Canadian Heritage Committee on April 24th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

It's great to be back as we have concluded our recess and continue our work on Canada's 150th birthday. We're very pleased to have a number of witnesses with us. First, from the City of Ottawa, we have Mayor Jim Watson. Welcome, sir.

There are also Katherine Hobbs and Rainer Bloess, councillors with the City of Ottawa. Welcome to all of you.

As well we have Michele McKenzie, the president and CEO of the Canadian Tourism Commission; and Catherine Beauchamp, also of the Canadian Tourism Commission. Welcome to both of you.

Each group will have 10 minutes to present and then we'll move into our questions and answers. We'll be meeting until noon, when we'll switch over to our next panel.

With that, Mayor Watson, the floor is yours.

[Jim Watson, Mayor, City of Ottawa]

Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you very much.

On behalf of the City of Ottawa, my council colleagues and Councillors Katherine Hobbs and Rainer Bloess, I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning.

It's really a great pleasure to address you and provide you with the City of Ottawa's objectives for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Canada's Confederation in 2017. The last time I appeared before a parliamentary committee was when I was president of the Canadian Tourism Commission and I'm now sitting beside my successor, Michele McKenzie. It's a great pleasure to be with her as well.

This promises to be an exciting and one of the most significant milestones in our country's history. My hope is that our nation's capital will be the epicentre for such an important and significant celebration, uniting Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

I remember, as I'm sure many of you do, watching with great excitement the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, and being amazed and moved by the incredible show of patriotism that Canadians displayed during those 17 days on the west coast. The entire downtown core was transformed into a sea of red and white, an incredible display of patriotism and pride in our nation.

Just as Vancouver owned the 2010 Olympics, and Quebec City owned the 400th anniversary of the founding of that city, and Toronto will own 2015 as the Pan Am Games are hosted that year in the greater Toronto area, we have but one nation's capital and I believe that Ottawa can and must own our nation's 150th birthday in 2017.

Jean Pigott, a former Conservative member of Parliament, beloved citizen of our community, and chair of the National Capital Commission, once said that “Ottawa should be considered every Canadian’s second home town”. It doesn't take away from the excitement of activities that will take place in your communities, but we like to think of our nation's capital, your nation's capital, as every Canadian's second home town.

But in order to accomplish this goal, a lot of hard work and cooperation between many stakeholders needs to take place. Although the 150th anniversary is a little more than five years away, it is crucial that we start planning for it now.

Five years, as we all know, will go by very quickly and I want you to know that the City of Ottawa is ready and very willing to play a significant role in the organization and execution of this important milestone. In fact, our planning is already under way.

In my state of the city address in January I asked two city councillors, Councillors Hobbs and Bloess, who are with me today, to co-chair a city task force on Canada's 150th anniversary. With them leading the charge, our goal is to make sure that Ottawa is ready to roll out the red carpet in 2017 and throughout the entire year leading up to and culminating in an incredible spectacle of celebration on July 1, 2017. That should be a year for all of us to remember, just as many of us—and I was only six at the time—remember the excitement of Expo 67 and Man and His World in Montreal.

Ottawa must aggressively go after national and international conferences, annual general meetings, sporting and cultural events, and conventions and trade shows.

The city took a significant step forward in attracting major events to the capital with the creation of a major events attraction office, in partnership with Ottawa Tourism.

The office is being tasked to attract and support large-scale cultural and sports events that have positive benefits to the economy. The formula is very simple: bid more, win more, host more. We've proven that Ottawa is a solid and capable host city.

Just this year, for instance, we hosted the 2012 National Hockey League All-Star Game and the 2012 Juno Awards, both of which were a tremendous success for the local economy, bringing accolades from across the industry for our successful organization and execution.

We're looking forward to hosting a number of other significant events this year, including the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, and the 2013 International Ice Hockey Federation Women's World Championship. We're also in the process of bidding, and we're on the short list, to host the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup of Soccer. And we hope to find the Junos back in the nation's capital for the sesquicentennial in 2017.

We are very fortunate in Ottawa to have the support of so many partners, whose assistance helps make these events so successful. I am pleased to report that a number of our city's partners are excited about taking part in the 2017 task force.

In collaboration with the Tourism Development Council, the following organizations will assist the city as it welcomes the country and the world in 2017: Ottawa Tourism; our beautiful new convention centre that was funded in part by the federal and provincial governments; the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce; the Ottawa Airport Authority that just won the “Best Airport in North America” designation; the Ottawa Senators; the Ottawa Festivals; and our city's economic development team. Several other groups are also going to be part of the task force, including Regroupement des gens d'affaires de la Capitale and the new CE Centre located out by the airport.

