Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 6th, 2011

[Daniel J. Caron]

That's a very good question, and it brings me to one of the points I made earlier: we need to make known what we have in our vaults. Maybe we have material on this specifically and it's unknown because it's not described, not findable. So we acquire material, but it's not necessarily accessible.

So my task and my plan—my dream, I should say, because it's going to be tough to do—is that I want to do a first-level description of all the material we have before 2017. I said three years, but let's say four to five years. It would be at first level, so that would make sure Canadians know what's there, and from there people would be able to take it and interpret, because we're not in interpretation. In fact, we're providing a lot of information to our colleagues so they can do film and stuff like that.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Do you put a call out to the public to get new information, new photographs, new materials?

[Daniel J. Caron]

We will with the statement of documentary intent. We'll say, okay, we have a void here in—I don't know—1940 to 1945 on this topic, so we're interested in getting material.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

This last statement here I found very intriguing: for 2017, “permit the construction of a truly modern documentary heritage institution”. That sounds like a very significant project, and I wonder if you could just tell us what it would look like and how it would work.

[Daniel J. Caron]

We are reviewing all the business processes. We were just talking about one major element, which is the acquisition. How do we acquire material? We were reactive; we're going proactive. One of the reasons for that is if we want to be representative of all the documentary heritage produced in the digital environment in Canada, it's a totally different challenge. If we're not there up front it will disappear.

We need to find new ways of identifying what we need to gather very early in the process because it's going into the clouds and the clouds are moving. It's a tough task. That's one element that we're working very seriously on to be able to identify. The second part is to be able to take it in. A modern institution will be an institution where we can preserve digital material. A trusted digital repository is currently at the heart of our work.

Finally, the access. To have something that is not available to Canadians is not very effective. We want to shorten the time between the moment it gets in and the moment it gets out, at least as a first-level description. We're probably going to reduce the effort we're making in describing material, but make sure people know what we have so they can use it, because we do it for them.

We had a tradition—and I'll give you a short example, if I may. I went to Newfoundland in November 2009 and I brought them a gift. It was a surrogate of a very important piece to them. It was half a page. On my way there I read my briefing note and I had the description. The description for that half page was six pages. So guess what? We have a backlog. This is all changing. A modern institution will make sure everything is described, first of all. Then we can come back for some part of the collections that are of more interest to Canadians. We see that by the number of demands.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

If someone wanted to write a play, a movie, or a TV script about Sir John Graves Simcoe, could they just get it off the Internet when this modern documentary heritage institution is up and running, or would they have to download it?

[Daniel J. Caron]

They could get it off the Internet, or at least they would know we have material. They would call us and we would tell them what we have.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

It sounds very interesting.

[Daniel J. Caron]

It's a more direct interface with Canadian citizens.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

It sounds great.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Young.

Mr. Nantel.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

My question has to do with the dialogue we are trying to establish for 2017.

At the beginning of November, I noticed that faculty associations were concerned about the 12 pillars of your decentralization. Is that being addressed? Is dialogue open?

[Daniel J. Caron]

First, we are not decentralizing; we are federating. I think it is very important to make that distinction. I have been working since the beginning with the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, the Association of Canadian Archivists, the Canadian Library Association and the Association des archivistes du Québec. They are all at my table. Things will turn around slowly. But my job is not to defend a profession or anything like that, but to protect the documentary heritage of Canadians. So I am going to do everything I can so that physical or virtual vaults will be filled with what Canadians produce. That is my mandate and that is what I am going to do.

From a slightly more professional perspective, I created a university forum two years ago. I invite all Canadian educational institutions, be they EBSI or McGill University in Montreal, the University of Western Ontario, the University of Toronto or UBC, to take a seat at my table and talk about the training of future professionals. That's part of the problem. Our professionals have been lucky to a certain extent. In the world of writing, things have been quite static. But we are now in a completely different world. We have to rethink professions. It is a very important job. It is no longer behind a counter. It is somewhere on the Internet. It is about telling people that the document they have before them is authentic, that the digital book they have access to really does have 167 pages and a half. It is a different role. This is all happening at the moment and it raises concerns, of course. But we have to adjust. Otherwise, we will all just fade away. We will no longer be useful.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor to Ms. Boutin-Sweet.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

My question is for the representatives from the National Film Board.

I went to see you and I realized that you have worked with Alanis Obomsawin a lot.

Are you planning specific first nations projects for the 150^th anniversary?

[Claude Joli-Coeur]

The Inuit project I gave as an example will continue over the next few years. We are very involved with the first nations.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

What about other first nations?

[Claude Joli-Coeur]

Inuit are separate.

We are constantly involved in productions with the first nations.

[James Roberts]

There might be 110 films in our collection that have to do with Inuit, but there are hundreds and hundreds of films made by aboriginals about aboriginals across Canada.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

I am thinking along the lines of new productions.

[Claude Joli-Coeur]

A number of productions are in progress, with aboriginal producers or on aboriginal topics. Alanis is still making films. We are doing a project with aboriginal communities in the Quebec area, where they have production workshops. We have them across the country. We are very active.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

You must be familiar with the Wapikoni project, correct?

[Claude Joli-Coeur]

Yes.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

You were involved in that.

[Claude Joli-Coeur]

Yes, we were involved.