Canadian Heritage Committee on June 20th, 2006

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First I'm going to tell two stories and then have you respond to them, because I don't think I'll have time to do both in five minutes, if we do question and answer.

The first is a positive in terms of programs that I think work--digital collections. I'd like some comment on that.

When I worked with the Algonquin Nation we used digital collections to take hundreds of taped interviews that we wouldn't dare play for anybody in case they became damaged. They were digitized. We trained young people to do it. We got field workers in the community taking band history and photographs and building together. We added it onto the website, so it's now part of the national perspective of Canada. That collection would not have been used anywhere; we wouldn't have been able to use it.

So I'd like a comment on the role digital collections could play. How can we expand that so we can get many of the collections that are sitting in the back sheds of our museums, that we don't have space to use, out for public view?

So that's a positive.

The question I have on the more divisive issue is on the issue of national significance and the difficulty for regional and smaller voices. To prove that, I'll give an example.

I was the chair of the heritage silver trail committee for Cobalt. We had 100 sites, the only sites of their kind, showing the kind of mining that was done in the early boom days. And year after year, those sites were bulldozed. When we were meeting with the provincial bureaucrats, they would say, “Prove to us the value of your sites or we will bulldoze them”. We were literally facing bulldozers. We were trying to explain the historic significance of sites that were being erased. Then, fortunately for us, a provincial television show had some historians on and they voted Cobalt the most historic town in Ontario. Suddenly the bureaucrats all jumped up and said, “My God, we have to save these sites”--the sites that yesterday they were sending the bulldozers in on. Fortunately, the federal government identified it as a national historic site.

But in the meantime, we've lost so many of the artifacts. So many of them have been scooped up because we never had the money. We've lost sites that were intact; they're now gone. So seeing this happen, I see the difficulty of a small, regional community explaining to bureaucrats the significance of a site that they know is nationally significant.

Is there a mechanism or a means or even a review committee that museums could put forward to explain to bureaucrats in Ottawa--in our case, it was with provincial bureaucrats in Toronto--that yes, these are nationally historic sites that need to be protected, rather than bulldozed, or they're collections that shouldn't be just shipped off?

Those are my two questions.

[John McAvity]

I'll answer the second question. I'll let my colleagues deal with digitization.

In terms of significance, there is a program that works very nicely, and I mentioned it a minute ago. It's called the cultural property program. The cultural property program certifies objects that are of national significance. Its legislation and the way in which it interprets “national significance” is quite broad. It says that curators and the local people are essentially the ones to make the argument of what constitutes national significance. Yes, there are checklists of “John A. Macdonald slept here” and that sort of thing. But it's an open process that allows the arguments to come from the bottom up, as it were. And it works, I think, quite effectively. It's not set in cement, and so on. About $100 million of donated artifacts are accredited each year and make it into our museums.

So I think there are ways.

That doesn't help you with the archaeological example. We're museums. We're not looking after archaeological sites so much. We look after the products that come out of the sites, because in Ontario they have to be deposited in a museum.

So I'd recommend to you at least that program as one way of looking at the national one. Our point of view is that virtually everything in Canada should be considered part of our national fabric. We are the sum total of our communities, if we are a nation. We are the sum total of our regions, of our provinces. That's what makes up Canada.

[Dean Bauche]

I'd just like to quickly comment on the whole issue of digitization. The issue of technology was brought up before.

I can tell you that through the leadership of Heritage Canada and CHIN, there have been significant inroads. In fact, a lot of the cutting-edge work in digitization in Canada is coming out of museums; there's a good understanding and valuing of it. In our particular case, oral history is one of the cornerstones—exactly what you're talking about.

It's very interesting, because when we introduced the possibility of capturing oral history in digital format, the elders didn't know what we were talking about, and it was very suspect. When we finally completed the project and unveiled our site for the Virtual Museum of Canada, they came and said, you keep doing this, as they saw what it meant.

Also, digitization is a critical thing to bridge generations to generations. It is the language of the young, and it is the vehicle by which our young people are going to explore their history.

But what John has pointed out is also interesting. Our site for the Virtual Museum of Canada—which is through the eyes of the Cree—was transformed into a national touring exhibition in order for it to be fully realized. John is right: the stories themselves are made powerful by the artifacts that people can come and see and be close to.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

There's one witness we haven't had a chance to hear from, Mr. Laidler, and I was wondering if he might have a chance to address us as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Well, do you have something to enlighten us with?

[Bob Laidler, General Manager, Oak Hammock Marsh, Oak Hammock Marsh]

Our Association of Manitoba Museums is very concerned with succession. Not all of our museums are going to be with us 25 years from now; that is a fact. Hopefully, those artifacts can find a new home and we can find a way of working with other museums, both nationally and provincially significant museums, so that those communities can still have that bit of their history shared and have a chance to be able to bring the artifacts home from time to time.

Our definition of museums will probably change. In Manitoba we have a number of non-traditional museums that are on the way. Our first nations and indigenous peoples are starting to deal with the collections that you're talking about now—the oral history, so that it can become digitized.