We're hopeful to partner with other organizations such as the National Capital Commission, and we've worked closely with them as well as Canadian Heritage. I had the opportunity to talk to Minister Moore about the 2017 events just a few weeks ago, as I did with the Prime Minister last month.

We're hoping to move forward with the goal of hosting the most extraordinary and memorable sesquicentennial celebrations. My vision is not just to limit the celebrations of the 150th anniversary to 2017, but also to have legacy projects that will have a lasting impact, projects that will serve as a national reminder to all Canadians about our heritage and contributions to the world. We believe Heritage Canada, the NCC, and the federal government have a crucial role to play in the creation of such legacy projects. No doubt many ideas will be presented by people from all walks of life.

In my remaining minutes, Mr. Chair, I want to highlight some of the suggestions that I've discussed with the Prime Minister and Minister Moore.

The old U.S. embassy located right across from Parliament Hill on Wellington Street can be and should be a showcase of Canadian innovations and achievements—in essence, our version of the Smithsonian in Washington. For example, after they've toured Parliament Hill I can see students and parents alike walk across the street to this beautiful building that would have our treasure chest of Canadian achievements and accomplishments: Céline Dion's first gold record, a replica of the Canadarm, Bryan Adams's first guitar, Sidney Crosby's stick from the gold-medal winning game in the Olympics, a Banting and Best chemistry set, Terry Fox's famous T-shirt, and Bombardier's first snowmobile. In essence, it would be Canada's chance to brag about some of the great Canadians and their formidable achievements.

I'd also propose converting Canada Day into Canada Week, a week-long celebration of Canadian talent, culminating on July 1 with the biggest and proudest party in the country. We spend close to 10 days putting up the infrastructure, the sound and staging for, one day. Let's celebrate that for all of Canada's regions. Take a page from the National Arts Centre, which has had a successful scene series, with the B.C. Scene, the Prairie Scene, the Northern Scene, the Quebec Scene, the Ontario Scene, and the Atlantic Scene, where groups and individual performers from all these regions have one day dedicated to their accomplishments leading up to July 1, 2017.

The City of Ottawa is very excited about the upcoming 150th anniversary celebrations, and we are committed to making this a most memorable moment in Canadian history.

We will need some support and direction on what the federal government's plans are for Canada's 150th. Our request to you, through this committee, which we thank for taking this on as an initiative, is that we need to get a clear direction on how the federal government plans to celebrate and what resources, if any, are going to be available.

In closing, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Chair. I know that your background and history in tourism is commendable. I'd also like to thank Mr. Brown, whom I've know for many years, who suggested that I come before this committee and talk about our excitement in celebrating Canada's sesquicentennial in 2017.

Merci beaucoup. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We appreciate your testimony.

I do want to take the opportunity, committee, to welcome Matthew Dubé as a new permanent member of the committee.

Now we will move to the Canadian Tourism Commission and Michele McKenzie.

I understand, Michele, you have a video that you're going to play first. Are you going to cue that up?

[Michele McKenzie, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Tourism Commission]

No, I'll do that during the presentation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

It's a pleasure to be with you here today, and also a treat to be sitting next to Jim, who, in addition to being mayor, is a great advocate of tourism in Canada.

For those of you not familiar with the Canadian Tourism Commission, we market Canada in international markets. We work with Canada's tourism industry to generate export revenue for the Canadian economy.

I believe, honourable members, that the CTC's proposed youth travel strategy has been shared with you in advance.

Canada's 150th birthday is a major milestone for our country and a unique opportunity to do something great. As Jim said, it's an opportunity to create something that will be a lifetime memory for people, like Expo 67, which people of our generation still speak about fondly.

We at the Canadian Tourism Commission have an idea for something that could make this celebration exciting, engaging, and memorable for young Canadians. Our vision is to inspire, through marketing and programs, a movement of youth travelling and exploring their country in 2017.

For the purposes of this proposal, we're targeting the age group of 16 to 29 years old. This generation is the future of Canada, and we as marketers know that it can be especially difficult to get them excited about an occasion like this. Members of Generation Y are independent; they can't be told to be excited about something. That groundswell really has to build from within. I know, as I have a few 20-somethings.

We think a youth travel movement could be just the thing to do that. More than just a night of parades, concerts, and fireworks, this would be celebrating with a whole journey. Many young Canadians are proud of their country, but they haven't really experienced much more than the town they grew up in or the place they went to school. Their travel aspirations don't include Canada. They think of exotic international destinations. This would give them a broader understanding of our country: French and English Canada; east/west, central, and north.

