Canadian Heritage Committee on Oct. 25th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I call this meeting to order. Just before we go to our witnesses, I'm going to talk a little about upcoming business.

First is on the proposed schedule for hearings for our court challenges program. The clerk has received requests from various people. It has kind of been decided that we'll do it on a panel basis. We propose that it be over three days, if we think we need three days. The first hour of the meeting would have three groups and the second hour of the meeting would have three groups. We'd do that two or three times to get through the witnesses.

The names of 32 people were put forward. The clerk and I have kind of decided that each person who sent in a list of names would be allowed to pick out three groups, and then we could do that.

At the same time, I've just been informed there has been a court challenge to the government's court challenge program. I don't know if it's just a civil suit. I would like a little longer to check the rules. If there is a court challenge on our court challenges issue, should we be debating that, or should we be doing that in this forum? I'll take your advice on that.

We're looking at three names for each person, but I'd like people to go back and research it. When we come to the next meeting we can debate whether it's the right thing for this committee to do, since there is a court challenge going on right now.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I have two concerns here. I would like to find out about the challenge to the challenges. Perhaps we can get some information and meet.

We haven't, as a practice, used a subcommittee, but because there are so many witnesses, I suggest striking a subcommittee, with one member from each party, to look at it. My concern with three each is that some people might have put in twenty; I think I only put in three or four. I'm more interested in having a balance of voices, as opposed to a multiplicity of voices. I'm not very comfortable about us sitting around striking names on and off lists here in a public meeting, because I don't think it's fair to those groups. That's not what we should do.

If we are going to go this route, after we hear back about the court challenges overall, we could talk about it, strike a subcommittee, look at names, and decide whether two days or three days were needed. Then we could bring that back to the group, and if people in the committee felt somebody had been left out, we could talk about adding at that point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Kotto.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I would just like to say I am in total agreement with Mr. Angus. That is what I wanted to share with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Because we have our witnesses here today, I'm sure we'll want to end this session very quickly. But I agree with Mr. Angus that going in camera, particularly for the selection process, is very wise.

Even if it is a civil case, I kind of question whether the committee.... I believe we have parliamentary privilege in committee--maybe the clerk can advise us on that--but totally apart from that, I'm not really sure whether it would add anything or have the probability of detracting from the civil case that may have been filed. I think we need to find that out first before we carry on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Could the clerk and the chair look into this, get any information on it to our members, and talk about it at the next meeting? At the beginning of the next meeting we'll make a decision about where we're going and whether we should strike a subcommittee to do that. It seems as if there's consensus for that.

That part of the business is closed.

Sorry to hold you up, gentlemen.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

May I ask for clarification? Mr. Bélanger has put together some suggestions for witnesses. Pursuant to the first point you made, do you wish to have those submitted in writing now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

They were in by Friday. We have Mr. Bélanger's list of seven here.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We have the lists from Mr. Abbott, Charlie Angus, Mauril Bélanger, Tina Keeper, Maka Kotto, and Francis Scarpaleggia.

[Alan Tonks, Liberal, York South—Weston, ON]

I just wanted to make sure they had been received. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Welcome to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. This is meeting 18. Today we have witnesses from the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel, Garry Anderson, chief executive officer; Revelstoke Heritage Railway Society, David W. Johnson, president; and an individual, Ken Heard.

Welcome, gentlemen. How was your trip?

Mr. Anderson, are you going to lead off the presentation?

[Garry Anderson, Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Museum of Rail Travel]

Yes, I will. We have some handouts that I would like to have distributed before I start. I've just been advised that they are only in English, but they're primarily pictures. May I have consent to pass them to people around the table?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

You may.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

On a point of order, I don't want to contradict the decision made, and I'm glad we'll be seeing this, but are witnesses made aware of the necessity to submit materials in both official languages? I wouldn't want other witnesses to bring forward representations they've worked on and find out at the last minute that they missed a key element like that. Are witnesses generally instructed to make submissions in time so we can have them translated?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We'll make sure of that. It's always done.

[Garry Anderson]

I've prepared a long brief, and I've shortened that. I was told we could hand out visuals. The pictures virtually speak for themselves, and they don't need a lot of translation. It would have been good for me to have been aware that they should have been done that way, but it wasn't that clear.

Thank you members of the committee, and in particular Jim Abbott, for making it possible for me and my colleagues who represent railway heritage and have collections with national content to present to you.

Each of us has a different collection and different stories to tell. Some priorities are therefore different. However, we hope that our input will help establish a new, comprehensive Canadian museums policy that considers the unique challenges for museums--particularly railway museums--with large, fragile artifacts that are stored outdoors.

