undoubtedly, a very good person and certainly comes up with very creative and ingenious ideas.

However, a museum's orientation should not be determined solely by the revelations of one minister or another. Are they aware that we have museologists, museum experts? Do they know we have historians? University researchers have extensive knowledge in the field and would probably have had a lot to contribute to the development of Bill C-49. However, the minister himself says that changing the museum's name and purpose was his idea. Congratulations!

It seems to me, however, that it is critically important to consult the experts who know about museum administration, exhibition management, the public's interest in the museum's artifacts, and history and how to convey it before announcing this kind of thing. The Minister of Canadian Heritage is not a teacher, museologist or historian, hence the importance of not simply rushing to convert a spontaneous idea into a bill. There were public consultations, but they were held only once the bill was introduced, its wording developed and the museum's new name announced. It was not until the minister's idea materialized that we could tell him what we thought about it.

Will we see any significant changes? Why were these consultations not held before Bill C-49 was introduced? This is unfortunate. It undermines our confidence in this bill and in the approach adopted by the Conservatives. A preliminary consultation would have shown us that they take the opinions of Canadians and museology experts seriously. However, that was not the case, and, in my humble opinion, that undermines the credibility of the process and the very basis for these changes.

When a politician announces changes to the name and purpose of a museum, what is his aim if it is not political? We have challenged many government announcements of this kind because of this partisan angle, and this is another one. This is not necessarily what will happen, but our fears in that regard are definitely warranted.

A newspaper article related the opinion of the previous president and CEO, Victor Rabinovich, who deplores the fact that the name of the Canadian Museum of Civilization has been dropped. In his view, it has been the most successful brand name in Canada's museum sector, "a brand that is known and respected throughout the world." This man, who was a key player at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, has his doubts about the museum's name change and has proposed a compromise. Will he be heard? I very much doubt it, but only time will tell.

Now let us talk about priorities. Right now, the Conservative government is boasting about making Canadian history its priority. However, if this were really the case, would so many archaeologists be laid off and muzzled? Would there be so many archivists and librarians being muzzled and laid off? Would national historic sites be abandoned because they do not have the necessary funding or resources? Parks Canada and Library and Archives Canada are also suffering.

Frankly, if Canadian history were really a priority for the Conservatives, would 80% of the Parks Canada archaeologists be laid off? Would the deputy head of Library and Archives Canada, who was appointed by the Conservatives, be resigning because of spending scandals and the Conservatives’ poor management? All of these issues make us wonder.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my opinion: this debate is not about whether or not we think our country’s history is important, but rather about the museum’s new name and mandate. In fact, we can do both: we can keep our Canadian Museum of Civilization as it is and at the same time find other ways of promoting Canadian history.

Why should we change a winning combination? The Canadian Museum of Civilization is the most successful museum in Canada. Let us think twice before we change it.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put some of the fears of the member opposite to rest. I would encourage her to put those concerns to rest, because in my speech I talked about the staff and the leadership at the Museum of Civilization and what they are going to bring to this new museum in taking it to the next level of its functionality.

We are on the right path in celebrating our history. Not only do I believe it, but I would like to read what a couple of historians have said, not just stakeholders but historians, great Canadian leaders, talking about the museum of history. Michael Bliss, a Canadian historian and award-winning author, said that it is very exciting that Canada’s major museum would now be explicitly focused on Canada’s history. In addition, John English, a former Liberal MP and Trudeau biographer, said, “Congratulations on the Canadian museum of history”. That is a great boost for this museum. Why does the opposition not agree with respected historians such as these?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for trying to put some of my fears to rest. Unfortunately, we are still not on the same wavelength about everything.

First, he spoke about the independence of the museum directors and their leadership. Perhaps the directors will indeed remain independent and will indeed continue to exercise the same level of leadership, but when the very mandate of the museum is rewritten, they are forced, without consultation, to follow the new mandate. According to the new framework, they may enjoy the same level of independence and the same degree of leadership, but when we ourselves define a framework, we cannot then claim that they will remain independent and that they will remain the leaders.

The Minister himself has admitted that it was his idea to change the name of the museum and its mandate. So much for independence and leadership, since the government has just interfered with something very basic: the museum’s mandate.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, in which she talked about priorities.

At present, there are budget cuts coming from everywhere, and yet the minister has decided to spend $25 million to change the name of one of our best museums.

I would like to ask my colleague whether she thinks that Canadian Heritage could have found a better way to spend $25 million for the museum she spoke about, in the field of arts and culture, rather than spending that money to change the name of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, I know he is very involved in his riding. He listens to the residents of his riding, and he probably has a number of suggestions himself about what could be done with the money invested in changing the name of the museum.

I would also like to come back to another funding-related matter. In fact, Bill C-49 also opens the door to private sector support. I am not opposed to private sector support, but how is this going to happen? This is an important question, but it is not actually clear in Bill C-49. Will we have the Molson or Pepsi exhibition hall? We do not know. Will the private sector have more powers and be more in evidence in the museum? If so, in what way? Before supporting a bill like this, it is important to know what tangible form this is going to take.

I am not saying that we oppose investment from the private sector. What I am saying is that the bill is vague in this regard. It is important to ask the question before passing a bill like this.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak in support of Bill C-49, which would establish the Canadian museum of history.

A lot has been said in previous debates about the need to ensure that the research capacity of the new museum would be as strong as the research capacity of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. I think we can all agree that research would be an important aspect of the activities of the new museum and its professional staff.

Research, either ongoing or related to a particular project, is at the heart of what great museums do and it would be at the heart of what the Canadian museum of history would do. In fact, the standing committee heard from Mr. Mark O’Neill, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation, that in consultation with academics across Canada, the corporation has developed a research strategy, the first in its history. Mr. O'Neill indicated that this strategy will guide the work of the museum in its research activities over the next ten years, confirming that the research strategy would be used after the adoption of Bill C-49 and the transformation of the Canadian Museum of Civilization into the Canadian museum of history.

I have confidence in the dedication and professionalism of the museum and its staff. They will continue to do the work of research that needs to be done in order to execute the mandate of the museum and provide a valuable service to the Canadian public.

The museum's research strategy, developed in consultation with experts from within the museum and across the country, will guide research at the new museum. I can assure all hon. members that the absence of the word "critical" in the description of the museum's mandate will have no impact on the research capabilities it would have. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the absence of the word “critical” may be a bit of a relief to some of the museum's researchers. Some members may ask why. Let me ask them how they would define “critical research”? The current text of the Museums Act does not define it. Would anyone suggest that, in the absence of the word in the text proposed by Bill C-49, the highly professional staff undertaking important research at the museum would somehow now abandon their professional ethics and judgment? I certainly do not believe so.

That is not what Bill C-49 intends and it is not what would happen. We would simply be allowing the new museum and the competent professionals who work there to have the freedom and flexibility to determine what research is necessary and how that research should be done.

If we are still concerned about this, let us look at what has been done elsewhere with some of the great museums of the world. The act establishing the Smithsonian Institute in Washington does not mention that research has to be "critical research". It talks about the increase and diffusion of knowledge across the country. Moreover, the word research is not even mentioned in the British Museum Act.

Let us also look at the modern of Te Papa, the groundbreaking museum in New Zealand established in 1992. Its founding legislation simply says that among its principal functions, the museum is to conduct research into any matter relating to its collections or associated areas of interest and to assist others in such research. Does it describe what kind of research? No. It leaves that to the highly trained professionals involved, and that is what the legislation should do.

Enlightenment and communication are central concepts governing the German Historical Museum in Berlin, a museum with impressive permanent and temporary exhibitions whose mandate and activities have been assessed and modernized over time. The absence of the word "research" in its mandate in no way diminishes the ability of the museum to carry out valuable research.

This museum has a long history of research. Research was carried out in the late 1800s, when the museum was part of the Geological Survey of Canada. The names Marius Barbeau and Diamond Jenness come to mind, both researchers who were known and respected around the world. Research was carried out when the museum was called the Museum of Man. The names Dr. J.V. Wright and Dr. William Taylor come to mind. In fact, Dr. Taylor, an archaeologist, was the director of the Museum of Man for many years.

Research continues to be carried out by the Museum of Civilization. I note that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage heard testimony last week from Dr. David Morrison, director of research and content for the new Canadian history hall. The research strategy recently developed by the Canadian Museum of Civilization is evidence of the central role that research will play in the Canadian museum of history. The research strategy includes subjects such as the changing north and aboriginal histories.

In Bill C-49, nothing will diminish the role of research at the Canadian museum of history. The capacity and power to conduct research can be found in clause 9 of this bill, just as it can be found in the power and capacity sections of the Museums Act. The absence of the word “research” in the purpose of the new museum does not reflect a disregard for the research function of the new museum. It merely reflects modern drafting standards, standards that define a broad overarching purpose, in other words, what the museum can do, complemented by a more detailed capacities and powers statement, in other words, how the museum will carry out that purpose.

In closing, I know that we are all anxious to ensure that the proud tradition of research in the Canadian Museum of Civilization will not be diminished in any way by Bill C-49 and the establishment of the Canadian museum of history. I know that this will not happen because I have faith in the professionalism and expertise of the museum and its staff.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Apparently, he is very interested in Canadian history, and I congratulate him on that. It is very important.

However, I wonder what reason there is for changing a winning formula. The Canadian Museum of Civilization is the most popular museum in Canada at present. It is absurd, to me, to want to give it a new purpose, because it is the most popular museum. If we change its name and its purpose, it may no longer be the most popular museum. Perhaps the strength of this museum, and what makes it popular, are precisely its present name and mandate.

But let us go further and ask a few questions. The Canadian Museum of Civilization already has a reputation of its own. If we change its name, then we are going to have to make sure that people know the new name and the new direction.

Does the member know how much money will be allocated simply to changing the name and the mandate? I am not necessarily talking about the money that will be invested in new exhibition halls, for example, just the amount of money that will be needed to make the museum known with its new name and its new mandate.

Perhaps the member can quote me some figures.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question about why we want to change what is already working.

All we have to do is look to the south, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. That museum is referred to as America's attic. This would be a version of that in Canada, where we can celebrate what is Canada, what our people have done and what our achievements are. Not only would we be able to celebrate that here in Ottawa as the museum currently does, we would be able to partner with smaller museums from coast to coast to coast.

As anyone involved in museums knows, most of their artifacts and displays are kept in storage. We have literally a treasure trove of great artifacts and displays in storage 90% of the time. This would free those artifacts up. They would be able to travel around Canada and smaller museums from coast to coast to coast would be able to use these displays to attract new people.

Why would we change it? We would be broadening the scope. We would be using this initiative to support small museums from coast to coast to coast.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked with the member for Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley repeatedly. He is very learned and a former educator. I would like him to talk about how this would help educators learn more about Canada's history.

In addition to the expansion to the museum, there are some other announcements we have made. The Canada history fund, for example, which will be administered by Canada's National History Society, will honour outstanding students and teachers; the museums assistance program will bring some of these exhibitions to different parts of the country; and the virtual museum of Canada includes a teachers' centre.

