Thank you for the invitation to speak today to this committee. It is greatly appreciated.
I also want to start by thanking the MP for Peace River for introducing, a few meetings ago, the motion to study museums. We thank you for that.
Canada is blessed with a rich and colourful cultural and natural heritage. To preserve and interpret this heritage for present and future generations, dedicated and passionate Canadians created museums to tell the stories of our nation from the perspectives of our diverse communities and regions. Today there are museums in every region of the country. With the help of thousands of volunteers and staff, these institutions provide programs and services for the benefit of the communities they serve. As community centres and educational resources, they assist Canadians to understand their heritage, to have a sense of place and to feel a sense of pride, thereby playing an essential role in improving the quality of life and in building strong and progressive communities.
Canada's museums want to continue our contribution in helping to build a strong and vibrant Canadian cultural identity. We want to ensure that heritage remains a vital part of communities across Canada and that Canadians learn more about themselves and each other. We want to ensure that our institutions are reflective of and responsive to the communities we serve, providing all Canadians with a sense of place and community pride.
However, recent factors have created significant challenges for Canada's museums. These include succession leadership issues; greater expectation of professional museum standards; greater expectation of community engagement; increased operational costs; pressures to incorporate new technologies; and increased accountability and expectations of the public for up-to-date exhibits, programs and services. These factors have been compounded by a lack of predictable multi-year funding.
Despite diligent efforts to generate revenues, museums are still unable to secure enough stable funding to sustain their operations in the long term. As much as they attempt to operate using business models, museums will never generate enough revenue to fully offset operational costs. For this reason, governments worldwide directly support museums. In Canada, all three levels of government have a role to play in supporting the essential function that Canada's museums provide to our communities. The federal government's role has three fundamental components: to ensure stewardship of the national museums; to preserve and protect Canada's rich heritage for present and future generations; and to assist with the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of collections of national significance, quality, and specialization that exist throughout Canada's regional museums.
To support this role, a pan-Canadian approach is required. Over the past two years, the Canadian Museums Association, in consultation with the national museum community, has been working intensively to develop a new national museum policy. The consultations with the museum community were comprehensive and inclusive. The findings provided a realistic and honest assessment of the challenges and needs of the sector. Not surprisingly, the issues have not changed over the past ten years. What has changed, however, is their severity. Based on the consultations, the Canadian Museums Association created a framework proposal to guide the development of a new policy. A cornerstone of this proposal is predictable multi-year funding for museums. As a sector, Canada's museums have done their part in this process; we have clearly articulated our needs to the Canadian Museums Association's consultation process in 2005. Consequently, we feel that now, more than ever, the time has come for the federal government to develop and implement a new national museum policy that includes improved and predictable multi-year funding.
For any federal museum funding to be fully effective and responsive to the needs of Canada's museums, it must include more flexible and accessible eligibility guidelines and a competitive application process; peer juries from across the museum community to adjudicate applications based on consistent and clear criteria, which will ensure transparency and effectiveness by putting the decisions in the hands of individuals who understand the needs of the museum community; more efficient turnaround timeframes; and a mechanism to allow the community to provide ongoing feedback.
On September 25, $4.6 million was cut from the museum assistance program, the only museum specific federal funding program. To say the museum community was surprised is an understatement. We were even more surprised to hear recently, through this committee, that not all of the funds allocated to the museum assistance program were distributed over the past few years. If this is indeed the case, it is unquestionably not the result of a lack of need for funding in the museum community; on the contrary, it is a sign of a program and a bureaucratic process that require a redevelopment to better align with the realities of the 21st century. While we agree that a review of current museum funding programs is required to ensure they effectively meet the needs of Canada's museums, cutting the modest amount that was available is not a constructive or logical starting point.
It is especially disturbing and dissapointing that the September 25 announcement gives the impression that museum funding is wasteful and unnecessary. Headlines referring to the government's trimming of the fat are detrimental to a sector that has consistently striven for years to have responsible, accountable, and valued community centres. While we commend the federal government for providing $245.3 million per year to Canada's museums, the reality is the majority of this funding stays in Ottawa and does not find its way to community museums across the country.
Despite being critical to Canada’s museums, federal museum funding levels have been appallingly insufficient for many years. In light of the recent museums assistance program cuts, the need for a new national museum policy with increased predictable multi-year funding is even more acute and critical.
Thank you very much.