Inspiring a whole movement of young Canadians travelling across their own country, can you imagine what a powerful experience that would be? It would really amplify their sense of Canadian identity and sense of belonging.

I know with my three children having been in the school systems in Halifax, Ottawa, and Vancouver, all of their school trips were outside of our country. They visited the U.S. capital city but not Canada's capital city, all of them as students in public school systems in Canada.

We think the benefit of this initiative for the tourism sector will be real economic stimulus. Young travellers are actually very high-spending. They tend to travel for longer, so they spend more. They travel in the off-season. They go off the beaten path. They enjoy small local businesses.

I'd like to offer the committee members a concrete example of how such campaigns can contribute to the Canadian economy while lifting Canadian pride. The last time the CTC had special funding for a domestic campaign was under the economic action plan in 2009 and 2010. Normally our work focuses on drawing international travellers to our country in order to increase export revenues. But with this special one-time funding, we mobilized a travel marketing campaign here in Canada. It was called “Locals Know”, and it was incredibly successful,.

I'd like to show you a little bit of what that was about.

[Video Presentation]

That video showed you the year-one results.

By the end of the second year, the results for “Locals Know” in full were that nearly one in 10 Canadians who saw the campaign booked a trip, for a total of 4.5 million more trips in Canada and $1.2 billion in revenue. This activity supported over 10,000 industry jobs. This is why we see such a great potential for a new focus on the youth market in 2017.

We've done a whole suite of research—focus groups, surveys, and interviews with industry players—which shows that we have the right foundation for this new proposal before you. Young people are proud to be Canadian, and while only 10% were aware of the 150th anniversary, they believed it merited a big celebration when told about it.

In terms of travel, an incredible 91% of them said that they were interested or very interested in seeing more of Canada soon. Now, we all know that interest isn't currently translating into trips at home, as many are drawn away to exotic destinations in Europe, Thailand, Australia, etc. And we know from our research that a lot of this is because Canada is seen as expensive. It's also not seen as being exciting enough. In part, this is because many young Canadians are pretty unaware of what there is to do here. In our focus groups, we asked them where they'd most like to visit in Canada. They came up with Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Pushed a bit, they said Whistler and Banff. Beyond that, they really couldn't think of what else there was to do. That's pretty shocking.

Our proposal for government's consideration would be a program in four parts.

First is branding. The CTC could build a youthful, enticing identity for Canadian travel. Second is blitz and buzz. We'd get the message out through a media blitz coast to coast to coast, and cultivate social media buzz—that groundswell we talked about. Third is experience, giving them a reason for their travel in 2017, the most obvious one being to join the mass of others and not be left out. There's so much space here for partners to come in with things like 2017 youth events or promoting voluntourism opportunities, or a challenge like travelling a certain distance on the Trans Canada Trail.

The last part would be deals. We'd work with industry partners to come up with major time-limited deals they couldn't turn down. There's such huge partnership potential with something like this, for example, with airlines, travel companies, the provinces and territories, festivals, lifestyle brands such as Red Bull and MTV. This is how an initial Government of Canada investment could be leveraged into a much larger program for a big impact.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Ms. McKenzie, and thank you to our panel.

Now we'll move to our questions and answers.

First up is Mr. Brown.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to Mayor Watson and to your councillors, and thanks again for coming.

We commenced this study back in the fall. Mayor Watson, you and I had a discussion about this a while ago, so I think it's great that you're being very proactive on this. Some of us, including you and me, remember vaguely the centennial of 1967, and it was great to see the city taking a proactive role in this.

We all know that the City of Ottawa has a lot of great events, such as the Tulip Festival, the Jazz Festival, the summer Bluesfest, the wine and food show, and many other events. Some of the recent ones you talked about, Mayor Watson, were the Junos and the NHL All-Star Game, of course.

So we know about the positive events that are happening already. Maybe you can talk a little about whether you can see our taking advantage of the existing events and rebranding them for Canada 150 in 2017. Maybe there are advantages or disadvantages to that and maybe you could tell us a little about them.

[Jim Watson]

That's actually a timely point, Mr. Brown, because just last week we launched the festival season. We actually have more festivals in Ottawa per capita than any other community in Canada. There are over 65 not-for-profit festivals that take place throughout the year.

I'm not sure if Councillors Hobbs and Bloess are attending, but tonight the lineup of the Bluesfest is being launched, now one of the largest music festivals in Canada.