Could the member please describe how this could be used as a much better learning tool for students so they can learn about our history?

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I was a teacher for many years. My background was in history and social studies as a teacher, an educational administrator and someone involved in curriculum development.

One of the things that concerns me greatly in Canada is that currently, only three of 10 provinces require Canadian students to take a history course to graduate high school. The delivery of education is a provincial jurisdiction, but that concerns me as a former history teacher. That means that a lot of Canadians are graduating, and have been graduating, and have not had to take a history course. All the provinces offer history as a course, but students are not required to take those courses to graduate. I think that is a shame.

As a federal government, we can encourage the provinces to deliver some history in their curricula by developing, as was said, virtual online courses for teachers so that they have the resources they need to include this in the curriculum.

If our small museums, as I mentioned, had these artifacts and displays, they could really celebrate what is great about this nation. Those artifacts could be moved around the country. Teachers from coast to coast to coast would be able to take their classes to a local museum.

It is awfully hard for a teacher in the Yukon to take a class all the way to Ottawa to see the Museum of Civilization the way it is now. This would enable that museum to send its artifacts and displays all the way to the Yukon through some of the funding we would allocate for this project. This would free up those artifacts and displays, and that is great for education in Canada.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to oppose Bill C-49 to amend the Museums Act.

The purpose of Bill C-49 is to refocus and reposition the Canadian Museum of Civilization and amend the Museums Act to change the name and legislative mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. Since 1990, the museum's mandate has been:

...to increase, throughout Canada and internationally, interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of and appreciation and respect for human cultural achievements and human behaviour...

Bill C-49 changes this mandate. In concrete terms, the changes to the museum's mandate will remove the phrase “critical understanding” and replace it with a general idea of understanding, and replace “human cultural achievements and human behaviour” with a simplistic concept, “Canada's history and identity”.

In short, these changes could detract from the diversity of the experiences that characterize our history, for instance, the effects of colonization on first nations, gender inequality, marginalization based on ethnicity, and so on.

In addition, the sudden and surreptitious closure of the Canadian Postal Museum shows a lack of transparency—yes, once again—even though the mail is an integral part of our history. While the changes set out in Bill C-49 might seem trivial, this closure and the Conservatives' approach to Canadian history make me wary of other nasty surprises.

I believe this museum has a winning formula. It is often a must-see destination on any school trip to Ottawa. This museum touches the imagination of all of the youth who visit it. I am thinking of the Canadian Children's Museum, in particular, whose central theme is “the great adventure”. This museum gives younger visitors an opportunity to travel the world. Exhibit themes promote intercultural understanding. The Canadian Children’s Museum has grown steadily since its inception.

The museum has welcomed over 8 million visitors since 1989, with an average annual attendance of 500,000. It is committed to the promotion of intercultural understanding among children and improving cultural, social, and educational opportunities for children. I recall having visited the museum myself on many occasions and having a remarkable experience every time.

Looking beyond the Canadian Children's Museum, the Canadian Museum of Civilization is the most popular museum in Canada. That is quite something. I wonder why the Conservatives are changing its mandate. Is it really necessary to change a winning formula? What if I were the owner of an ice cream shop, chocolate was my bestselling flavour and then one day I decided to make strawberry ice cream instead. I think that that would be a very poor marketing decision and that I would be taking a risk.

Dr. Lorne Holyoak, president of the Canadian Anthropology Society, said:

You’re taking a Rolls-Royce, and you’re chopping off the roof and tearing out the backseats so you can turn it into a pick-up truck...It would be a terrible mistake with long-term consequences.

Once again, I believe that the government is making decisions without thinking about the consequences. I believe that this is part of an effort to promote Conservative symbols: attachment to the monarchy, promotion of Conservative values, and so forth.

Furthermore, the changes will be costly. The administrative cost of changing the name and logo is estimated at $500,000 on top of the more than $400,000 that has already been spent. It makes no sense. I wonder who this will really benefit. It seems to me that there are more important priorities to be dealt with.

The private sector will be solicited for its support. We are not against involving the private sector but, in recent years, things have gotten out of hand at federal museums. For example, almost all exhibit halls at the Canadian Museum of Nature have been named after sponsors in the oil and mineral sectors and, in 2011, an exhibit at the Canada Science and Technology Museum was changed as a result of external pressure.

Of course, private funding is useful for the development of museums, but it must not influence their content, especially when it comes to a national history museum.

When I think of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, my mind turns to the hundreds of thousands of children who go on school excursions to the museum every year. My son has visited the museum several times with his school. He always comes home with lots of stories. The Canadian Museum of Civilization is a gold mine of interesting information for young people of all ages, and for adults, too.

The other important thing that disappoints me about this bill is the change in direction of the museum’s mission. In fact, the proposal is to remove research and collections from the museum’s mission, which were contained in the first paragraph of its initial mandate.

The staff who work in the research and collections departments will be “reorganized”, a term that is not really reassuring to museum employees. It will mean that research and collections will take a back seat to exhibition planning and will no longer be based on the work and priorities of museologists. This represents a major shift in the museum’s mission.

The government has no business sticking its nose in these matters. Politicians are neither historians nor researchers, nor are they museologists. Perhaps some members are, but they are a rare commodity. The Conservatives are the ones thinking about making these changes. They are meddling in the museum's affairs.

Why not leave it up to the museologists and their interlocutors, including the first nations, to define the museum's mandate and content.

I know how important it is to have employees who are motivated and passionate about their work to present the museum.

In my region, the Forges du Saint-Maurice are grappling with major cutbacks. This year, tourists and visitors to the forges will no longer get to enjoy a dynamic presentation by guide–interpreters. Instead, they will have to read signs set up to replace staff who have been laid off. It is really sad to see a historic and tourist site of such great significance lose its value because the government is imposing its own ideology.

I would also like to draw members’ attention to another important problem arising from these changes. The bill was introduced in the House of Commons in November 2012. We have not yet had third reading in the House. It has not yet gone to the Senate. Yet I noticed on the weekend that the minister was already making announcements as if Bill C-49 had received royal assent.

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages announced a partnership agreement between the Manitoba Museum and the future Canadian museum of history. I repeat: the future Canadian museum of history. It has not yet been approved by parliamentarians.

We in the NDP want the museum's current mission to be maintained. We are asking that the budget proposed for this transformation be invested instead in a Canada-wide project to preserve Canadian history.

The government has to stop doing away with things that enhance our knowledge of history, in particular research and the protection of historic sites.

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the speech by my colleague opposite. I can tell that a good deal of thought was put into it, and I appreciate that within the context of this debate.

It is a simple question I have. We have a specific piece of legislation here. It is not long. It is a new mandate we are offering for the Canadian museum of history. What is it in the new mandate the member opposite is opposed to? What exactly is it in that mandate? Which word would she take out? What words would she add? What is wrong with the new mandate being proposed in this legislation? Please be specific.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his question.

I was not part of the committee that examined this bill, but I can say that my colleagues worked very hard on it. A lot of thought went into our amendments. In fact, there were 19 amendments proposed.

It is not rare for us to work hard in committee, any committee, and for us to propose amendments and for them not to be considered. It is really important that we work together. Too often, we propose things and we are not listened to.

Actions speak louder than words and we saw that in the 2012 budget.

The government has taken $29 million away from Parks Canada. Parks Canada is responsible for 168 historic sites all across Canada. It is important to preserve these historic sites, because they help with archival research and protection. This is what enriches us, and taking money away like this is like taking a step backward, taking us in the wrong direction and to the wrong place.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have many validators for our position. My colleague quoted, in particular, Dr. Lorne Holyoak.

We also have the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Anthropology Society, Canadian Archaeological Association. They have said, “On behalf of our respective associations, we write to express our serious concern regarding the lack of extensive or systematic engagement of the professional community”.

We have Victor Rabinovitch, president and CEO of the museum for 11 years. George MacDonald, founding director from 1983 to 1988, said, “I was shocked to hear”, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, “claim that the Aboriginal Peoples are excluded from the displays in the Canada Hall”.

The Canadian Association of Universities also backs our position.

There has to be a good reason why these associations are all backing our position, could the member expand on that?

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is true, we could go back and forth with quotes from people who were at committee and who were involved, stakeholders in the museum, archaeological departments, but what really bothers people is not knowing. The question is this. Do we have trust in the government? Can we trust it?

My constituents do not have any trust in the government. It is a government engulfed in scandals with the Senate. It allows $3.1 billion to go missing. It is a government that makes changes in omnibus budget bills and years later we are still finding out details. Our children are going to be affected by these changes. Therefore, do we have that trust? I do not think there is enough trust in the government.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services]

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages introduced a series of new measures to make our history more accessible to all Canadians, particularly our youth.

This announcement exemplifies the government's commitment and dedication to helping Canadians learn more about their history. Following the introduction of Bill C-49, the Canadian Museum of History Act, which is designed to change the name and mandate of the current Canadian Museum of Civilization, our government is forging ahead. It is introducing new measures that will help us to achieve our goal of promoting knowledge of Canadian history.

Included in these new measures is the creation of the Canada History Fund, which represents an investment of $12 million. This new fund comprises several elements.

First, the Government of Canada History Awards will be created to honour outstanding secondary school students and teachers who show an interest in Canadian history.

Second, the Speakers Bureau of the Memory Project, administered by the Historica-Dominion Institute, will see its funding doubled to allow thousands of students to meet with veterans and serving soldiers in the classroom.

Third, the Canada History Fund will increase funding to the Historica-Dominion Institute to create two new Heritage Minutes per year between now and 2017.

Fourth, references such as the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and The Canadian Encyclopedia will receive enhanced financial support to allow for additional Canadian history content. These two invaluable online resources help teachers with their in-class work. This support is important for those initiatives.

For example, this is what Anthony Wilson-Smith, president of the Historica-Dominion Institute, said:

History teaches us how we got to where we are as a country, along with a sense of where we are headed. These new measures give Canadians important new tools to discuss and debate those lessons from our past. We at the Historica–Dominion Institute fully support these important initiatives.

It is clear that the government is honouring its commitment to promote Canada's identity, but that is not all. Starting this year, July 1 to 7 will become Canada History Week.

That week, starting on Canada Day, will be an excellent opportunity for Canadians to explore their country’s history through activities organized at the regional and national levels. We will also provide information on activities organized by history lovers as part of national and regional Canada Day celebrations.

They preserve our heritage, shape our collective memory and stimulate our sense of belonging to Canadian society. However, Canada does not have a national museum offering a detailed narrative of our history. That is why our government is preparing to establish the Canadian museum of history. This future national museum will create partnerships with regional museums to form a network.

The objective is to expand access to the national collection and increase its circulation across the country. In this way, Canadian museums, both large and small, will be able to exchange exhibitions with the Canadian museum of history and access some of the three million artifacts from those collections.

An investment of time and money is obviously required to move exhibitions and artifacts. The third measure announced last week is designed specifically to enhance the capability of certain Department of Canadian Heritage programs to do just that.

The Museums Assistance Program, for example, provides financial support for the work of Canada's museums and museum sector. We will ensure that this program, which facilitates Canadians' access to their heritage and history, plays a greater role.

