Evidence of meeting #18 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was artifacts.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Thank you, Mr. Heard.
That's it for me at the moment.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Maka Kotto Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I would like you to thank you for coming here this afternoon. In order to add to our record, I will ask you a few quick questions, because we do not have much time.
Mr. Heard, we have gone through your brief, and we found it quite relevant. It contains excellent suggestions.
When you talk about putting the MAP under an arm's length agency, does that exclude the risk that this agency might lose its funding some day, when governments change, just like it happened to Telefilm Canada and the Canada Council, for example.
4:15 p.m.
As an Individual
It could always happen. Decisions concerning the allocation of government funds to various agencies belong to Parliament and, by extension, to the government. There is always a risk, but are there other possibilities or--
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
Maka Kotto Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
Fine. My second question is for Mr. Anderson and Mr. Johnson.
You said the MAP is ill-suited to the kind of museum you manage. In that case, what other programs did you try to use up to date? Did you get any adequate results?
4:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Museum of Rail Travel
The MAP program is inappropriate because of the sense of scale. The amount of the resources needed for something of the size we're dealing with normally isn't associated with most museums. Therefore, there has to be some new recognition of the challenges facing these very large outdoor historic artifact museums.
I haven't come across any programs yet that deal with this in a really meaningful way. The problem I think is that railway museums, nautical museums, aeronautical museums perhaps too, have never really made their presence known or their special reasons known to the general museum community. And that's changing. We are starting to become better understood, say, within the provincial and federal Canadian museums associations. That will have a bearing I think on how new programs are done.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
4:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Museum of Rail Travel
Yes, we have municipal support for operations and we have provincial support. About 15% provincial, 30% municipal....
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Maka Kotto Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
With which level of government do you feel you get along better? Which level of government does help you most in your museum experience?
4:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Museum of Rail Travel
Well, the municipal government, obviously at this point in time, because we are located in Cranbrook...even though we tell a national story for the most part. We do get a fair amount of support, but it's a city of 20,000 people. The province would give more if there were programs for that, but again, it's a question of scale.
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Maka Kotto Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
Fine. My main question is on proximity, and it does tie in with your suggestion.
Do you not think we need to explore the possibility to hand the supervision of culture and particularly the museums to provincial governments? They are closer to your communities and are more in touch with your day to day situation. Ottawa is far away and did not do much for museums for the last 25 years.
4:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Museum of Rail Travel
We're not asking the federal government to assume ownership or do everything; we're asking to be a partner with the other levels, because we have many stories. We tell partly a local story, partly a provincial story, but most of it is a national story of the great national travel patterns in these trains that were designed to run across the country. So I would have to say no, there is room for federal development.
October 25th, 2006 / 4:20 p.m.
Bloc
4:20 p.m.
As an Individual
I wrote just about the same thing in my brief. Financing should be on a shared basis. That is generally the case in visual arts and performing arts throughout Canada. We recommend the same thing for museums.
4:20 p.m.
Bloc
Maka Kotto Bloc Saint-Lambert, QC
Fine.
Like my colleague Mr. Abbott suggested, would it not be more practical to have the provinces take care of their own museums? Ottawa could transfer its jurisdictions with, I might add, the budgets that go with them. That is the question.
For you, would it not be better than the present structure, which has been problematic for 25 years?
4:20 p.m.
As an Individual
The answer to that question might be found in the reasons why the federal government did not do much for museums during that period of time. We can always take the case of performing arts, where many innovations and performances have gone a bit over the edge.
If, some way or other, a province does not support a given performance or event, and a government of another stripe at another level still believes it is important to promote it, it could always be done.
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Heard, I'm very interested in your recommendation about needing an arm's-length agency. One of the issues that has developed over the cuts to the MAP program is that many people have been speaking about major problems we seem to be seeing in terms of the inflexibility of the bureaucracy at Canadian Heritage in terms of meeting the needs of museums, the fact that it seems, on average, that about 25% of that budget was being rolled back into Treasury and not put into programs.
I'm looking to see from you how you would see an arm's-length agency set up. Would it be similar to the Canada Council? Would it have peered juries? And from your experience, in terms of money that's being spent overseeing the project in Ottawa right now, would there be greater money available, then, to actually put into the field?
4:20 p.m.
As an Individual
It is interesting in this connection. Certainly in 1987, when this whole issue came up with the restructuring of the National Museums of Canada, the issue came up as to whether or not it would be better as an arm's-length agency or in the hands of a government department under the control of a minister. At that time, the Canadian Museums Association certainly supported putting it under the control of a government department, because they felt that was the only way they were going to get the money they would like to get. In the past 25 years, exactly the opposite has happened. Except for the dip or the cuts that took place in the middle nineties, the budget of the Canada Council has been increased considerably, while the budget for the museums has seen exactly the opposite.
This also speaks to Mr. Kotto's question. When it comes to giving the money, if you have a strong board like the one the Canada Council had, with people like Mavor Moore and Maureen Forrester chairing it, people who spoke up for the arts, they were in effect the advocates for the arts at the federal level. We don't have that for museums. We had it to some degree when the National Museums of Canada still existed. So going on the historical evidence, that's one of the reasons why I think that should happen.
The Canada Council is a very good model. From my own experience in government, it's one of the most forthright institutions in government in getting the information on its website. All the members of the peer group juries are there, as are the grants given, and so on and so forth. There is all sorts of statistical information. It's all there. They have a very good reputation. They can move fast. They're in a better position....
One of the things about grants to any kind of a cultural institution is that there is always some kind of a risk. If a theatre company is putting on a season of plays and one of them bombs, they may lose their shirt on that one, but there is nothing you can do about that. But the money wasn't misspent. Rather, they took a risk that didn't work. Certainly in the arts, in my estimation, people need to have the right to make the odd mistake.
There is the insulation of the arm's-length agency. It's not the minister who makes the decision to give a certain amount of money to a certain organization to do a certain thing. It is this council. It's the political master's job to find out globally what money should be given to what agency, but when it comes to grants, I fervently believe it's up to the arts organizations and the museums to decide who gets how much, in accordance with the needs of the field, with what museums need, first of all.
For valid reasons, with things like Young Canada Works and the student employment grant programs and so on—that's the one you were referring to—about one-quarter of it lapsed because of the administrative inertia in getting the—
4:25 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
It was in MAP that we've had millions going back every year.