We've met with a number of festival groups. We have the president of Ottawa Festivals on our task force. We very much see our building on the success of those festivals, and perhaps through summary branding or some add-on programming to those festivals, making them particularly special during the sesquicentennial celebration in 2017. They already have a very strong following, and we think we can almost piggyback on some of their successes to reach even more people to perhaps convince residents and visitors to stay an extra day or couple of days before or after the festival.

Tourism in our local community is the third-largest employer. My time at the CTC taught me that every single member of Parliament has a vibrant tourism industry in his or her own community. It's important to job creation. You all have unique characteristics and so on. But we have only one national capital, and we think there's an opportunity for us to work in collaboration with the federal government, with the private sector, as well as with the not-for-profit sector, particularly in culture, arts, and tourism, to ensure that we can capture some of the success that Quebec City had with their 400th anniversary.

I recall that when I was a provincial cabinet minister, virtually every federal-provincial-territorial ministers' meeting took place in Quebec City. It was the place to go because it was branded by the Government of Quebec, the City of Quebec, and the federal government as the destination of choice in that particular year, similar to the success of Vancouver with the 2010 Olympics. So we see the festivals as an ideal opportunity to help act as a magnet to bring people in.

Obviously, when they come here, some of the highlights of their visit would be Parliament Hill. We'd like to give them that added opportunity of a “Canada House” concept across the street from Parliament Hill, the beautiful museums, the art gallery, the National Arts Centre, and so on as a complete package.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

One of the reasons for the big success of the 1967 centennial celebrations was that there was this centennial brand. Do you think having a “Canada 150” brand would be a positive thing that we could tie all those things into?

[Jim Watson]

I think it would be.

It's similar to what your government is doing with the War of 1812 and the bicentennial celebration. I just received a letter today, for instance, from the Prime Minister, and on his letterhead it has the War of 1812 logo and the website, driving people to that website. That's going to help the tourism industry certainly along the St. Lawrence and those areas that had a direct impact as a result of the War of 1812.

We think there's an opportunity for every community to celebrate the 150th. There's not going to be a Man and His World or an Expo 67 on the scale it was back in 1967, but we think there's an opportunity for every community. We're obviously here promoting Ottawa as the nation's capital for an opportunity for more residents and more visitors to come and visit their nation's capital. It's almost a pilgrimage in the United States where families and schools want to visit Washington, D.C. We need to provide incentives to the school system, the public school system, that this should be a destination of choice for young people as well.

I'll just leave you with one story. I remember that Jean Pigott—I'm a big fan of Jean's—told a story once of a young woman from the Northwest Territories, I believe, who came to Ottawa. She had never been south of 60. When she saw the Peace Tower, she put her hand on the Peace Tower and said, “I now feel the soul of Canada”. It was a very touching moment that Jean used to share with people.

We'd like to capture that moment for as many Canadians and foreign visitors as possible.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thanks, Mayor Watson.

I appreciate your bringing up the War of 1812. I never miss an opportunity to talk about the fact that the first skirmish in that war happened in my hometown of Gananoque.

[A voice]

Did we win?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

It was a tough battle.

I have a few minutes left, so I'd like to move on to you, Michele, to talk a little bit about your “Your Canada” youth initiative for 2017. We all know, from your numbers and from what I've read, that the U.S. and Australia are the big beneficiaries of youth travel. We know that the U.S. is close, so that's fairly easy, but Australia is a long way.

What is Australia doing that's drawing young people to Australia? Maybe there are some lessons here that we could learn.

Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about those possibilities.

[Michele McKenzie]

Thank you.

Yes, we looked a lot at what Australia is doing. In fact Australia and New Zealand have been very aggressive in going after the youth market and have put together campaigns specifically for that purpose. We think that's the kind of example they set.

Not only do we want to be encouraging youth travel within Canada, but of course we'd like to attract international youth to travel to Canada in 2017 and beyond. Whether they're coming to study, to backpack, or for working holidays, we have a big opportunity in that.

Australia is very aggressive in this market, and there are good lessons to learn there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

That's it for you, Mr. Brown? Okay. Thank you.

Next up is Mr. Cash.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all of you for being here. It's an honour to sit on this committee and have the opportunity to hear some very expert opinion on and insight into Canada's 150th and the plans for that and generally on the state of play in terms of Canadian culture right across the country. I want to thank you for that.

We have been debating in the House of Commons, and have raised much concern about, the cutting of the Katimavik program, which is a youth exchange initiative that is essentially about nation-building.

Ms. McKenzie, by the way, I thought the video was excellent and the initiative is excellent. I have travelled across the country, I don't know, maybe 30 times in my life, and I've had the opportunity you are talking about that many young people lack.