I have provided handouts that show some of the beautiful interiors of the railcars in Cranbrook and some of the preservation challenges facing them. You can refer to these in detail as I read. You may find the “before and after” photos of restoration particularly interesting.

Since it began in 1976, I have been the chief executive officer of Trains Deluxe, the trade name of the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel in Cranbrook, British Columbia. I work with, and I am supported by, an elected board of twelve directors. We all work with the museum development committee of the City of Cranbrook. We also work closely with other associations, such as the British Columbia and Canadian Museums Associations and other related groups.

I would also highlight the role the Canadian Council For Railway Heritage has played over the past fifteen years in education about the special challenges facing this sector. This council has developed a draft evaluation mechanism for historic railway equipment that could be of use in the assessment process for railway heritage outside the federal system. Their brief is an important document in this process as it deals with the railway heritage sector in general, whereas my presentation is very specific.

We often describe Canada as a vast and diverse country, which can also describe the railway heritage of our country. There are many collections, telling many stories, from local to regional to national, and even international levels. It has always therefore surprised me that the 170-year-old railway story does not figure more prominently in the story of Canada. Perhaps the efforts and associated costs of preserving these huge artistic and/or industrial artifacts were beyond the ability of the existing museum community at a time when artifacts were usually small and placed in display cases inside buildings.

Other railway museums share common problems with us. I hope my presentation can shed light beyond our historical experience. However, our unique museum story is about deluxe hotels on wheels. This is a departure from the more usual technical and mechanical emphasis of most railway museums. It also presents unique challenges not usually encountered on the scale that face our museum. These challenges are illustrated on pages 1 to 4 of the visuals and include exceptionally fragile artifacts with national significance--stored outdoors--that are outside our national capital. On pages 5 to 11 there are some examples of the beautiful interiors of the cars that are at risk.

The railcars contain tens of thousands of square feet of extremely fragile, inlaid exotic wood panelling that creates substantial challenges to properly preserve through control of relative humidity, ultraviolet light, dust, and other airborne particles. There is only a thin wall of these original artifacts separating the interiors from the hot summer and cold winter exterior temperatures. Since they are artifacts, insulation cannot normally be added without substantially changing the artifacts themselves. These preservation challenges are further enhanced by the amount of fragile interior textiles, such as upholstery and carpets, and other items, such as leaded, stained, and bevelled glass, railway china, silverware, and glassware.

This type of collection also requires substantial security. Public access to the interiors of the cars can only be done with a museum guide. Due to the small spaces in some cars, there is a limit of ten people per guide, making visitor capacity and the manner in which tours must be done another challenge. The preservation challenges are serious and will continue to grow to become major setbacks if steps are not taken soon to help resolve them.

Resources at many levels are needed to address these challenges, from local to provincial to federal.

The following questions have been asked of me and have been elaborated on in the written brief supplied to you earlier within the ten-page limit. They are: one, national significance; two, acquisition costs; three, restoration costs and ongoing preservation; four, museum operating costs; five, cost recovery; and six, which is numbered eight in your brief, unfortunately, is the federal involvement expected in the preservation of the collections.

In this last section, there are some important quotes from Robert Turner, the now-retired curator of modern history at the Royal British Columbia Museum, from his 1992 report, “The Historical Significance of the Collections at Cranbrook”. The study was commissioned by the Royal B.C. Museum and a copy has been provided with our written submission, for the record.

In summary, the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel believes that the current museums policy is well out of date and must be revised as soon as possible. One particular program of the old policy--the museum assistance program, or MAP--is mostly unsuitable to our type of museum and its railcar artifact collection. The current MAP emphasis on creating touring, temporary, historical exhibitions does little to help preserve our fragile permanent collections.

Other presenters may have outlined a range of serious museum concerns, but from our point of view, any new Canadian museums policy must put the preservation of collections as the top priority. Multi-year commitments to any program would be a big improvement over the current annual application process. Without greatly improved conservation and the efficiencies of a proper building, our nationally important collection will continue to deteriorate, considering the relatively small population base of Cranbrook, the support, where the museum is situated, how the museum is currently funded, and the expected increases in energy and related conservation costs. This large, outdoor-stored collection of rare and extremely fragile railcars of national significance is not sustainable.

Through a new Canadian museums policy that addresses the above concerns, the federal government can join with the Province of B.C., the City of Cranbrook, and a large support group of corporations, foundations, businesses, individuals, families, organizations, and the museum's own earned revenue to keep this national collection intact and properly preserved for the future.