The Exhibition Circulation Fund, one of the program's five components, assists museums in paying the costs involved in hosting travelling exhibitions. Those exhibitions may come from museums in other provinces or territories or simply from a federal heritage institution such as the Canadian museum of history. For a museum, these expenses usually include packing, transportation and installation costs, special costs associated with security and additional insurance premiums as well as general promotional expenses. As I said, the costs involved in moving exhibitions and artifacts are often too high for small history museums. We will therefore ensure that the Museums Assistance Program enables museums to borrow artifacts from the national collection of the Canadian museum of history to enhance their exhibitions. This activity was not previously funded. In addition, to help the smallest institutions, financial assistance may be provided to cover up to 100% of eligible costs for museums with operating budgets of less than $500,000 a year.

Mr. Speaker, do you know there are over 1,700 Canadian museums in this situation? We are also going to make sure that the Museum Assistance Program facilitates the creation and sharing of exhibits about history by eliminating the requirement that exhibits circulate outside their province or territory of origin. This will help to encourage the circulation of historical exhibits to multiple towns in the same province or territory. By expanding eligibility and increasing the percentage of funding granted to small museums, these measures will increase the number of travelling historical exhibitions. Canadians will thus have better access to their history.

In closing, as Canada’s 150th birthday approaches, Canadians deserve a national museum of the history of Canada that will put their treasures on display for the entire world and tell Canadians about their collective history. Canada needs a national institution that tells its story. Canadian museums need to be encouraged and supported in creating a national network that will give all Canadians the opportunity to explore their history. That is what the government of Canada is proposing to us here today.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

I would like to ask him a question. I do not doubt the importance of the history of Canada or the appropriateness of including a little more of it when it comes to teaching history and the associated exhibitions. What I wonder about is how we should proceed. Why are the name and mandate of the most popular museum in Canada being changed? I find this striking, and I am wondering whether this museum will still be the most popular one, with the highest visitation, if the government changes its mandate and name.

What is even more disturbing is that this idea does not actually come from a museologist or a museum director. It was the minister's idea. He undoubtedly has good ideas, but I find it worrisome for a politician to be proposing a new name and a new mandate for the museum.

Does my colleague know whom the minister consulted before drafting Bill C-49? He has said it was his idea, but apart from that, did he consult the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, stakeholders in the Outaouais region, historians and museologists?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to underscore the leadership of the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages and congratulate him on his initiative to establish this national Canadian museum, so important for the future.

I would like to come back to the mandate, because I think it is an important point. The Museum of Civilization Corporation will have new mandate that focuses on Canada’s history and identity, and its name will be changed to the Canadian Museum of History, a name that clearly communicates its role.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague wanted to know who the Minister consulted before making his decision.

I find it interesting, particularly because one of the questions that we often ask the members of the government concerns why we disagree with a position that is so popular with Canadians. However, not one of the members can tell me whether their own constituents have contacted them to ask them to change the name and the mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which from now on will be called the Canadian Museum of History.

I would like to know what consultations were carried out by the minister before he arrived at this decision. I would also like to know why the Conservatives do not all agree on whether it was the minister’s decision or whether the decision was the result of many requests from constituents.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question and tell him that this kind of decision is certainly taken in consultation with many Canadians.

We must remember that it is important to support the government’s investment, because it ensures that Canadians from all across the country will have an opportunity to learn more about history and about their own history, Canada’s history. The new museum will sign agreements with museums all across Canada, in order to be able to travel throughout Canada, to give smaller museums an opportunity to display the collections, and to provide all Canadians with an opportunity to see and admire these collections to learn more about our history.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his comments on the Canadian Museum of History.

It was a good idea to reinforce the message that it involves not only a name change for the museum, but also programs that will be travelling to other museums.

He talked about Canada history week, for instance, and the Canada history fund. It is therefore $25 million for the change to the museum, but it is $12 million per year for all these programs.

Could he tell us more about how these programs will go hand in hand with the changes to the museum, so that our history can be told all across the country?

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his important and insightful question.

I would like to remind him that in terms of increasing Canadians' knowledge about our history, only four provinces, namely Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and Quebec, require students to take a history course to graduate, and that over 80% of Canadians failed the Historica-Dominion Institute's basic history quiz. Fully 78% of Canadians believe that learning more about the history of Canada would be a significant factor in strengthening their attachment to Canada. A survey supported this finding.

I think we are on the right track. If we want to know where we are going, in our country, we have to know where we come from.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, many in this House know that I am passionate about Canadian history, so I am pleased to rise to speak about Bill C-49, a bill to create a new Canadian museum of history.

The government believes in our national museums, and we recognize the tremendous value they hold for all Canadians.

However, while our national institutions do magnificent work as guardians of our heritage, not one is dedicated to telling the full story of our country.

That is why we are making a one-time investment of $25 million to establish the Canadian Museum of History. This funding is not new money, but rather comes from the existing budget for Canadian Heritage. This new national museum will provide an opportunity for us to learn more about our rich Canadian history.

The Canadian museum of history will grow out of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The government is refreshing the mandate and the orientation of the museum. Just as schools modernize the curriculum in accordance with new events and discoveries, the new Canadian museum of history will present a comprehensive story of this country, the best country in the world.

Change is not new to this institution. The history of the Canadian Museum of Civilization began as far back as 1856, with the establishment of a museum by the Geological Survey of Canada. With roots stretching back 157 years, the Museum of Civilization is one of North America's oldest cultural institutions.

As staff of the survey fanned out across the country, they gathered cultural information and artifacts as well as carrying out their main task in geology and science.

Ever since its beginnings from a modest collection the museum has been evolving. Indeed, its ability to adapt and evolve is what has made it so successful.

Just think, in 1862, the Geological Survey of Canada mounted its first ethnological exhibit, a single display case containing first people's stone implements, stone pipes and a few fragments of pottery. Today the Canadian Museum of Civilization welcomes over 1.6 million visitors, on average, each year. It houses permanent galleries that explore 20,000 years of human history. Its program of special exhibitions expands on Canadian themes and explores other cultures and civilizations, past and present.

The museum is also a major research institution, with staff who are leading experts in Canadian history, archeology, ethnology and culture.

In 1968, and with a new mandate, the National Museum of Man was established as part of a group known as the National Museums of Canada. Almost 20 years later, in 1986, it was renamed the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and it subsequently moved to Gatineau, into the fabulous building designed by the illustrious architect, Douglas Cardinal. The building itself illustrates the history of the museum, with a structure that suggests fluidity and flexibility.

The transformation of the Canadian Museum of Civilization will take place over the next five years, and will provide a number of opportunities to celebrate Canada's history in the lead-up to 2017.

At present, the museum has four permanent exhibition galleries: the Grand Hall, the First Peoples Hall, the Canada Hall and Face to Face, the Canadian Personalities Hall. The new permanent gallery would replace both the Canada Hall and the Canadian Personalities Hall.

More than 4,000 square metres, or 43,000 square feet, of exhibition space would be renovated to create a permanent exhibition space presenting a national historical narrative. This space would feature the largest and most comprehensive exhibition on Canadian history ever developed. It would be the place where Canadians could go to retrace their national journey and find national treasures. It would be where Canadians could learn about the people, events and themes that have shaped our country's development and have defined the Canadian experience, including key events and episodes from our past. It would tell some of the greatest Canadian stories.

The museum has carried out a series of consultations, online and in person, to solicit the views of Canadians on the stories, people, themes and events that they want to see in the new museum. More than 20,000 Canadians contributed, expressing what they expect of the museum in general, and particularly in the new Canadian history hall. Here are some highlights:

Canadians want our museums to be comprehensive, frank and fair about our presentation of their history.

They want us to examine both the good and the bad from our past.

They want the museum to foster a sense of national pride, without ignoring our failings, mistakes and controversies.

They want to see various viewpoints and voices, recognizing that people and events can be interpreted in different ways through different eyes.

I am delighted that the new exhibit space will feature national treasures such as explorer Samuel de Champlain's astrolabe, my hero, the “last spike” from the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Maurice Richard's number nine Habs jersey.

At the same time, the president and CEO of the museum has said that the new exhibitions will deal with Canada's history “warts and all”. That is an important point. Many episodes in our history are critically important, such as the internment of Japanese Canadians and the situation of our aboriginal people in residential schools. Canadians can learn so much from our history.

At present, there is no mention in the Canada Hall of the flag debate or the Constitution, the wartime internment of Ukrainian or Japanese Canadians or Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. There is no meaningful reference to the Great Depression and the conscription crisis. Most important, the Canada Hall does not begin with first peoples but with the arrival of Europeans in the 11th century. Clearly, this needs to change.

The Museum of Civilization tells the story of human history and identity in Canada. The new Canadian museum of history will be the next phase of that story, helping define us as citizens of Canada and the world.

Why does our government feel that it is so important to focus the interest on Canada's collective history?

In 2017, the best country in the world will celebrate its sesquicentennial, which is 150 years. In the lead up to that celebration, it is important that Canadians know about, appreciate and celebrate our history.

A new national museum devoted to our history will highlight our achievements as a nation and help Canadians learn more about our rich and diverse history.

I hope that as many Canadians as possible will celebrate the sesquicentennial in the freshly renovated exhibition halls of the new Canadian museum of history.

I hope all of my colleagues in the House will lend their support to Bill C-49.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your kind attention, and I assure you that I will entertain my colleagues' questions with the same respect.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, last week I was quite fortunate to take part in the debate on Bill C-49.

We can criticize how much money was spent on changing the name of the museum, a change that no one asked for except the Minister of Canadian Heritage.

We can also talk about the changes to the museum's mandate, but I think this is also part of the Conservative trend. I am quite concerned about this trend because it seeks to promote a history of the military that is based on military events, and of the Queen and the monarchy, without any real regard for other aspects of Canada's history.

Last week, my colleague from Hamilton Mountain asked why we would not promote the history of women in Canada. The parliamentary secretary said, “I have never heard such nonsense”.

You can read it in Hansard. He said it was garbage. I was quite shocked.

Does the Conservative member opposite believe it is important to promote the history of women?

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I very much appreciate the hon. member's question.

In listening to the debate this afternoon and this evening, I see that a number of opposition members are wondering whether Canadians were consulted on this. In the presentation I just gave, I pointed out that we consulted more than 20,000 Canadians. As far as all the aspects of history are concerned, hon. members can rest assured that the Canadian museum of history will incorporate each aspect, including aspects that some in the past might have wanted to keep hidden away.

Now, I want to challenge the hon. member because she says we are only interested in military history. In my presentation I did not utter a single word about the role of the military. Nonetheless, I do hope this will be part of history, the good and bad alike.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, our national museums are of critical importance, which Canadians will acknowledge. Winnipeg, in fact, is going to be getting its first national museum, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. We are anticipating that this wonderful world-class museum will be coming to Winnipeg relatively soon, in the next year or maybe a year and a bit. It goes back to Paul Martin, Reg Alcock and others, and in particular, the Asper family, who played a critical role in ensuring that the rest of Canada could benefit by having strong national museums outside of the national capital.