I have to say, as a parent of young kids, first of all, that I really have a hard time considering young people as a market that we can capture and keep as long-term consumers of a product, which in this case is tourism.

We have this program, which the government and the Heritage Minister have actually spoken about in the House. The minister has said that it was the easiest program for him to cut, which is really shocking. I'm sure it shocked some of the members opposite that Katimavik would be so easy to cut. That essentially is a program that could be expanded to really honour Canada's 150th, because that program is not about corporate tie-ins. It's not about young people as a market; it's about how we see ourselves as a country. It would seem that if we're doing something for Canada's 150th, it should be about who we are as a country.

When I hear this, about young people as a market, it really concerns me. The language really concerns me, and I think it would concern most parents.

I don't want to get on your case, because I respect the work you do, and I know that for all of us, tourism is very important. But Canada's 150th is an opportunity for us to step beyond the narrow confines of our commercial understanding of what we're doing and take a broader look, which is why we are concerned that, on many different levels, the agenda of Canada's 150th could creep into a more overtly, partisan, political exercise.

You've given us a big document. We were enraptured by the presentation, so I haven't really had a chance to look at it.

Don't you think that's a concern to just look at young people as a market?

[Michele McKenzie]

Whether or not you call young people a market, we talked about what Australia is doing. Australia is doing a very good job attracting Canadian youth with the idea of travelling to Australia, because they have really branded themselves as a great place for youth travel. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about inspiring young people to travel in their own country.

What our research tells us is that we're raising a generation of young people who have great travel aspirations, but they don't see Canada as a destination. They don't have the same understanding or the same dreams about travelling across Canada as they have about travelling across other countries. So we're saying, let's inspire them with all the wonderful things we have and they can do here in our country. They will become lifetime travellers of Canada if they start to have those experiences.

We're not really talking about a market of people who are 18 to 29. We're talking about inspiring young people to have a lifetime of love for their country. Other countries are inspiring our youth with those ideas, and we want to compete in that segment as well.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

I understand that and also that's it your job. You do it very well, and we need you to do it well.

But we're talking about Canada's 150th here. In a way, we're having two different conversations. Your conversation is about how we get young people engaged in travelling in our country. There are all sorts of other tie-ins, and I understand all of that. But if we're going to talk about Canada's 150th, surely we have to talk about something bigger and grander than narrow marketing plans to harness a potential high-spend demographic that we haven't grabbed yet.

I guess I'm looking for something a little more inspiring. I understand there's a market vision that the government is promoting. It's their ideology—but that's not Canada.

I want to hear if there's a grander picture here, because I'd like to buy into this. I'm using market terms myself now.

[Michele McKenzie]

The inspiration is really to inspire young people with the idea of travelling in their country, making them lifetime travellers of Canada, not unlike the way those of us who were in school in 1967 dreamed about the idea of travelling to every single province and territory in Canada. In fact I've done that, and I've ensured that my own children have done that. I know that's a direct result of living through Canada's centennial year and having had that great inspiration.

If this is not coming through in my presentation, I do invite you to read the full proposal. I'd be happy to review that with you.

This is about a big idea of inspiring lifetime travel in Canada by Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Cash.

Next, Mr. Trudeau.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'd like to start with the CTC, with you, Michele.

A number of people were talking about their experiences from Canada '67. Obviously the Expo still resonates, certainly in Montreal, but also across the country, as a moment when we came of age and drew in the world to discover what Canada was a hundred years after its founding.

My own experiences are more wrapped up in 1992, which was Canada's 125th anniversary. It wasn't a big anniversary on many levels, but one initiative then that I found resonated extremely well was something that the airlines put together—I believe it was Air Canada, but it might have been both Air Canada and Canadian Airlines—which was a $125 standby ticket to anywhere in the country for anyone under the age of 25.

I went to Whitehorse on one of those tickets, because it was the farthest I could go, and I met a fellow from Newfoundland who was in Whitehorse because it was the farthest he could go. This idea of getting to discover the country was an extremely powerful one.

I am bemused by my friend in the NDP's concern with the word “market”. The reality is that the youth market is one we absolutely need to tap into. The habits they develop as young people will echo throughout their lives. If they've seen the extraordinary corners of this country as young people because we reached out to them and engaged them, they're more likely to want to show their kids them and travel more throughout their lives.

I absolutely congratulate you, and I encourage you. As the youth critic for the only party in the House that actually has a youth critic, I'm extremely supportive of your focus on this. As my colleague in the official opposition pointed out, I am worried that cutting Katimavik demonstrated a lack of willingness to invest in youth, and I'm concerned about the kinds of resources you see would be necessary to truly mount a campaign targeted at young people.

