Honestly, no, and I will explain why.
I too have been working in the museums sector for a number of years. Museums in Canada are facing situations that would have been unthinkable of 10 years ago.
Let me give you some specific examples. Some museums have closed. People often see museums as forces of stability similar to libraries, educational institutions, and so on.
Some museums that are not-for-profit organizations close because they can no longer fulfil their mandate. The situation is paradoxical, because we have an extremely well-developed network of museums that perform very well. The paradox is, on the one hand, that we have tremendous potential—collections, programs and museography that is recognized throughout the world—and on the other hand, a cash flow problem makes it difficult to face the music.
Sometimes municipalities or other organizations cannot withstand this pressure. Time spent waiting for responses to applications under various programs is hard to take for both small and large organizations.
To state it clearly, museums have to take out lines of credit and negotiate with banks with relatively few assets. Museums are actually the depositories of collections that are managed by the Cultural Property Commission or other bodies—they're not the owners of the collection. The collections belong to Canadians collectively.
So the museums find themselves in a paradoxical situation. They must at the same time be an extremely promising and well-organized community, while being at the end of what they can do without any harmonized, more logical and rational assistance from the federal government.
For us, a policy is a way to optimize and harmonize our efforts.