I realize that this is a bit off topic, but it is important to recognize how important national museums are to all Canadians. I wonder if the member would like to comment on what will be our newest museum, which will be located in Winnipeg. It is something about which many Manitobans have a high sense of pride in terms of those who made it happen and in terms of being the city that will host this world-class national museum.

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that my friend from across the way had such a thoughtful question. It might have been interesting, as he added to the list of Liberal icons, if he had acknowledged that, in fact, the people he named, especially those who sat on the Liberal benches, did not get it done. That is another thing they did not get done.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which is going to open imminently in Winnipeg, was actually put on the boards by this government, which dedicated several hundred million dollars to get it done.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the themes that has emerged from opposition members has been this notion that somehow perhaps the minister will be writing the storyboards at the new Canadian history museum. Could the hon. member, who gave a great presentation today in the House, comment on that and set the record straight?

[Royal Galipeau, Conservative, Ottawa—Orléans, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the House and all four, or now five, of our viewers watching television tonight will realize that there is no political interference in the way that history is presented across the country in all our national museums, and that will not change. There will be a greater focus on Canadian history. There will be a greater investment in Canadian history. Canadians, who are thirsty for their story from coast to coast to coast, will bond together and get it done.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-49, the purpose of which is to change the name and mandate of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in order to establish the Canadian museum of history.

In order to express our strong opposition to this bill, I would like to begin by reminding the House that this initiative is part of the Conservatives' broader plan to promote certain symbols that they cherish: the monarchy, military values, excessive celebrations of long-ago wars, and so on.

It is also important to note that their version of Canadian history does not include the important history of women, first nations and other histories that are also part of our national history.

Indeed, what we are seeing is a deliberate attempt to rewrite the Canadian identity. In that regard, I fully agree with the Canadian Association of University Teachers, whose position is as follows:

...[this initiative] fits into a pattern of politically motivated heritage policy...[it] reflects a new use of history to support the government's political agenda—that is, the evocation of particular features of our past as worthy of official endorsement and promotion. This is a highly inappropriate use of our national cultural institutions, which should stand apart from any particular government agenda and should be run instead according to sound professional standards. Our past should not be a political plaything.

George MacDonald, the first director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, has expressed strong opposition to changing the museum's name and mandate. He sees this as part of an attempt to impose the Conservative brand. According to him, no one in the museum community wanted a museum of history rather than a museum of civilization.

Similarly, another former director and CEO of the museum, Victor Rabinovitch, lamented the loss of the name Canadian Museum of Civilization. He described it as the most successful brand in the Canadian museums sector. He said it was a well-known brand that was respected by everyone. I would add that abandoning the name Canadian Museum of Civilization is as absurd as abandoning the brand Radio-Canada.

In addition to changing the name of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Bill C-49 contains a number of disturbing amendments to the organization’s mission. For example, the international mandate of the museum will be a thing of the past. Rather than focusing on Canada and the rest of the world as a whole, the museum will concentrate solely on Canadians, thereby stripping the museum of its mandate to share our history with the world.

In fact, this example truly captures the essence of the Conservative brand. Since the Conservatives came into power, Canada has been on a downward spiral in terms of its influence on the world stage: Canada is no longer seeking a seat on the UN Security Council, the international mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada has been gutted and Canada no longer has a shred of credibility when it comes to combating climate change. The list goes on.

Unfortunately, with the Conservative Party at the helm, Canada has become the laughing stock of the international community and is neglecting the important role that culture plays in Canadian diplomacy.

Moreover, Bill C-49 proposes to reorganize the tasks of establishing and maintaining a collection of artifacts for research and posterity. From now on, rather than being based on the work and priorities of museum professionals, research and collections will take a backseat to exhibition planning.

However, the most serious problem with C-49 is that it prescribes a minimalist approach to the museum based on events, experiences, people and objects. This is a decision that would normally be left in the hands of museum professionals and subject to a debate among historians and the academic community.

I find it worrisome and appalling that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is riding roughshod over the choices of museum professionals. To begin with, politics has no business in museums and, secondly, before thinking about lecturing Quebeckers on history, the Conservatives should start by familiarizing themselves with the history of Quebec.

I am thinking particularly of the Minister of Canadian Heritage who, when he appeared on Tout le monde en parle, was unable to identify Guy Laliberté, Félix Leclerc and Robert Lepage.

I think it is a shame that exhibitions on different cultures and civilizations will take a backseat in the future. The museum used to focus heavily on transmitting an understanding of various cultures and civilizations. The museum had exhibitions that varied from Haitian voodoo to ancient Egypt. Many exhibitions traveled and gave the Canadian Museum of Civilization its international reputation. Moreover, these exhibitions attracted a great many visitors.

By refocusing the museum's mandate on Canada, the number of visitors could drop and we are definitely losing a cultural asset.

As Dr. Lorn Holyoak, president of the Canadian Anthropology Society said:

You’re taking a Rolls-Royce, and you’re chopping off the roof and tearing out the backseats so you can turn it into a pick-up truck. Canadians deserve an excellent Canadian history museum, and the Canadian Anthropology Society supports the creation of a museum of Canadian history, but we do not support the gutting of, as has already been said, the crown jewel in our collection of museums. It would be a terrible mistake with long-term consequences.

I note with some concern that the government has announced that there will be activities to solicit support from the private sector. I have nothing against the private sector. However, I am simply concerned that it will dictate the content of exhibits.

In recent years, some things have gotten out of hand in federal museums. I am referring mainly to the Canadian Museum of Nature, where almost all the exhibit halls were sponsored by oil companies after a former executive with Talisman Energy was appointed to the museum's board of directors. It is rather ridiculous. Members will also recall that the Canada Science and Technology Museum changed an exhibit as a result of pressure from a mining company that sponsored it.

In the case of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the historical and archival documentation plays an important role in determining economic rights, particularly of first nations, and it must not be subject to pressure based on commercial interests.

To sum up, private funding can help museum development, but I have difficulty understanding how we can ensure that private sponsors will not influence the content.

While the Conservatives are busy remodelling the Canadian Museum of Civilization so they can spread their propaganda, I lament the fact that they are attacking other important institutions that are guardians of our collective memory. I am thinking in particular of the cuts to Library and Archives Canada, where more than 50% of digitization staff have been laid off. I am also thinking of reductions to document preservation and conservation staff and cuts to inter-library loans, which enabled all Canadians to access their national library's collections.

We could also talk about the $29 million that was cut from Parks Canada in 2012. Parks Canada is an important vehicle for our historical consciousness. That organization manages 167 national historic sites in Canada. More than 80% of Parks Canada's archaeologists and curators have lost their jobs as a result of cuts in recent years.

My colleague from Québec eloquently demonstrated the impact of those cuts on Quebec and its regions when we learned that most of the activities of the Quebec City service centre would be consolidated in Ottawa. Laurence Ferland, former president of Université Laval's archaeology students' association, said that, in addition to harming university research in Quebec City, the cuts would undermine the preservation of monuments and the transmission of history.

When I see these cuts hitting institutions responsible for showcasing our heritage, I find it hard to believe the minister when he says he is changing the Canadian Museum of Civilization to improve the dissemination of Canadian history.

To summarize, we are strongly opposed to this bill, which seeks to completely alter the Canadian Museum of Civilization for partisan purposes. We demand that the museum's current mandate be maintained. Canadian history must have a showcase and be promoted, but that is what the Canadian Museum of Civilization already does. We do not need to change the act or the museum's purpose to do it.

We also believe that the task of determining the content of the Canadian Museum of Civilization must be left to museology professionals, not politicians.

Lastly, the government must stop making cuts to the source of our historical knowledge, particularly archival research and the protection of historic sites.

Instead of spending large amounts of money to reshape the museum's mandate, the government would have done better to invest in a Canada-wide project to preserve Canadian history, archives and historic sites and support small museum institutions, particularly with a view to Canada's 150th anniversary.

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

Mr. Speaker, I wonder what purpose continuing debate would be, since the NDP members still, after months and months, have not read the bill.

The member said it has no international mandate. I will read just the tail end of the mandate. It says: “...shaped Canada’s history and identity, and also to enhance their awareness of world history and cultures”.

Further down, it talks about research. Proposed paragraph 9(1)(f) talks about research. Proposed paragraph 9(1)(h) talks about international exhibits.

The member talked further about leaving it up to the researchers and professionals. This is a quote from the president of the museum. He said:

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.

Dr. Morrison has a Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Toronto. He is very well written. He has over 20 years of experience in doing this, so clearly either the New Democrats have not read the bill or they just do not care about the things that are actually going on and are happy to just continue to tell Canadians mistruths about what is happening.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with this bill, in fact. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary has read the bill he is defending.

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary if he has actually consulted Canadians and the following groups: historians, first nations, stakeholders in the Outaouais region and the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage within the context of its study on Canada's 150th anniversary.

I would like to hear the parliamentary secretary name a single historian or a single first nations group that he consulted before this bill was drafted.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, one thing the government does not seem to understand is the lack of confidence this side of the House has in the government's decisions, such as those proposed in Bill C-49. All of the Conservatives' decisions are aimed at redefining Canadian culture and symbols. We see rebranding the Canadian Museum of Civilization as the Canadian Museum of History as another step in that direction.

People have spoken about the lack of consultation. Our heritage critic put his finger on the problem when he spoke about the consultations, which were practically non-existent or done simply to get them out of the way. The consultations were done quickly.

Does my colleague feel that our opposition here stems from our lack of confidence in this bill and in the decisions the Conservatives are making about Canadian history and culture, over and above the changes to the mandate and the other options the Conservatives could have chosen for promoting Canadian history?

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague just raised a very important point. Bill C-49 has been surrounded by a lack of transparency and consultation throughout this entire process.

I know that my NDP colleagues worked very hard in committee to listen to the witnesses and consult Canadians, but this Conservative government did not accept any of the amendments the NDP suggested in committee.

The Conservative government is lacking transparency and refuses to be accountable to Canadians, which undermines the parliamentary process and the work we are doing here in the House of Commons.

The House resumed consideration of 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, as reported without amendment from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

Canadian Museum of History Act

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak in support of Bill C-49, which would amend the Museums Act to create the Canadian museum of history.

I would like to focus my remarks on one of the issues that came up during consideration of the bill by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. The issue was the reference in clause 9(1)(c) of the bill to the authority of the new museum to dispose of items in its collection. The bill lists a number of ways in which the museum could dispose of an item in its collection. It would be able to sell an item, exchange it, give it away, destroy it, or otherwise dispose of it.

During deliberations by the committee, concerns were raised about the inclusion of the word “destroy”. In this section of the bill, I would like to take a closer look at this and see if I can allay any outstanding concerns that anyone might have about why it is desirable, even necessary, for the new museum to have that authority over its collection.

The first thing I must point out is that this clause does not represent any change to the powers all other national museums have, and have always had, under the Museums Act. As it currently stands, all of the institutions covered by the Museums Act have the power to sell, exchange, give away, destroy or otherwise dispose of items in their collections. Therefore, Bill C-49 would seem to give the new Canadian museum of history the same power over its collection that all of the existing national museums, including the Canadian Museum of Civilization, already have. This would be nothing new.