What do you think it would cost—ball park? What kind of up-front investment are we looking at to do this?

[Michele McKenzie]

We see our proposal being part of a bigger idea of how Canada will celebrate its 150th year. The proposal we have structured is a $30-million proposal over four years, which would allow for those types of partnerships and campaigns, be they with travel companies or the media—the full range of partnerships with the tourism industry.

We see it as something that would gear up as early as 2013 or 2014 and really culminate in ideas around 2017 travel.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Again, the question that comes to mind linked to Expo 67 is that we made a lot of effort to share Canada with the world in 1967. I appreciate and I love the Locals Know campaign, and it was tremendously successful. Is much thought being given to how we are showcasing ourselves to the world? I know you mentioned pitching to young people around the world to travel in Canada, but more broadly than that, is there thought being given to how we are going to draw the world to see how tremendous Canada is at 150, and what kind of model we can be?

[Michele McKenzie]

Drawing to Canada the international travel of the world is our day job. That is what we do all the time. I think we'll be doing that around the events in 2017, in addition to our regular work. What we see as an opportunity with this youth program is to extend that programming to also inviting international youth to meet Canadian youth at events and activities that will be going on in that year. So that will be a big focus of what we do. We see bringing the youth theme into our international markets as well.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

The year 2017 isn't all that far away, so on top of doing events and drawing people in for punctual reasons, are there larger themes we're putting forward that you're aware of that say Canada is celebrating 150 years? What exactly are we celebrating? Are we celebrating our diversity? Are we celebrating our geographic space? Are we celebrating our health care system? What themes have come forward for you, and perhaps from partners you've talked to, about the big things we're going to celebrate? We had Terre des Hommes in '67.

What is the big theme you're working around for this year?

[Michele McKenzie]

The CTC is focusing on youth travel as a theme, and internationally we're trying to connect that to the educational marketing activities that are going on, that Canada is not only a great place to travel but also a great place to study. So that's the work we are doing and are trying to link that to the broader program that will emerge through the work of this committee and through Canadian Heritage. So at this point we're trying to be quite flexible, because we think that the idea of this program could link to a broad number of themes.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you.

Mayor Watson, first of all, it's wonderful to see you here and to be able to congratulate you for the extraordinary job that Ottawa has done on Canada Day and all the festivals recently.

I have the same question for you. You've talked with the Prime Minister, with the Minister of Heritage. Do you sense that there is already an indication of what we will be celebrating, other than a calendar birthday? Have particular themes come forward, such as our celebration in 2017 being about Canada being the best of this or the best of that, or of what we're to showcase to the world?

[Jim Watson]

I obviously can't speak for the government. They're in the preliminary stages, I believe, of determining answers to that question.

I commend the committee for putting it on the agenda and inviting us here today. It's one of the reasons that the concept of Canada House in the old U.S. embassy across the street would be an example of where, I think, we can boast as a nation of some pretty remarkable achievements as a relatively young country. While our American friends are very good at boasting, I think sometimes we're a little too reserved and shy. This would be our opportunity to have that wow moment when students go in there and didn't realize that we invented the arm that was on the space shuttle, or that Canadians invented insulin to fight diabetes.

When I met with officials from the Smithsonian Institution, in this case the American history museum, I asked them what the number one exhibit was that people wanted to see at the Smithsonian. They said it was the ruby slippers of Judy Garland from The Wizard of Oz and Archie Bunker's chair. Maybe that says something about our friends in the States, but I think we want to have that opportunity whereby people can go in and see Celine Dion's gold record or the van from Terry Fox's remarkable Marathon of Hope, and have a chance for us as Canadians to see that we haven't realized that we invented everything from velcro and the zipper to the Canadarm, to the success we've had at hockey, to Bombardier's first snow machine in the world. It would give us an opportunity not only to celebrate those great Canadian artists and inventors and scientists and physicians, but also to look at our country in perhaps a different way than we have before, and to boast a little more about what we've accomplished as a country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Trudeau.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you all for being here today.

I'm going to focus my questions towards Michele from the Canadian Tourism Commission.

Obviously, as the chair of the parliamentary tourism caucus and as the member of Parliament for Banff, one of our most beautiful tourism areas in the country, I've had a lot of opportunity to talk about the work you do and the tourism industry in general. You understand, as I do, how important the tourism industry is. We talk about a $74 billion industry. We talk about 600,000 Canadian jobs. Obviously, the work you are doing on the marketing side is an important piece of the success that the tourism industry enjoys in Canada, so I want to commend you for that. You have demonstrated what we can accomplish in that regard by being innovative and focused in our marketing efforts.

