Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to introduce Mr. Daniel Caron, who is from Library and Archives Canada.
I'll be talking about the 2003 report, which concerns the protection of cultural heritage. We identified four themes in the report, and I'd like to outline what's been done since that time.
The first theme is protection of built heritage. I'm sure the committee is aware of that fact that Parks Canada is now the responsibility of the Minister of Environment. We nevertheless continue to work with Parks Canada analyzing options for the legislative protection of the built heritage.
The second general theme within the Auditor General's 2003 report was the protection of archival and published heritage. As the Auditor General noted, an element of that falls within the management of government information policy, for which the President of the Treasury Board has the lead.
Since 2003, Library and Archives Canada has completed a comprehensive risk assessment of its collection, and is currently working to develop an information technology system that will enable it to be more effective in reporting on the state of its collection. It's also working on an integrated risk management framework to aid decision-making.
Funding has been allocated, as the Auditor General mentioned, for temporary storage facilities in the so-called Zeller's building, and a longer term strategy is in development. I understand that meetings are taking place between Library and Archives Canada and the Office of the Auditor General to continue the review of progress to date.
The third theme is protection of heritage collections owned by other departments. Treasury Board has responsibility in this area. We're told that Treasury Board has completed its work on developing new material management policies. This new policy requires the identification and protection of heritage collections. This policy will enter into effect on November 1 of this year, and we believe that the Treasury Board Secretariat is currently working to develop guidelines associated with this policy to ensure proper implementation.
The fourth theme dealt with the definition of objectives, desired results, and appropriate resources in heritage protection. I've already identified some of the measures, such as the integrated risk management framework and strategic plan for Library and Archives Canada.
Within the department evaluations by third party consultants have been conducted on programs directed towards heritage. As I mentioned last week, indemnification was one of them, and we've developed new results-based management accountability and risk-based audit frameworks for the programs, which will clearly set out both desired results and our data collection strategies for performance indicators.
The government has invested in a number of new facilities to better protect and present national collections, including the temporary facilities for the library and archives, the new hangar for the Canada Aviation Museum, the new building for the Canadian War Museum, and upgrades to the Victoria Memorial Building for the Canadian Museum of Nature.
The Auditor General's 2003 report also called on us to complete the heritage policy framework as soon as possible. At that time we were working on a horizontal framework. We fairly quickly realized that to be effective we needed to address the issues that were specific to each area. As a result, we moved independently at the time on the historic places initiative, which is now with Parks Canada, and on a separate piece that falls into the intangible heritage category with the initiative on aboriginal languages and culture where the government announced in 2002 the allocation of $160 million over ten years. As you aware from what the minister said two weeks ago, we are continuing our analysis with respect to a museum policy.
Thank you.