I would like to reassure the House that this power is not only common for any professional museum, but also absolutely necessary, for a number of reasons. As I have indicated, destruction is only one of a number of ways in which a museum may dispose of something in its collection. I should point out that it is actually fairly uncommon for a museum to dispose of anything in its collection through any means. The fact that museums collect and preserve artifacts on behalf of the public is a duty that museum professionals take very seriously. The dedicated professional staff of Canada's national museums take that duty very seriously. However, the authority to dispose of something in their collections, even if seldom used, is a very important option to have.

A museum might determine that an object may no longer be relevant to its mandate. This is most often the case in some museums that were formed many years ago. As the museum evolves, it may be determined that another museum might be a more appropriate place for a particular artifact. In these cases, the object might be given to another institution in the form of an exchange or gift.

As museum collections grow, it falls to museums to ensure that their financial resources are spent wisely. Therefore, in some cases where a museum has duplicates, it only makes sense not to utilize precious resources to maintain a duplicate object. However, duplicates must always be dealt with in an ethical way. That is why the Museums Act always specifies that any revenue that results from disposal must be used to further the museum's collection.

I would also like to address concerns expressed by some members over the authority of the museums to destroy an object in their collections. I would like to cite the code of ethics of the International Council of Museums. The code of ethics states the following:

Each museum should have a policy defining authorised methods for permanently removing an object from the collections through donation, transfer, exchange, sale, repatriation, or destruction...

Therefore, the International Council of Museums acknowledges that a museum may ethically resort to the destruction of an item in its collection.

This same idea is reflected in the ethical guidelines of the Canadian Museums Association. This guide states:

Occasionally, museums may reasonably plan to destroy or alter objects or parts thereof for research or other purposes; however, the museum’s overriding responsibility is for the wise use of the collection material, with the greatest long- term benefit.

Let me stress that any decision to dispose of an item in the museum's collection and the most appropriate means for their disposal, is made on a case-by-case basis by highly professional museum staff. They have the responsibility to manage their collections in a professional, ethical manner. That is what the national museums already do and that is what the new Canadian museum of history would continue to do. The Museum Act does not depart from professional museum practice. It replaces existing professional museum practice. It gives the national museums the authority to act in the same ethical manner as other professional museums.

We may ask ourselves what would lead a museum to destroy something in its collection. Well, it is unusual, but circumstances do arise.

For example, museum professionals refer to something they call “inherent vice”. Sometimes something about an object or the material it is made from makes it self-destruct or renders it unusually difficult to maintain. An artifact can be made from a combination of materials that over time react against each other, such as combinations of leather and metal, or improperly combined mixtures of pigment and other chemicals in a painting.

On that same issue, from time to time a museum, despite its best efforts, may discover that one of its artifacts has been attacked by destructive pests such as moths. In some unfortunate cases, to ensure the safety of other items, the affected artifact, which has often significantly deteriorated, must be destroyed.

Other objects contain dangers to those working in museums. Until the 1970s, many biologically-based artifacts were doused with arsenic, lead, mercury and some organic pesticides, such as DDT, to keep insects and microbes at bay. Arsenic is particularly prevalent in ethnographic collections.

Finally, sometimes in the interests of science and research, a decision may be made to subject an artifact to something called “destructive analysis”. This is done in instances where the information or knowledge to be gained through this type of analysis is greater than simply keeping the object intact. While destructive analysis can often just affect part of an object, it occasionally results in total loss.

Therefore, there are absolutely reasonable circumstances where a museum can, and should, have the authority to destroy something in its collection. However, in no case is this done lightly and decisions are made by professionals who are in the best position to make such choices, professionals such as those employed in our national museums.

Bill C-49 would allow the new Canadian museum of history to operate in the same professional and ethical manner as our other national museums and other professional museums worldwide.

Canadians deserve a national museum that tells our stories and presents our country's treasures to the world. The Canadian museum of history would provide the public with the opportunity to appreciate how Canada's identity has been shaped over the course of our history.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member's presentation was informative, but it might be misleading in some cases.

I am fascinated with the Conservative Party's fascination with renaming everything from the Progressive Conservative Party to the Conservative Party, from the Reform Party—

[An hon. member]

There was a CCRAP too.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Yes, there was the CCRA party, and we go on with name changes constantly.

When is the government going to stop with the ribbon-cutting and the appearance of doing work and actually ask the people who are able to make—

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

I see some CCRAP across the way.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would hope the member from Sudbury would withdraw his remarks calling members across the way crap. I do not think that adds anything to the debate and the over million Canadians who put us in government not once, twice, but three times. I hope you would ask him to withdraw those comments.

[The Deputy Speaker]

That of course was not what the member from Nickel Belt was doing.

Could the hon. member for Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine finish his comments?

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we must indeed be careful to call things by their proper names. I will therefore start again.

We were at the CCRA party and now we move on now to the new Conservative Party.

The ribbon-cutting, the grandiose shows, do not replace in any way what really needs to be done on the ground. The member spoke to it. It is important that we speak to the professionals to get guidance on how to run a museum properly, yet the government has cut 80% of some of the staff in those very museums. Millions of dollars have been cut to Parks Canada. How exactly are we to run museums without any professional staff to whom we can ask these questions?

I would like his opinion on what we will do now that we have very few people actually doing the work on the ground.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to mention why I am delighted we will have the Canadian museum of history.

I mention one of the exceptional Canadians who I am passionate about and whose memory is connected with a small museum in Woodstock. The Canadian museum of history would be better known to all Canadians. One reason I am here is because of this exceptional Canadian.

Colonel Joseph Whiteside Boyle was born in 1867, when our confederation was born, in Toronto, Ontario, and was buried in Woodstock, Ontario. He made his fortune in the Klondike.

During World War I, Boyle organized a machine gun company, giving the soldiers insignia made of gold to fight in Europe. He undertook a mission in Russia on behalf of the American Committee of Engineers in London to reorganize the country's railway system.

He successfully petitioned the new Bolshevik government of Russia to return archives and paper currency from the Kremlin to Romania. He served as the principle intermediary on behalf of the Romanian government in effecting a ceasefire in 1918 with revolutionary forces in the present Moldova, then part of Romania.

He rescued over 50 high-ranking Romanians held in Odessa—

[The Deputy Speaker]

I am sorry, we are almost out of time. I will allow one more question. The hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie, a short question please.

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Westmount—Ville-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not always agree with what the government puts out in terms of bills, but I make it a duty of mine to talk with my residents in my riding and ask them what they think of them.

I have to say in all honesty, bringing up the bill and telling people what the bill is accomplishing has resulted in nothing but consternation within my riding. I am in a big city riding with museums, just like a lot of other places in Canada. People there do go to museums, science centres and other things, but they do not understand what this is all about.

One of the people I spoke to said that this was a solution in search of a problem, a problem that did not exist. Why is the government obsessed? There may be 165 people in the country, and they are all sitting over there, who feel they have to rename this museum and change everything when it is not necessary.

[Corneliu Chisu, Conservative, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud of the Canadian museum of history. It is representing a country's tradition.

Two great nations founded the country. I should be proud, not ashamed, that we will have this Canadian museum of history.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-49 provides for changing the mandate and name of the Canadian Museum of Civilization in order to create the Canadian Museum of History. The Canadian Museum of Civilization is the most popular museum in Canada. Its temporary exhibits on the cultures of the world have made it a tourist attraction that has economic benefits and creates jobs for the Ottawa-Gatineau region. I will also take this opportunity to note that it is the only museum in the federal capital region that is on the Quebec side.

The museum has a long history. It dates back to 1856, the year when the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada passed a law authorizing the Geological Survey of Canada to establish a geological museum. In 1907, anthropology studies were added to the museum’s mission, and in 1927 it became the National Museum of Canada. The Canadian War Museum, which is affiliated with the Canadian Museum of Civilization, has been part of the National Museum of Canada since 1958. In 1968, a corporation known as National Museums of Canada was established and it was made up of four museums: the National Museum of Man, the National Museum of Natural Sciences, the National Gallery of Canada and the National Museum of Science and Technology.

It is the mission of the National Museums of Canada to demonstrate the products of nature and the works of man, with special but not exclusive reference to Canada, so as to promote interest therein throughout Canada and to disseminate knowledge thereof. In 1986, the National Museum of Man was renamed the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and in 1990 it became a separate crown corporation. Now, the museum is to become the Canadian Museum of History.

Bill C-49 introduces major amendments to the museum’s mission. The current mission talks about establishing, maintaining and developing for research and posterity a collection of objects of historical or cultural interest; that sentence is completely omitted in the new mission. At present, the museum’s mission talks about working throughout Canada and internationally, while the proposed new mission refers only to Canadian history and identity.

However, it is important to understand that Canada has been influenced in the past by the rest of the world. I do not think that this new, narrow vision does justice to that fact.

With the amendments in 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, but 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, there is 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. I am not going to be reassured just because the latest news headlines announce the cancellation of an exhibit about underwear.

Bill C-49 proposes eliminating research and collections from the museum’s mission, which is the first paragraph of its mandate. The Canadian Museum of Civilization is a museum and a research location with an international reputation, and it deals with more than 20,000 years of Canadian history.

The Conservatives have to stop interfering in our history. No government must exploit federal institutions or history for political gain. Defining the mandate and the content of the museum must be left up to museologists and their interlocutors, with stakeholders such as the first nations.

The decision has been criticized by a number of groups and individuals. My colleague from Hull—Aylmer has already told the House about opposition from the constituents in her riding, where the museum is located. The founding director of the Museum of Civilization, George F. MacDonald, believes that changing the museum’s name and mandate is part of a plan to impose the Conservative brand. The former president and CEO of the museum, Victor Rabinovitch, condemned the fact that the name “Canadian Museum of Civilization” was being abandoned. He said in his evidence that, in his view, it is the most successful brand name in Canada’s museum sector, a brand that is known and respected throughout the world.

Even though they say they are interested in history, the Conservatives have already decimated knowledge and research throughout the government and the country. They have muzzled and fired archaeologists, archivists and librarians and destroyed national historic sites, national parks and Library and Archives Canada.

The Conservatives have already laid off 80% of Parks Canada's archaeologists. The deputy head of Library and Archives Canada, who was appointed by the Conservatives, resigned because of spending scandals and mismanagement. I repeat: mismanagement. If the Conservatives are really interested in history, these cuts and this interference must stop. Researchers’ independence and funding must be restored, and the federal institutions that preserve our history must be protected.

The Conservatives do not care about museums. Just last week, there was an article in the Ottawa Citizen that described the financial problems of the Canada Science and Technology Museum, which is located in Eastern Ottawa and requires critical structural repairs of $3.4 million. The article described, in detail, the space problem at the museum, which is already at 130% capacity, with no room for any new acquisitions.

The museum requires $2.5 million dollars in roof repairs and $845,000 in upgrades to the ventilation system. However, the crown corporation responsible for managing the Canada Science and Technology Museum, as well as the Canada Aviation and Space Museum and the Canada Agricultural Museum, has only $800,000 available to it to repair and update the facilities at the three museums. The National Gallery of Canada had to wait a long time before it received funding to repair its leaking roof.