Thank you, and we hope to participate in the ensuing process to create a new policy to better assist museums to better tell the story of Canada. This, in turn, will provide long-term benefits to the many Canadians and visitors to Canada who attend our museums.

Thank you very much.

Did you get the handouts?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Yes, thank you.

Mr. Johnson, do you have a presentation also?

[David W. Johnson, President, Revelstoke Heritage Railway Society]

Yes, I do indeed.

Mr. Schellenberger, members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for taking the time to closely examine the situation of museums in Canada today and to hopefully do something to improve it.

Thank you also for this opportunity to appear before you and to assist you in your deliberations.

You have heard a lot about the details of the state of railway museums in Canada through the presentations by the Canadian Railroad Historical Association and the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel. I will leave the basic description of the Revelstoke Railway Museum to our submission and to the images that I have now provided.

Pictures speak a thousand words, so there are about 150,000 words.

Suffice it to say, the Revelstoke Railway Museum is a small, first-rate museum located in Revelstoke, B.C., a city of just over 8,000 people on the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway, with a small six-month operation at Craigellachie, the location of the driving of the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the place where Canada became a de facto country, from sea to sea, on November 7, 1885. Between these two locations, we get to tell this story to about 45,000 people a year, and that has been consistent since the museum was established.

They wonder why we want to do this. First of all, it is because of the nature of the railways and the role they have played and continue to play in Canada.

Because of the nature of this country, Canada is world-class in three areas: extraction of raw materials; communications; and transportation.

As an example of this dominance, CN was named the number one railway in the world by Trains magazine.

Canada has a nationally funded aviation collection and museum, yet the museums that preserve and interpret Canadian railway history have had to be developed and funded by the enthusiasts, their communities, and non-profit societies. Canada should really have a world-class system of railway museums.

Railways are the reason Canada exists. The Revelstoke Railway Museum works hard to get this across to the visiting public, both at the museum and at Craigellachie.

In addition, the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway through B.C. prevented the southern portion of the province from becoming part of the United States.

The railways went on to become the largest single employer in Canada up until the 1950s.

As an aside, how many of you know how many provinces entered Confederation with a railway clause as their act of incorporation? Was it one, B.C.? Was it three, five, seven, nine, or all ten? Well, as a matter of fact, it was nine. Only Manitoba entered Confederation without a railway clause in its act of incorporation. It's an extremely important fact to remember.

Railways continue to be the lifeblood of this country. In 2005 they moved approximately 65% of the raw materials and merchandise of this country. Very few Canadians recognize this.

The total tonnage handled was the largest ever in Canadian history and formed one of the economic indicators of the strength of the Canadian economy. This is used by the Bank of Canada.

In addition, there were 63 million passengers on Canadian railways last year. The majority of them were commuters.

It is interesting to note that in fact the cities of Canada developed along street railway, tramway, and commuter rail lines. These routes were in fact largely abandoned in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, but they are now seen as the solution to congestion and pollution in urban and suburban areas of the country.

These railways continue to develop and improve their infrastructure and service to support Canadian commerce. Thus railways are expanding facilities, rights of way, and improving their efficiency.

Older technologies and equipment have been added to the museum's collection as they are retired; otherwise they will be lost forever and we will not be able to tell the complete story of Canadian railways.

I have a few comments on preservation, conservation, and interpretation.

Rolling stock for the collections are largely provided by the railways at little or no cost. If the collections aren't assembled as the artifacts become available, they are then lost forever. They are lost to the scrapper. This is not the situation for an art museum that misses an acquisition or a major work of art; it is still preserved somewhere.

The major artifacts are large, up to 100 feet long, and require significant buildings to be preserved properly. Professionally oriented museums have always striven for this, but they are expensive to build, expensive to operate, and need to expand to provide additional protection for their growing collections. Thus, there is a necessity and a major role for the federal government to support these institutions. Smaller artifacts and archival material require similar or better conditions to ensure their long-term survival. These artifacts are also donated by individuals as well as the railways.

Some railway museums, such as Exporail and Revelstoke Railway Museum, are preparing and hosting travelling exhibits. “Women Railroaders” and “Mail, Rail, and Retail: Connecting Canadians” are examples. This increases the exposure to the public of broader aspects of Canadian history and culture than could otherwise be.

The Revelstoke Railway Museum, Exporail, and the Canadian Museum of Rail Travel are all supported by their communities, and in turn, support their communities.

The Revelstoke Railway Museum has run Railway Days for a number of years, and I am pleased to say it's becoming a signature festival in Revelstoke. For it, the railway museum won the Business Excellence Award for 2006, on Saturday night, at the Chamber of Commerce dinner.

