I understand completely what Mr. Simms is saying. I think that my friend Chris was attempting to give the contrast between the very large museums and the small museums. I take the good humour that was intended in the way it was presented. Perhaps deleting that particular paragraph would be helpful.
I think you've heard me say this before. Having had the privilege of enjoying the capacity of parliamentary secretary to the minister, I've had the opportunity to visit the archives, or at least one of the buildings of the archives, the Museum of Civilization, and the Museum of Science and Technology. On my own time, I have visited the Aviation Museum. But as a parliamentarian, I think it would be of value to go there with a parliamentarian's eyes, with the help of the people who are responsible for that. I visited the Museum of Nature, which, as I think I related, is under construction. I think they are spending about $85 million. I've been to the art gallery.
I guess what I'm saying is that my friend Mauril, being local of course, has the opportunity to visit these places and probably takes a lot of the visitors who would come to visit him and his wife, and I really respect that. But I suggest that if we're looking at it as committee members through committee eyes.... In other words, maybe what this motion might be lacking--and maybe we can get to it on Tuesday if we do a little sketching between now and Tuesday--is some ideas of how best this committee can become aware of the kinds of concerns the Auditor General is talking about and some of the challenges they face.
For example, if you go to the Museum of Science and Technology.... Here's a question for you. When you go to one of their five warehouses, there is a room that is as tall as this Railway Committee Room. And on the very top bunk are bicycles, scads and scads of bicycles all lying on top of each other. As you work your way down to the bottom, you come to the locomotives. Obviously, you wouldn't put the locomotives up there and the bicycles down below. Ask yourselves the question: Does it really make sense, in a museum of science and technology, to have that number of bicycles when if you were to do a display for science and technology about bicycles, you would fit it into something the size of a large lunch room?
Imagine dealing with a question like that--and there are about a thousand questions that can be asked like that--to become knowledgeable of some of the challenges with respect to the archiving.
So I'm simply saying we should be going to and taking a look at and becoming knowledgeable about museums. Then the second part, the Canadian Museums Association, getting more input from them--which is another dimension of museums--is something that I think this committee probably has some responsibility to take a look at. I can say that it's been very informative for me.