I hope that the Conservatives will not let our museums deteriorate to that point.

I am opposed to the bill because I believe that maintaining the museum’s current mandate is important. I also fear that the Canadian Museum of Civilization, which is internationally acclaimed, will be manipulated by the Conservatives as they attempt to impose upon us their politicized version of our nation’s history.

Museum professionals, including historians, anthropologists, archivists and librarians, must be responsible for determining the contents of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, not politicians.

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

Mr. Speaker, I will keep asking the same question. Perhaps by the end of the night one of the NDP members might actually answer it.

The member talked about a number of things. She talked about the reduced mandate of the museum. We see, of course, in clause 8 of the bill that it not only talks about Canadian identity and history, but it also talks about the awareness of world history and cultures. Paragraph 9(1)(e) talks about international exhibits. Paragraph 9(1)(f) talks about sponsor research related to its purpose or to museology and communicating results. Paragraph 9(1)(h) talks about promoting knowledge and dissemination of information related to its purpose throughout Canada and internationally.

The member talked about leaving it to the experts. This quote is from the museum president himself. He said:

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 am wondering if any of that gives the member any hope that she might get a museum of which she could one day be proud.

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, to begin with, I would like to thank my colleague for his relevant question. In response to his question, I will say that I am proud of the existing museum and its mission.

For a long time, the New Democrats have fought for the recognition of the many facets of our country’ history, and for the inclusion of the history of the first nations and the sometimes acrimonious relationship between anglophones and francophones and their descendants. We want to include the story of Chinese labourers who helped us build our national railway, and the stories of other immigrants who continue to bring their own histories and cultures with them.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech, which was very passionate, as usual.

I tried to get an answer from the government but unfortunately did not get one. I will ask my colleague. Perhaps she could give me her opinion. Who does she think should make decisions about a museum's mission and mandate?

As she pointed out today, a minister is the one who came up with this idea. That is fine, in theory. However, he is using his own idea as the basis for a bill that redefines the name and mandate of a museum. Even now, we still do not know who was consulted before Bill C-49 was drafted.

Could my colleague tell us who she thinks should be consulted when a museum's mandate is written?

[Djaouida Sellah, NDP, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my brilliant colleague for her relevant questions.

She did already ask this question, but unfortunately we never get any answers to our questions. I feel as though it has been déjà vu since I became a member of Parliament.

What we know is that the hon. minister came up with this idea. It may be relevant to him, but it is not relevant to democracy. We were elected by the public and we must consult the people who are affected before we do anything.

However, the government, which may be blinded by its own ideology, does not see anything around it. It lives in its bubble.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to Bill C-49, a bill to create the Canadian museum of history.

The government believes in national museums, and we recognize the tremendous value they hold for all Canadians. However, while our national institutions do magnificent work as guardians of our heritage, not one is dedicated to telling the full story of our country. That is why we are making a one-time investment of $25 million to establish the Canadian museum of history. This funding is not new money, but rather comes from the existing budget for Canadian Heritage. This new national museum will provide an opportunity for us to learn more about our rich Canadian history.

The Canadian museum of history will grow out of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The government is refreshing the mandate and orientation of the museum. Just as schools modernize curriculum in accordance with new events and discoveries, the new Canadian museum of history will present a comprehensive story of this country.

Change is not new to this institution. The Canadian Museum of Civilization began in 1856 with the establishment of a museum by the Geological Survey of Canada. With roots stretching back far into the past, the Canadian Museum of Civilization is one of North America's oldest cultural institutions. As staff of the survey fanned out across the country, they gathered cultural information and artifacts, as well as carried out their main tasks in geology and science.

Ever since its beginnings from a modest collection the museum has been evolving. Indeed, its ability to adapt and evolve is what has made it so successful. Just think, in 1862, the Geological Survey of Canada mounted its first ethnological exhibit, a single display case containing first peoples stone implements, clay pipes and a few fragments of pottery.

Today, the Canadian Museum of Civilization welcomes over 1.6 million visitors on average each year. It houses permanent galleries that explore 20,000 years of human history. Its program of special exhibitions expands on Canadian themes and explores other cultures and civilizations, past and present.

The museum is also a major research institution with staff who are leading experts in Canadian history, archeology, ethnology and culture.

In 1968, and with a new mandate, the National Museum of Man was established as part of a group known as the National Museums of Canada. Nearly 20 years later, in 1986, it was renamed the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It subsequently moved to Gatineau, into the fabulous building designed by Douglas Cardinal. The building itself illustrates the museum's history, with a structure that suggests fluidity and flexibility.

The transformation of the Canadian Museum of Civilization will take place over the next five years and will provide a number of opportunities to celebrate Canada's history in the lead-up to 2017.

At present, the museum has four permanent exhibition galleries: the Grand Hall, the First Peoples Hall, the Canada Hall and Face to Face: The Canadian Personalities Hall. The new permanent gallery will replace both the Canada Hall and the Canadian Personalities Hall.

More than 4,000 m² of exhibition space will be renovated to create permanent exhibition space presenting a national historical narrative. This space will feature the largest and most comprehensive exhibition on Canadian history ever developed.

It will be the place where Canadians can go to retrace their national journey and find national treasures. It will be where they can learn about the people, events and themes that have shaped our country's development and defined the Canadian experience. Including key events and episodes from our past, it will tell some of the greatest Canadian stories.

The museum has carried out a series of consultations, online and in person, to solicit the views of Canadians on the stories, people, themes and events that they want to see in the new museum. More than 20,000 Canadians contributed, expressing what they expect of the museum in general, and particularly in the new Canadian history hall.

Here are some highlights. Canadians want our museums to be comprehensive, frank and fair in our presentation of their history. They want us to examine both the good and the bad from our past.

They also want the museum to foster a sense of national pride without ignoring our failings, mistakes and controversies.

They want to see various viewpoints and voices, recognizing that people and events can be interpreted in different ways through different eyes.

I am delighted that the new exhibit space will feature national treasures such as explorer Samuel de Champlain’s astrolabe, the last spike from the Canadian Pacific Railway and Maurice Richard's number 9 Habs jersey.

At the same time, the museum's president and CEO has said that the new exhibitions will deal with Canada's history, warts and all. That is an important point. Many episodes in our history are critically important, like the internment of Japanese Canadians or the situation of aboriginal people in residential schools. Canadians can learn so much from our history.

At present, there is no mention in the Canada Hall of the flag debate or the Constitution, the wartime internment of Ukrainian or Japanese Canadians or Terry Fox and his Marathon of Hope. There is no meaningful reference to the Great Depression or the conscription crisis. Most important, the Canada Hall does not begin with first peoples but with the arrival of Europeans in the 11th century. Clearly, this needs to change.

The Museum of Civilization tells the story of human history and identity in Canada. The new Canadian museum of history will be the next phase of that story, helping define us as citizens of Canada and the world.

Why does our government feel that it is so important to focus the interest on Canada's collective history?

In 2017, this country will celebrate its 150th birthday. In the lead-up to that celebration, it is important that Canadians know about, appreciate and celebrate our history.

A new national museum devoted to our history will highlight our achievements as a nation and will help Canadians learn more about their rich and diverse history.

I hope that many Canadians will celebrate the 150th anniversary of our country in the newly renovated halls of the Canadian museum of history.

I hope that all my colleagues in the House will support Bill C-49.

[Philip Toone, NDP, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Etobicoke—Lakeshore, in the Toronto area, for his speech. There were interesting points in it, of course. The fact that he believes in Canadian museums is inspiring, and I congratulate him.

On the other hand, it worries me that almost 80% of the archaeologists in Canada have been laid off. I do not see how the government can be respectful of the mandate of Canada’s museums if there are no employees to do the work.

I have already asked the question and I still do not have an answer. How can they justify laying off 80% of the archaeologists when, at the same time, they are saying that the Conservative government believes in the mandate of Canada’s museums? I would like him to discuss this point.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, of the funds that will be devoted to the Canadian Museum of History, $25 million will be used for to carry out renovations and develop the museum's new mandate. There will also be new funds to celebrate Canada’s history. New projects will be launched, such as the Canada history week and the Canada history fund, to provide more tools for the educators who teach the subject. There will also be funds to truly spark students' interest in history.

There is a whole program to discover and celebrate history. There is so much going on in addition to the museum. In fact, there is a host of other programs that will be implemented as part of this new vision that we must celebrate. We have to tell Canadian stories.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are just five years away from our 150th birthday. As a country, what a great opportunity we have to celebrate the great things of Canada.

More than the name and the mandate of the Museum of Civilization would change. I wonder if my colleague would tell this House how the Canadian museum of history would bring Canadians together from coast to coast to coast.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for Don Valley West for all his fine work in the House, on Parliament Hill and in his own riding.

When we talk about bringing Canadians together, it is one thing to have a museum in the national capital region, but it is important that these artifacts and stories be celebrated throughout the country. It is a vast country. There are 2,500 local and regional museums in Canada. Already the Canadian museum of history is setting up partnerships with regional museums around the country. Just recently it announced partnership agreements with the Manitoba Museum and the Royal B.C. Museum.

We need to get these artifacts out of storage. I do not know if the House is aware, but over 90% of the artifacts are actually in storage. Sharing with other museums would allow people to put on exhibitions and collectively share. It would require the museum of history to act as the focal point and the coordinator across the country. That is why it is important to have this mandate.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will quote James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, because I think his comments clearly show the gap between the Conservatives' current methods and what most people and experts in the area think.

If the government really wants to highlight Canada's history, it should restore funding for Library and Archives Canada and the administration of historic sites in Canada. Once it has done so, it can then envision creating a new museum with a mandate to ensure that the history it presents is untainted by political ideology.

I would like to know how my hon. colleague from Etobicoke—Lakeshore would respond to Mr. Turk's comments.

[Bernard Trottier, Conservative, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

There is always a debate, and that is why we have this Parliament—to discuss the issues together.

Those who support the new mandate of the Canadian Museum of History include many historians, such as Richard Gwyn, Jack Granatstein, Charlotte Gray, Réal Bélanger and Yves Frenette. The Canadian Museums Association is also a very vocal supporter of this initiative.

I should also mention certain organizations that are heavily involved in history education and training, such as the Historica-Dominion Institute. These organizations are aware that it is very important to have a new museum with a clear national mandate to share these stories everywhere in Canada, from coast to coast.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak about Bill C-49 tonight. Bill C-49 would create the new Canadian museum of history.

The new Canadian museum of history would undoubtedly support our rich national heritage. As Canadians know, our government has supported and will continue to support the preservation of important artistic, historical and scientific objects in Canada.

Our government believes in our national museums, and we recognize the tremendous value they hold for all Canadians. Before I get to the main thrust of my speech this evening, allow me just to briefly summarize some of the important aspects of, and some of the rationale for, the creation of this legislation.

The legislation would build on the work that we, as a government, have already been doing and on our reputation here in Canada of having some of the best national and local museums in the entire world. In fact, since 2006, our government has invested an additional $142 million in our national museums. We have also created two new national museums, the museum at Pier 21 in Halifax and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.

