Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
We are very happy to be here.
I am here with my colleague, Kirstin Evenden, president of the Glenbow Museum, and Benoît Légaré from Montréal. He was the director of the Montreal Science Centre and before that he was the secretary general of the Musées de Strasbourg.
The Canadian Museums Association is the national organization for museums. We represent approximately 2,000 museums, ranging from small community museums, often volunteer-run, to large metropolitan galleries.
It's very important to mention to you how popular these institutions are. They receive about 60 million visits per year. They're extraordinarily important, not just to our tourism industry but also to the fabric of our community as educational centres, as meeting spots, as places of tolerance, and as places of respect for civilized society.
At the very beginning we'd like to point out how very pleased we were with the federal budget last week. I want to do that because the federal budget last week clearly showed the value and importance of museums that Canada and Canadians place in these institutions. We are thankful for this vote of confidence. In particular, we're very pleased to see a significant increase to the travelling exhibitions indemnification program.
We want to thank all members on both sides of this table. We've met with you. We've appreciated your support on this and we look forward to continuing that relationship.
There are, however, two specific recommendations from the federal budget that we would like to present very quickly to you.
First, we're pleased to see an increase in youth employment. In particular, we'd like to see a little bit of that money trickle down to our Young Canada Works program in museums. It's a very valuable program, which has been seriously oversubscribed. We have to turn down 50% of employers applying for jobs, and we have to turn down 90% of applicants seeking internships in museums and galleries in Canada.
Second, there was a recommendation that we've made before to the finance committee, and possibly to you, and that is an innovative way to get Canadians more involved in their heritage. This is by developing greater philanthropy and private support—a diversity of funding for our sector. We're proposing a matching donations program called “Canadians Supporting Their Heritage Fund”, which would help stabilize museum funding and encourage greater long-term self-reliance. We also believe this could be a very appropriate legacy project in the context of the study you're undertaking.
Now I'd like to invite Kirstin Evenden to speak more about 2017.