We are looking for a national policy to start with. It's critical for Manitoba to have a provincial strategy so we can work with our communities. We need the leadership from around this table and, I'm going to say, from around this room as well—from the department, from the governments, from our leaders, and from our communities.

You said many years ago that the Shriners put together an endowment plan. They were recognizing the future. We need to do that now, and if endowment plans are the solution, they take time to build, and we're losing things. So, please, if you can, give us a national museums policy so that we can work provincially and in our communities.

That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

We've heard from everyone, and that's great. We have come all this way, and it's great to hear from everybody.

I have just a couple of statements to make, and then I have one question.

First of all, I feel that programs sometimes are very complicated, and I think they should be easily accessed. Sometimes there should be broad parameters established, at least for certain parts of things, so that people can work within those parameters without having to take six months to get something together to apply for something that might just keep the lights on. Programs should be devised to be a little easier to get at.

I do know of various other people in other lines, who, when the money is there, and the program is there, and they've spent six months trying to access that money, still have never found out how to trigger it. If money is to be there, it has to be accessible.

Ever since I've sat around this table, I've heard “long-term sustainable funding”, whether it comes from the CBC or whatever. I know as a businessman I had to look ahead and make sure I could cover my costs. I could project myself ahead to estimate how much money I could make or could potentially make in those times.

Endowments I've already touched on.

Sometimes I think rules and regulations have to be a little less stringent. Sometimes I've heard people say, “Well, you know, if I could just get some government funding”. I've said, “Sometimes what happens when you get government funding is you get all of these other things along with it”. You might, on a $100,000 project, get $10,000 from the government, but then you have to do it the way the government says. So you have to follow all the rules and regulations that come into play to get that funding.

I'll look at one little “for instance”. My office is over in the Justice Building, and across the road there's a heritage building that's going to get a paint job. I happen to have been a painter all my life, and I could have had the place painted by the time they got the scaffolding up and all the protection around and everything like that. That's just the way it goes. That's how far the money goes sometimes.

I live just outside of Stratford, Ontario. We have quite a problem with our museum in Stratford. It's looking for a home. It's been kind of beat up a little wee bit. And I know the library is looking for a home, and the archives. I couldn't even work in the archives. I'd be stuck between the rows, and they'd have to extricate me.

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

There's a solution to that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

But I think sometimes some of those things....There's another solution, too. When the library needs more space, and the archives need more space, and there's no space where they presently are.... I think it would be great if some of these institutions could be put in proximity to each other so they could use the same parking spaces, maybe have one common area, so that if the museum wanted to put on a presentation they could do that, and if the library wanted to put on things, they could use the same area.

With that said, I do have a question.

On June 6, this Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage did a review of the Canada travelling exhibitions indemnification program. Under this program, the government assumes liability for any loss or damage that may occur to objects displayed in travelling exhibitions. The committee has to report back to the House about this program within a year.

To what extent are you satisfied with this program? Could the program be improved?

[John McAvity]

We're very familiar with this program. We were involved in its inception and in fact pushed for it. We're very pleased with this program.

Could it be expanded and improved upon? Yes, it could. I think we now have a number of years of experience under our belt. We've seen there have been no claims and the program has worked very smoothly, and we would hope the program would be broadened to include a wider range of exhibitions.

Eventually, if we are holding in trust objects of national importance and significance, why can't the Government of Canada indemnify all of the museum collections in Canada in the name of the public interest? That would be a no-cost way to save museums from having to pay insurance--and I don't have to tell you how expensive insurance is.

We've actually looked at setting up a program called reciprocal insurance, which is how the universities do it. We have a group insurance plan now with about 350 museums in it, but we'd gladly dismantle that program and have it covered by a federal indemnity program.

This does exist. Some governments also indemnify boards of trustees. In Nova Scotia, this is now happening, so that the charities do not have to purchase directors and officers liability insurance. In some states in the U.S., they do the same thing.

These are very expensive insurances that we have to have, and there has never been a case where a museum or a non-profit organization has been sued in Canada successfully. There have been some attempted suits, so there are legal costs, but this could be covered.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Kotto.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I request unanimous consent from committee members to table a motion pertaining to the discussion that has just taken place.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

At the next meeting.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Yes. I'm working on the assumption that the House will be adjourning Thursday. We may not have a meeting on Thursday.

[Mauril Bélanger, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

We'd have the motion by Thursday.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

The thing is--

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I could easily read it to you.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Let's hear it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay.

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

The interpreter asked that you read it very slowly, please.

[Maka Kotto, Bloc, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Fine then. It reads as follows:

That, in the Committee's opinion, the government implement as soon as possible the new museum policy discussed in 2005 and respect the work and consultations undertaken by the Department; that this new policy, once developed, be studied by the present Committee before its introduction in the House; and that the Chair report to the House.

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

I think that could be a notice of motion, and we could debate it next Thursday.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I would suggest that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Chair, my understanding is that we aren't meeting on Thursday.