As we approach Canada's 150th birthday, the creation of the new Canadian museum of history would be an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate our history and those achievements that define who we are as Canadians.

The Canadian museum of history would provide the public with the opportunity to appreciate how Canada's identity has been shaped over the course of our history. One of the aspects I most appreciate is the fact that one of the ways we would be doing this is by enabling content to be shared with and by local museums all across this country.

Certainly the aspect I find to be most important is the fact that there is so much of our history in the collection at the museum now that obviously is not on regular display. There would be an opportunity for some of the other museums in the country to share that content and those displays.

I think of some of the fine museums back in my riding of Wild Rose. There is the Nose Creek Valley Museum in Airdrie. There are some fine museums in the towns of Olds and Didsbury. Banff has a number of fine museums as well, and of course, Canmore has the Museum and Geoscience Centre.

There are a number of those types of museums all across the country that could participate in these kinds of programs to have content shared with their museums, and vice versa. They could share some of the content they may not have on display with the museum here in the national capital region as well. That is one of the key aspects that I had a chance to speak to in more length in the House previously.

I would like to get into some more specifics tonight. I would like to take the opportunity to discuss a very important act, which would benefit the new museum of Canadian history. Since its adoption in 1977, the Cultural Property Export and Import Act has served to encourage and ensure the preservation of Canadian heritage.

This act accomplishes this objective through a number of provisions. First, there is the designation of cultural institutions that have demonstrated the capacity to preserve cultural objects and make them available to the public through things like tax incentives that encourage Canadians to donate or to sell significant objects to designated institutions; and through grants to assist those designated institutions with the purchase of heritage objects; and through export control.

The act controls the export of significant cultural objects and creates the opportunity for our museums, art galleries, libraries and archives to acquire and preserve cultural content for future generations.

The act also contains tax incentives, which encourage Canadians to support our cultural institutions by donating or selling important objects to these organizations. Archeological objects, first nations objects, works of art, military medals, vintage vehicles and even rare fossils and minerals are examples of the types of objects that have been preserved in Canada because of this act.

Objects that are refused export permits can be delayed for up to six months to allow institutions to raise funds and apply for a grant to help purchase them.

Moveable cultural property grants can help museums and other cultural institutions to buy these important cultural and heritage objects. In 2006-07, The Rooms in Newfoundland received a grant to acquire two rare painted caribou skin coats made by the Innu. One was made in the late 18th century and the other in the mid-19th century. Both coats were about to be exported from Canada.

In 2010 the program supported the purchase of the world's largest sample of the Springwater pallasite, which is a rare type of meteorite that crashed to the earth near Biggar, Saskatchewan, in 1931. The Royal Ontario Museum purchased the pallasite with a grant before it too was exported from Canada.

These important objects, and many more, will remain in our heritage institutions as a result of the export controls and the movable cultural property grants program established under this act.

Funds are also available to repatriate important heritage objects to Canada. These objects may have been removed from Canada many years ago but are important to our history. For example, in 2007, the Museum of Northern British Columbia received a grant to repatriate objects from the Dundas collection. This is a significant collection of 19th century ceremonial objects, decorative works and everyday items used by some of the first inhabitants of British Columbia's northwest coast. The collection went to Scotland in 1863 and remained there until it was sold in 2006. Several Canadian museums went to great effort to purchase the collection and return it to Canada.

Another grant was awarded to the University of Alberta library in 2008 to repatriate the Sir Samuel Steele collection. Sir Samuel Steele was one of the most famous members of what is now the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. His papers, which documented the Red River expedition, the early history of the RCMP, the Klondike gold rush and his participation in the First World War are now accessible to all.

Speaking of World War I, in 2009, an important grant assisted McMaster University with the purchase of a map collection of the western front of World War I between 1914 and 1917. These maps were used by Canadian troops on the Western Front and were critical in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and in subsequent victories at Passchendaele. The significance of this collection continues to grow as we approach the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War.

All of these important objects and collections now have a permanent home in public collections in Canada, where all Canadians have the opportunity to learn from them.

The act also encourages Canadians to donate or sell important cultural objects to Canadian institutions through a special tax incentive. About 260 institutions and public authorities across Canada have been designated under the act and are eligible to offer this incentive. These institutions include not only our national museums and major provincial establishments but also smaller regional organizations that preserve our important heritage and make it available to all Canadians. From the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to the Moose Jaw Museum and Art Gallery and the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, these organizations have the capacity to preserve cultural objects for the long term and make them available to Canadians through exhibitions, research access, loans to other institutions or on their websites.

Objects that are certified as being of outstanding significance and national importance to Canada by the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board receive the tax benefit. The review board is an independent tribunal of experts created under the act. It determines the importance of the cultural object and its value. Since 1977, thousands of objects have been certified. In 2012-13 alone, 1,360 objects valued at $72 million were donated or sold to Canadian institutions through this incentive program. As a result, museums, galleries, archives and libraries have enhanced their collections and Canadians have had the opportunity to see, study and learn about objects and works of art that otherwise might have remained out of sight and behind closed doors.

In conclusion, the Cultural Property Export and Import Act has enabled museums, galleries, libraries and archives all across Canada to acquire important objects that tell Canada's story to Canadians and to the world. The act continues to protect important cultural objects in Canada and allows for the return of significant heritage objects to Canada. Its provisions have enhanced our public collections with objects that are of outstanding significance and national importance to Canada.

The Canadian museum of history would provide the public with the opportunity to appreciate how Canada's identity has been shaped over the course of our history. Canadians deserve a national museum that tells our stories and presents our country's treasures to the world. Therefore, I am pleased to support Bill C-49, which would create the museum of Canadian history.

[Guy Caron, NDP, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my government colleague's speech and was interested in two points, on which I have some questions.

He mentioned, for example, some artifacts and documents that in fact constitute our military history. We already have the Canadian War Museum, which was designed to give Canadians and foreign tourists access to that part of history.

I would therefore like to understand the relevance of talking about the museum of history as proposed in Bill C-49 because several aspects noted by the government member are already covered by a number of other museums. When we talk about history, there are several museums for that in various municipalities and cities. In Montreal, for example, the McCord is a very good museum specializing not only in the history of Montreal and Quebec, but also in that of Canada.

I would like to understand the relevance of replacing the Canadian Museum of Civilization with a Canadian history museum, when a number of aspects of our history are already covered by other museums.

The second point, which he discussed to a lesser extent in his speech, but on which I would like to have his opinion, is Canadians' supposed desire to have a museum of Canadian history. I did not receive a single request in that regard before Bill C-49 was introduced. Our members have never received a single request on the subject either. Furthermore, I suspect there was no demand either, except that created by the government's program. I would like to hear his comments on that.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member referred to some examples that I used in my speech, and there were a number of examples of great pieces of Canadian history, certainly including some pieces I referred to that were part of the important and proud history of our efforts in world wars. However, there are many other aspects of our Canadian history that are very important.

He referenced the partner museum to this one. The Canadian War Museum has many artifacts and it is a very valuable museum that many Canadians enjoy. There is so much more to our history over the 150 years of history in this country, and even before, to be shared with all Canadians through this great new museum of history.

The member also asked about the support among Canadians. There is no question that the museum carried out a series of cross-country consultations and gave Canadians all across Canada the opportunity to give their opinions on the personalities, events and milestones that tell the Canadian story. There are many of them. In fact, in total, more than 20,000 Canadians were consulted on the change to the name and the mandate of the museum. They contributed their ideas to the website, panel discussions and round tables all across Canada and shared with us what they would like to see in this new museum of history.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, as members will know, I am planning to support this bill, but I have concerns. One of them is that initially I thought $25 million was a good amount for distributing and sharing exhibits with more of our regional museums across the country. I recently met with some folks who knew what it really costs to put together an exhibit. The First Peoples Hall had initially cost $20 million, so $25 million begins to sound as if it would not be sufficient to get the exhibits and share them with museums.

Does the hon. member for Wild Rose have any idea if there is thought to augmenting the budget to ensure that pieces of our history, including women's history, first nations history and the complex dimensions of our history, are actually sufficiently funded to meet all the demands of smaller regional museums across Canada?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member raised this issue, because it is one that I believe is a very key part of this new mandate for the museum, including the sharing of our key national treasures with other museums across the country, and vice versa. They will have the opportunity to share theirs with the museums in the capital region. I appreciate her giving me the opportunity to highlight that one more time, because I believe it will be a huge benefit to museums all across Canada and to Canadians, by extension, whether it be at local museums or key national museums here in the capital region, to have greater access to some of the key artifacts and treasures of so many great aspects of our Canadian history.

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

Mr. Speaker, it was perhaps nine months ago when we talked about museums and the mandates of the national museums here in Ottawa. One of the things that struck me as a concern to a lot of people was that many of the national museums do not really involve themselves with the rest of the museums across the country. Certainly there is a yearning to do a lot more of that. There has been a great degree of co-operation, no doubt, but there should be a greater degree of co-operation in the fulfillment of the mandates of each and every museum across the country.

I say this because I want to follow up on a comment from the hon. member for Wild Rose. He talked about how this is a key part of the bill, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. It is a key element of taking this institution and sharing it with the country, especially now that we are just a few years away from celebrating our sesquicentennial anniversary. I practised saying that word for 20 minutes.

This is a model that is going to present itself to other museums across this country, those national scope, certainly, but also as local as they go, such as the Manitoba Museum, which was announced just a few days ago, and The Rooms in St. John's, Newfoundland, which is a good example in my province.

I thought that this was a key point of the proposed legislation. However, as the hon. member, the leader of the Green Party, pointed out, $25 million really is not going to cut it. The capacity that can be created with just $25 million is just not going to be sufficient. If the bill is going to create a model by which smaller museums could take advantage of it down the road, then that is fine, but it would certainly take a larger investment than $25 million.

I will go back to the issue of why we are doing this, which has to do with branding, a name change, tweaking the mandate and that sort of thing. A lot of the fundamentals from the Museum of Civilization would remain, as the government has said, but then we have to ask ourselves what was wrong with the original plan for the Museum of Civilization going out the next five to 10 years. What was so wrong with it that it needed a name change?

The question then becomes how much greater we can make this institution in the lead-up to 2017, the 150th anniversary of Canada, by changing its name. How much greater would this institution present itself to the entire nation and even to the world?

Let us go back to its base degrees for a moment.

We do not have an equivalent, as has been said, to what is happening with the national museum in the United States and in nations like Germany and other nations. They have their own museums based on their own history, but there is one specific museum. Now we have this.

Let us just leave the Museum of Civilization out of this for just a moment. Let us say that we do not have a Canadian museum of history, but a museum of Canadian history. This is something that actually makes a little more sense if we want to celebrate things like the institutions we have in Maurice Richard's hockey sweater, Jacques Villeneuve's racing suit or the first microphone ever held by Céline Dion. I am just making this up, but members get the idea.

