Canadian Heritage Committee on June 15th, 2006

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I think you would agree with me that before we ever acquire additional documents and archival material, we should have in place a system for protecting what we already have. In that sense, some of the archived material that we have is presumably of less historical value. Does your department have an approach for dealing with that--clearing out some of the deadwood and beefing it up with some significant historical archival material?

[Daniel Caron]

Yes; we have two things.

First, we are developing an integrated acquisition strategy for new material, but we have also put in place a decision tree to decide on what documents have the greatest historical archival value. In this way we can discriminate and prioritize the highest quality that we need to keep in storage. We use that decision tree to decide what we're going to keep where, based on what we currently have in terms of space.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Could I cede some of my time to Mr. Abbott, if I have any?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Yes, sir, he can have the next round. Your time is pretty well used up anyway.

Mr. Scarpaleggia is next.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

There's a program that helps Canadian magazines with their postal distribution costs. The exact name of the program escapes me at the moment.

[A voice]

PAP.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

It's PAP. Did you look at that program?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, we did not look at that program.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

May I suggest that at some point it be looked at? I believe it's a very effective one and maybe could use a little positive publicity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I kind of rushed there. I wanted to get your name right this time, Ms. Nash. I apologize, Ms. Nash, for omitting you on your question.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

That's fine; I'm not in a hurry.

Thank you.

I have a question about the official languages education program, which has been in place now for decades. It's quite a big expenditure for the department. Have you considered conducting a review of the effectiveness of the program and doing an overall audit of the management of the official languages education program?

[Sheila Fraser]

We're just checking.

I believe that support for official language communities was in the most recent grants and contributions audit we looked at, and we found that it was generally well managed.

I would like it to be clear that we don't actually do effectiveness studies. That would be the department's responsibility; we would look to see if the department had carried that out. We look at the management of the program to see whether it's being managed according to established criteria and expectations for good management.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Thank you.

Let me just ask one other question. You said that your recent report didn't audit the four national museums. Is this something you intend to do an audit on?

[Sheila Fraser]

We audit the museums under a different regime from the performance audits. We do, as I mentioned, the annual financial audits, and then we carry out special examinations. If there were to be issues that came up in the special examinations that were common to all the museums we might include them in a performance audit like this. But we will generally look at other programs given the amount of work that we are already doing in the museums.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you.

We'll come over to Mr. Abbott.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

I'm trying to get some absolute clarity, because I'm a little fuzzy on one of the answers you gave us. The answer related to the relationship of the ministry to Telefilm. You said that Telefilm was an agent of, something like that.

[Sheila Fraser]

Previously there were a lot, and I presume there still are a significant number, of contribution agreements between the department and Telefilm. So Telefilm wasn't able to determine the policy issues, was just carrying out the program for the department, if you will. It would be a bit like a subcontractor.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

This is absolutely key. And I know my friends on the other side are listening very closely, because this is defining the relationship of the minister and the ministry, who my understanding is are responsible for establishing the direction and conveying that information to Telefilm, or CTF, or whatever the organization is, conveying a direction they want to go, but that the actual individual funding of a given project that comes under the control of Telefilm or CTF, however it works, is a decision exclusively of Telefilm or CTF.

Because your answer, maybe because I don't understand some of the terminology, wasn't really clear, I would like to get either your verification that what I just stated is correct, or in fact that it's not, because it makes a difference to the dialogue that we will be having between the government and opposition.

[Sheila Fraser]

Let me just perhaps clarify.

The program is established by the department, and they'll say they will give funding for whatever, and these are the conditions. Telefilm actually decides who the individual contributions are made with, but Telefilm does not decide the policy issues around the program. This is very unusual for a crown corporation. A crown corporation will generally get a general directive from the minister, and then the board and the management of the crown corporation will decide how they carry out the mandate that has been given to that crown corporation by Parliament. In this case they are really administering a program on behalf of the department, which is very rare in crown corporations.

We're not saying that this is inappropriate. As was mentioned earlier, the law was changed and that can be done. It's just that it reduces the amount of control the crown corporation itself has over carrying out its own mandate and how it defines that mandate. That's why we raise the issue.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I'm trying to get a clear definition here so that we can have our own argument. We just need the definition for the argument. I'm trying to get it absolutely crystal clear in my mind.

Let's make up something here. Let's presume that there are five production companies. Is there any way the minister or the department could advise Telefilm to choose A over B, or B over C? Or is the decision between those five companies, A through E, a decision that is made exclusive of the minister and the ministry?

[Sheila Fraser]

It is my understanding that the criteria would be established by the department, but the actual choice of who receives the funding is made by Telefilm.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Have you finished, Mr. Abbott?

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Yes, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay, we can go another round or part of a round here.

Mr. Bélanger, and then Mr. Kotto.