The presence of a railway museum in a community is a major factor in tourism. Forty-one percent of the visitors to Revelstoke visit one or another of the museums. Half of them come to the railway museum.

Railway museums that are fulfilling their educational mandate are effective locations for the education of students on the topics of Canadian history, Canadian geography, and Canadian technological innovation. The Revelstoke Railway Museum's exhibitions that chronicle the completion of the CPR fit directly into both the elementary and secondary schools' curricula and are used extensively by teachers during school field trips and other learning opportunities.

I'd like to conclude by looking at a few recommendations we would like to make to the committee.

First, we feel that the Government of Canada should substantially increase the funding for upgrading and expanding railway museum facilities that house nationally significant artifacts.

Second, the Government of Canada should provide for the preservation and conservation of railway artifacts of national significance.

Third, we recommend that the Government of Canada provide funds for increasing the capacity of museums to achieve financial stability through funding development officers or fundraisers.

Fourth, such funding should be made available over multiple years to ensure program success.

Our fifth recommendation is that the Government of Canada consider indemnifying artifacts and collections of national significance, as well as directors' liability insurance, to allow the funds presently spent on these items to be redirected to preservation activities.

Sixth, we recommend that the Government of Canada create an easier mechanism of recognizing the value of donated artifacts and property and permit the inclusion of services involved in preparation and delivery of such artifacts in the tax receipt.

Seventh, as much of the expertise in railway and other technology museums lies with volunteers, we recommend that the Government of Canada consider the recognition of volunteer contributions through funding equivalent time at some fixed rate.

Our eighth recommendation is that the Government of Canada consider the possibility of entering into public-private partnerships with railway museums to achieve specific program goals.

Ninth, we recommend that the Government of Canada act expeditiously to provide the funds required to ensure the long-term survival of national historic railway-related artifacts located outside of the national museums and to support public access to these artifacts.

Mr. Chairman, that's my presentation. I'll be happy to answer questions after our third speaker.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

Mr. Heard.

[Ken Heard, As an Individual]

Like the others, I certainly appreciate the opportunity of being here. I might remark that this is the first time I've addressed a parliamentary committee, other than as a public servant.

I'll provide a little background about myself. Mr. Johnson referred to volunteers. My involvement with museums in general and railway museums in particular began when I was a teenager in Montreal fifty years ago, at what has since become Exporail, the Canadian Railway Museum.

I joined the public service in June 1962 and retired in February 1994, but my professional involvement in museums began in 1970, when I became part of the arts and culture branch of the Department of the Secretary of State, and in 1970 and 1971, I was one of the four people who put together the original national museum policy, under the direction of André Fortier, who at that time was assistant under secretary of state.

Then, finally, from March 1976 till my retirement, I was employed by the National Museums of Canada in a senior staff position, undertaking a wide variety of assignments regarding such things as friends organizations, volunteers, tax issues, copyright funding, governance, and many others.

I submitted a brief to the committee on October 1.

I understand there is a French version of this brief and it has been circulated. Fine.

I'd like to refer briefly to two points I made in that particular brief, and that is all. They are two that have bothered me for years. One is the lack of good statistical analysis of museums, obviously to serve as a basis for policy development and application of any policy, particularly with regard to funding from the federal level. The second point is how best to administer any enhanced federal financial assistance and other assistance to museums, if it ever happens in time.

On the first point, since the mid-1980s Statistics Canada, every two years, has been collecting information about heritage institutions: financing, volunteers, employment, visits, and so on and so forth. Up until the time of the 1992-93 collection, these results had been published by Statistics Canada in paper form, and the breakdowns had been done in several different ways, and included one by what I call museum sector. They're listed on the last page of my brief. There are eleven altogether, running from art, human history, multidisciplinary, and so on, including transport. Since then, they have published only aggregate figures for the entire heritage institution community, broken down financially but not by museum sector. Statistics Canada will furnish, of course, other analyses and other breakdowns for a price now, because they're on a partial cost-recovery basis.

In the exercise that the Department of Canadian Heritage did in 2005, leading up to the possibility of a new museum policy, they did finance from Statistics Canada an analysis broken down by budget size: museums with budgets under $100,000; between $100,000 and $1 million; and above $1 million. What they specifically were looking for was what had happened to attendance figures. In the ten-year period from 1991 to 2002-03, the aggregate attendance at museums with annual budgets larger than $1 million fell by 40%. Museums with budgets under $100,000 largely held their own, with a drop of only 8%. For museums in this range of between $100,000 and $1 million, the fall was 19%. So the obvious question is, “Why? Why did this happen?” The answer is that we don't know all that much about it.