These are icons of this country, like the first hockey stick of Wayne Gretzky. It is not that I am important, but maybe it could be my first school jacket or something like that. Someone just yelled out a very good example. I am a huge fan of Bonhomme Carnaval. Why can we not have his story brought to the country? To do that, we would create a museum of Canadian history.

There were a couple of renditions of this idea when some people talked about converting the conference centre to a museum of Canadian history. However, if we have that, and all the Conservatives are talking about these sweaters and jerseys and this artifact and that, then eventually that museum would probably look more like the West Edmonton Mall than anything else.

That is fine if that is what we want, but we should not fuse that element into what is a fantastic national and international institution like the Museum of Civilization.

At committee Victor Rabinovitch, the former president of the Museum of Civilization, was very concerned about the level of research that was going to be missed out on under this new mandate because some things have been changed and some of the language has been tweaked. For instance, there was talk about an understanding of a Canadian artifact and all things Canadian when it comes to representing our history, but the government omitted the word “critical”. It is no longer a “critical” understanding.

One might think what the difference is with that; well, there is a difference when one is involved in any museum as a curator or an archivist, because for those people to have their work exposed to the general public and get a critical understanding, it has to be opened up to the experts to say what history meant. The interpretation of history will change over time, because people have different interpretations. We have to accept that.

This past weekend I was listening to two historians talking on a CBC radio program. One historian feared that we are now launching into a study of history already knowing the answers, whereas we should be looking at history to change what the understanding was prior to today. Maybe we should use a more critical lens in how we view our history; then we would get a common understanding.

All these nations, all these places that have great national museums go through this process, but the language of the bill dictates that we are slowly getting away from that. Some of the buzzwords like “research” and “independence of the curators” are there, but some of it is missing. The fear is that we are turning this into just a display of artifacts, and that is it.

A museum is a living, breathing mechanism through which we understand ourselves, but that can only be useful to us in the future if it is willing to change, if it is able to look at things and say that this is no longer a static display, this is something that we have to look at again, whether technology dictates it or whether it is some other type of information elsewhere that tells us to go back and revisit how we used to look at history.

When Mr. Rabinovitch talked about this, he was wondering why the government would do this, given the fact that the Museum of Civilization carries with it a tremendous international name. European countries and Asian countries marvel at what the Museum of Civilization has done. It is pretty good for a country with fewer than 40 million people. We have punched above our weight, as the saying goes, when it comes to museums, especially this museum.

He proposed what I thought was a reasonable way of looking at this. He proposed to call it the Canadian museum of history and civilization. It is a good compromise. It recognizes the fact that we have a rich history, as young a country as we are compared to other countries in the world, but it also recognizes the great work that we have done. The name says that we are willing to keep that tradition of having the Museum of Civilization, but enshrined within a context of what it is to be Canadian: the Canadian museum of history and civilization.

To a great extent I understand why we would want to have something that is labelled as Canadian. It shows who we are. It gives a critical understanding of who we are, and that way it attracts more people.

Some people said they came to Ottawa when they were younger and did not know what civilization was, but they realized that it was more about Canadian history. That is a valid point. As far as the marketing goes, we can attract more people that way.

Already some of our national museums find themselves in a financial bind. The Science and Technology Museum needs $3.4 million to handle major structural repairs. The 50-year-old building on St. Laurent Boulevard needs work. Every museum has to find ways of generating more revenue, and this could be one of them. Could a name change do that? To a certain degree it could. It is not the ultimate solution for getting more revenue, but it probably could go in that direction.

I wish we had kept to the theme of putting more Canadian culture within the context of the Museum of Civilization, as opposed to changing some of the language in this legislation and ultimately the corporation. I think that does a disservice to the people who keep updating our artifacts and turning this museum into the international icon that it is.

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

Mr. Speaker, I keep going back to the bill on this. I think I already know what the answer is going to be from the member opposite, but I will keep asking.

The president of the museum, in his opening remarks, said this about research:

Finally, we will continue building our national collection, and undertaking scholarly and other types of research, despite claims from some to the contrary. In fact, our national collection fund now totals $9 million and in consultation with academics across the country, the corporation has developed a research strategy, the first in the museum's history. This strategy will guide the work of the museum in its research activities over the next 10 years.

To go back to the actual bill, it says:

undertake or sponsor any research related to its purpose or to museology, and communicate the results of that research

Further on it says:

promote knowledge and disseminate information related to its purpose, throughout Canada and internationally, by any appropriate means of education and communication

Finally, he went on to talk about Dr. Morrison, who has a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in archeology. He said he would be working with a team of researchers, curators and museologists in collaboration with advisory committees composed of historians and experts from across Canada in helping develop the new displays at the museum.

Clearly it states throughout the bill that research would continue. Clearly there is a team of experts who have been with the museum and will continue to be with the museum who are undertaking the new displays, so I am not entirely certain what the members fear. Do they not have faith in the staff there to put together something that all Canadians would continue to be proud of?

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

Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope that the parliamentary secretary is right in all of what he is saying about how this would affect where we find ourselves in 10 years with this particular museum.

What I fear is that if it is as good as, or even better than, what it is currently or would be 10 years down the road, why did the government fundamentally change some of the language surrounding what the government wants the museum to do? I do not understand where the genesis of this change comes from. Why would the Conservatives disagree with the fact that some of the greatest aspects of the Museum of Civilization will disappear?

I am not quite sure that everyone buys into this idea. To go back to what the professor at York University said this weekend, he said that it is almost as though we are delving into history knowing what the answers are already.

I am not going to say I totally disagree with him. I am just going to say that I hope 10 years down the road, he can prove me wrong.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find the point my colleague raised very interesting. Museums change over the decades and Canadian history is important.

However, does he know whether anyone—a museum professional, a present or past director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, historians or university professors—was consulted when Bill C-49 was developed?

The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages said this was his idea. Does my colleague know whether anyone was consulted when the bill was developed? If not, what does he think is the ideal process for redefining the mandate of a museum as important as the Canadian Museum of Civilization?

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

Mr. Speaker, the funny thing is that there are several versions of how this consultation took place. We have the government's version and we have other people's versions. It seems that the genesis was a backroom discussion of some sort. It led itself to the minister's office. The proposal was there. It was out as a discussion, but it seemed as though before all of that happened, the legislation was in place. Again, it is almost as though the answer was there before the question was asked, which seems to be somewhat of a pattern here.

Let me put that aside for a moment and say that I hope that in the future the government will consult more broadly. I wish the bill had had the review process that we proposed at committee, but it does not. Nonetheless, I hope that the museum will act as a model to other museums, at least in the vision by which it shares itself across our nation.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Durham.

I would caution that we only have seven minutes left in the time allocation motion to hear this debate.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to stand in this House today to not only pledge my support for Bill C-49 but also to tell my personal story in relation to my passion for history and why I totally agree with the vision and applaud our minister and his able parliamentary secretary for bringing the bill before this House for debate tonight.

The bill is known best as the bill that would establish the Canadian museum of history. Really, this would not re-create or re-establish an important national museum. In many ways, it would actually reassert its important mandate as a national institution in Canada. It would also extend that national mandate to all the small towns, villages, and cities across this great nation. History does not just belong in the nation's capital. Indeed, it belongs across the country.

In many ways, the bill is about one of the last crown jewels in the collection of important national museums our government has supported across Canada, going back to our support in 2008 for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, being established in Winnipeg, and, in 2010, to our government's reassertion of the importance of Pier 21 as Canada's national Museum of Immigration, in Halifax.

I had the good fortune to visit Pier 21 in its early years, thanks to the vision of the Goldblooms in Halifax, who brought that important institution to our country.

The day after my wedding, in Halifax, my wife and I, dreary-eyed as we might have been, with my parents, took my grandmother, Madge Hall, to Pier 21, where she first stepped into Canada with her husband and infant daughter, Molly, my mother, after World War II. Not only did we experience that museum but we looked up the manifest of the Lusitania, which they boarded to come to Canada and a tremendous new life. I only wish one of those three people was still here to see their grandson sitting in Canada's Parliament.

In many ways, the bill would refocus our national history museum. I will speak to why I think the national network this museum would create is even more important than the rebranding and refocusing of the institution in Ottawa.

It is indeed a travesty that 90% of our historic artifacts and treasures are in storage. It is time to free these important artifacts from the shackles of indifference and dust and to share them with the small towns across Canada, or indeed, the large museums, such as the ROM or the Royal British Columbia Museum, so that they too can feel an attachment to these important artifacts.

However, the converse is perhaps even more important than getting this national artifact network established. It is also important for museums such as Scugog Shores in Port Perry or the Clarington Archives or the Clarke Museum in Clarington or the Lucy Maud Montgomery museum in Uxbridge to share some of their local artifacts with our national institution in Ottawa.

Thanks to the vision behind Bill C-49, and our Minister of Canadian Heritage , we would have visitors to Canada exploring the Canadian museum of history and seeing the artifacts and the history of the small towns and villages in Durham at our national institution in Ottawa. That would be truly remarkable and important. There would be a dedicated permanent space for exhibits from over 2500 museums across this country.

It is also an honour for me to tell a bit of my personal story tonight, and in my first year, to utter only my second Winston Churchill quote. Churchill said, “Study history, study history. In history lie all the secrets of statecraft”.

My friends on this side of the House should really read more history to learn those secrets to try to take our side of the House. The very fact that they have not leaves me resting assured that we are going to maintain this side of the House, because we have followed the edict of one of the world's greatest parliamentarians.

My love of history started when I was an 18-year-old officer cadet crossing the parade square at Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario. We had a mandate, as young gentlemen and lady cadets of the college, to learn the history of that historic site.

We gazed at the RMC flag, which was designed by the dean of arts, George Stanley, who shared his vision for the nation's flag in 1964 with John Matheson, a distinguished gunner from the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery and later the MP for Leeds. John Matheson is still alive and, at 95, is really one of our living veterans who truly tells the history of this great country.

George Stanley at RMC taught generations of historians who are with us today as leading voices. At RMC he taught Desmond Morton and Jack Granatstein.

In many ways, this debate on why Canada needs a national museum of history was started by one of George Stanley's students, Dr. Jack Granatstein, who, in 1998, wrote Who Killed Canadian History? In many ways, in the years since then, Canadian history has been given a new life. In many ways, this bill would give our national history museum a network of history and a life across the country.

It is my pleasure to rise today in full support of Bill C-49. Indeed, it is our government's answer to the question, "Who killed Canadian history?" We may not be able to answer that, but we certainly know who is breathing new life into the subject.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

It being 10:07 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the report stage of the bill now before the House.

The question is on Motion No. 1. A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 15.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, May 22, 2013, the recorded division stands deferred until Tuesday, June 18, 2013, tomorrow, at the expiry of the time provided for oral questions.

The House resumed from June 17 consideration of 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, as reported (without amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to order made on Wednesday, May 22, 2013, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded divisions on the motions at report stage of Bill C-49.

Call in the members.

The question is on Motion No. 1. The vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 15.

(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #757

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare Motion No. 1 defeated. I therefore declare Motions Nos. 2 to 15 defeated.

[James Moore, Conservative, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages]

moved that the bill be concurred in.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #758

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.