An important part of that is how well you work together both with our government, in terms of some of the initiatives we have, and also with other organizations, such as provincial organizations and destination marketing organizations across the country. I think a great example of that was when our Prime Minister gained approved destination status from China, which was a very significant thing our government was able to accomplish for the tourism industry, in working together with you guys and destination marketing organizations in parts of the country. I certainly know that in my area of Banff-Lake Louise, there was an award-winning tourism campaign around that. So we've been able to demonstrate how successful we can be in drawing travel when we all work together.

You had the video on the “Locals Know” campaign, and I want to point out in particular how brilliant I thought that campaign was. It was certainly very helpful to the industry.

I want to look at the numbers you have provided us here about that campaign, in terms of how successful it has been. You talked about some of the measurables: 4.5 million more trips by Canadians as a result, $1.2 billion more in tourism revenue, and 10,000 more jobs. Those are pretty significant results you were able to garner from that.

I want to look at that and then at the proposal before us, which I'm very intrigued about, for youth travel for our 150th anniversary. What do you anticipate or project as the results of a campaign like that in terms of those same kinds of numbers? What would we expect in terms of increased trips and jobs for people in the industry and revenues for the tourism industry? Can you give us some idea of what your projections would be?

[Michele McKenzie]

You can see how some of the return on investment in that campaign was over a hundred to one in terms of dollars. It would be more modest if we were looking at a program targeting youth, but certainly it would be over our fifty to one international marketing benchmark, which means that for every dollar spent on marketing we would be seeking more than fifty dollars directly attributable to visitor spending.

One thing you raised, which I would like to mention here, is that our “Locals Know” campaign was really targeted not just at Canadians travelling within Canada but also at Canadians who were considering international trips, who we were trying to convert to the idea of travelling in Canada this year. That's exactly what we would try to do with the youth as well. We would take youth who are already dreaming and thinking about all these international destinations they're going to travel to in their lifetime and, to use some more marketing lingo, we would try to convert them to the idea of travelling in Canada. Specifically, we'd want to measure our success based on our ability to do that.

We already know that Canada is running a record travel deficit, meaning that a record number of Canadians are travelling outbound, spending record amounts of money internationally. We're also spending some decent money domestically, and our domestic tourism market is in pretty good shape, but the piece that's travelling outbound is the piece we are trying to keep at home.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Obviously, “Locals Know” is a good example of a success we could have in doing that.

What about the other way? Mr. Brown and by Mr. Trudeau, in some of their questioning, mentioned youth travel in particular. You mentioned trying to draw in international youth travel. I still want to hear a little bit more on some of your ideas for drawing that international youth travel in, both for Canada 150 and going forward.

Can you give us some ideas or thoughts or campaigns that you have planned in that regard specifically?

[Michele McKenzie]

I think the biggest challenge we have is to inspire youth with the idea that Canada is a destination for them. When we've worked internationally, we've done a really good job of targeting our target customers, who are perhaps the empty nesters, people who have an opportunity to do more travel. But that's also had the effect of making our youngsters around the world believe that Canada is a destination for their parents. We need to inspire them with the idea that Canada is a destination for them.

We'll do that by extending programs, such as our Signature Experiences Collection program that has been so successful in inspiring the world with ideas of what they can do in Canada. We'll develop a special Signature Experiences Collection of experiences targeted to youth so they get the idea that this is not just a destination for their parents; it's a great destination for youth. We'll be able to compete with Australia and those great destinations that are right now top of mind for youth travel internationally.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Great, thank you. That's a great piece of the puzzle, for sure.

What about social media and the ways you can use that? Do you have some plans for social media? I guess I'm talking here about the domestic campaign and about drawing international youth. I'm sure social media must be part of your planning. What can you tell us about that?

[Michele McKenzie]

Thank you.

I would say that about half of our work now is done through social media. Social media has become not just a channel for us but an integrated part of everything we do. It's also a much more efficient way to market than traditional types of paid media are.

Mostly what we would do with social media for the youth market is to have youth speaking about travel to Canada. It would be youth talking to youth.

It's a traveller-to-traveller type of opportunity we have through social media, which is much more relevant to youth than having a destination marketer tell them all the great things there are to do here. It's really trying to set up the networks and the content that will help feed that youth-to-youth recommendation on travel to Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Richards.

At this point, I'd like to welcome our other new member of the committee, Rathika Sitsabaiesan. Is that pronunciation close?