However, anecdotal evidence does suggest that for attendance drops, if indeed there have been any, there is some variation by museum sector. But at the moment, we don't have the information to tell us this or not to tell us this. Certainly I would like to know. It was something that, if I were administering a grants program, I would want to know as well.

I took the last year for which some sector numbers were available--I'm already over five minutes--which was 1992-93. In that particular year, taking an average for the entire country, 80% of museum revenues were unearned; i.e., they came from one or another level of government, donations, and so on. However, for transport museums in that year, only 52% of the income of those museums was unearned. And I think this phenomenon was mentioned by Steve Cheasley when the CRHA appeared here.

Another interesting note here is that when you look at unearned income per visit for art museums in this particular year, 1992-93, it was $23.62, while for transport museums it was $4.70. Now these numbers, especially since they're fifteen-plus years old, raise far more questions than they answer. But these are the kinds of things I would like know about, especially now since after retirement I was given a post-retirement honourary position as a research associate at the museum studies program at the University of Toronto. What have the trends been since then, and just where is the museum community going?

So one of the things I've recommended is that the Department of Canadian Heritage sponsor the analysis by Statistics Canada to try to give some insight into where different parts of the museum community are going.

Since I'm already up to seven minutes, what I'm going to do is cut short the second one to say that in my own experience, if there's going to be a major increase and upgrade in federal financial assistance to museums, it should be administered by an arm's-length organization. Interestingly enough, in 1987, when the National Museums of Canada was being dismembered, the predecessor of this committee recommended that the museum assistance program be administered by an arm's-length agency.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Great. Thank you very much.

Who would like the first question?

Mr. Scarpaleggia.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you all for being here today.

Quite frankly, I find it a national shame that we don't have a national rail museum in Canada, especially given the fundamental importance of the railway in creating Canada in the first place.

Mr. Johnson, I thought your quiz was very apropos. I didn't know that nine provinces had a railway clause—all provinces except Manitoba.

I think it's also a national shame that part of our heritage is rotting away—how we shall I say—under the elements.

First, regarding this point about the museum assistance program, Mr. Heard, it seems to me that railway museums in Canada should be outside of the scope of MAP in a way, because the National Art Gallery is outside of the scope of MAP, as far as I understand, and so is the Canadian Aviation Museum.

In some ways, you're being too modest in your demands. You shouldn't be saying, oh, please, give us a few hundreds of thousands of dollars here and there every now and then through MAP. I think we should have some dedicated funding for a national railway museum infrastructure in Canada.

But going back to MAP, Mr. Heard, you mentioned that you think funding should be administered by an arm's-length body like the Canada Council, which is a point Mr. Abbott more or less raised in debate in the House earlier this week, although he said his idea was more about items and gifts donated by Canadians to museums. Why do you think we need an arm's-length body like the Canada Council?

I understand why the Canada Council has to be at arm's length; it's the same reason the CBC has to be at arm's length. These fields of art are often dealing with cutting-edge ideas that can be controversial and challenge political orthodoxies, and we don't want the government meddling and influencing their decisions one way or another. But when we talk about rail museums, we're not talking about the most radical form of cultural expression. We're talking about managing—and I don't mean this in an inelegant way—a park of heritage assets. So why do you think we need an independent body to make those decisions?

[Ken Heard]

When I made that comment, I wasn't specifically referring to railway museums. The reason I think--I'm not alone on this--museums should have the same kind of arm's-length relationship that the visual arts and the performing arts have is that museums can be very controversial. Art galleries and fine art museums have frequently been controversial with respect to some of their purchases.

Some of the things a natural science museum could do on climate change might not necessarily please the government of the day. There's another issue. Even for transport museums, and railway museums in particular, given the fact that the world is running out of gas, there's a free-choice educational role there. Railway museums could say, basically, that it is not going to be possible to drive cars to do everything by way of transport forever. It's for the same reason; it's to protect them from that. And that's my main reason for doing that.

There's also another one in that the way Canadian Heritage is presently organized, the actual grant analysis is done at the regional level by regional grants officers who are doing it for a whole plethora of grant programs run by Canadian Heritage, and they don't have the same sort of hands-on feel for any particular one of them, because they just don't have time to do that.

Certainly one of the things that could be said for the National Museums of Canada before it was restructured, despite all the perceived imperfections of that organization, was that at least the board started its approach to assistance to the other museums in the country, besides the four nationals, by defining their needs, rather than the program needs of a government department. And that's what the Canada Council does. Certainly, my own experience is that that's quite important.