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

That's pretty good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Welcome to the committee. You have the last question for this round.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

If I may start, Ms. McKenzie, you were talking about converting youth travellers, and you were speaking about the travel deficit. Your focus, from your comments, seems to be on converting existing travellers who are travelling internationally into domestic travellers. My understanding is that there is no focus on people or Canadian youth who actually are not able to engage in travel, whether domestic or international travel.

What are you doing there? How are you targeting these people who are living below a means that would allow them to travel or explore Canada? Is there something being done to encourage travel for people who are living at lower income levels?

[Michele McKenzie]

We haven't looked at the full range of programs that could be offered in this type of a campaign yet. I do expect that with partners coming on board, I could see the opportunity for some sponsored types of opportunities. That may be part of the program.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

So we're maybe looking solely to private sector donors or sponsors to ensure there's travelling in and exploration of Canada by all Canadians. Is that what it is? We're looking for private donors, to ensure that people who may not come from wealthy families have a travel experience?

[Michele McKenzie]

I'm saying that I think we can have programs of that nature included, but I also think that by working with our partners, we'll be able to offer deals that should be accessible to many travellers, even if they're not going that far within Canada.

What we found in our research is that our young people don't have a great knowledge of our country as a destination, even for destinations close to where they may live. It doesn't have to be an expensive undertaking. There can be, I think, opportunities that are accessible for most young Canadians.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

It would be great if it were accessible so that all Canadians could have that experience.

I'm going to switch gears a little bit. I understand that the City of Ottawa has developed a task force devoted to planning Canada's 150th anniversary. I'm going to ask you a multi-part question, Mr. Watson, and you can fill in the blanks for me.

First, can you tell me who the task force members are? Basically, who is represented at the table? Secondly, can you tell me how citizens from across the country are being engaged in your plans for our 150th celebration?

Do you think this task force could work at a national level to ensure that groups from coast to coast to coast are included in the planning of this great celebration? It's our country's party, and the people of the country should be involved in the planning of our party.

[Jim Watson]

Thank you for the question.

On our task force, we have representatives from Ottawa Tourism; our convention centre; the Chamber of Commerce; Ottawa Festivals, which is our cultural and festivals network; the Ottawa Senators; the economic development team; and the airport authority. We'll also have the Regroupement des gens d'affaires. As well, the National Capital Commission will be involved.

The two co-chairs are members of our city council.

I also will be attending the Big City Mayors' Caucus later this year in Saskatoon through the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and I'm going to be raising the issue of what we are doing collectively, from coast to coast to coast, at the municipal level to start planning.

In many ways, we're a little behind schedule. Five years comes up very quickly. That's why I thought it was important, at least from the national capital's point of view, that we start the process and the dialogue with the federal government and the appropriate ministers and agencies, so that we can start reaching out to as many groups as possible to get them engaged and excited about the sesquicentennial.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

So it has been municipally led so far, and there's not really federal leadership on this. Is there going to be any public consultation or any input from the general public or the citizens across the country?

[Jim Watson]

Well, to be fair, I started with a meeting with Minister Moore to talk about our plans, so that we could engage the federal government, because we know that the federal government will plan an integral role in celebrations on Parliament Hill and throughout the national capital region.

Also, the mayor of Gatineau—across the river—and the president of the NCC and I have a regular meeting. It has been a standing item on our agenda to start the dialogue. I met with the Prime Minister to give him an overview of some of our hopes and aspirations for the 150th.

Eventually when we bring forward an action plan at our level, it will go to a committee, which is the opportune time for the public to give their input. As for members of our council, I know that Councillor Hobbs has already gone out to various cultural groups in her community, and Councillor Bloess will do the same so that we can reach out to have a real grassroots celebration. It shouldn't be a top-down organization, because we want as many people involved as possible. It's their celebration, not just the government's celebration.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

What I'm saying is that it should be the people's party as well, so I'm glad to hear that from you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you.

That concludes this panel.

I want to thank you, Michele, and Mayor Watson, for being here. We really appreciate your input and the contribution that I'm sure both the City of Ottawa and the Canadian Tourism Commission are going to make as we develop our plans for this celebration. Thanks to both of you.

We will break for a couple of minutes so that the next panel can come up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

We'll get started again. This is the second half of our meeting.

As a reminder to committee members, all our witnesses have been invited for their particular contributions in their areas. We don't expect anyone to have all the answers on how we as a nation are going to celebrate Canada 150. That's partially our job. We as a committee have taken on this study. We're hearing from diverse witnesses and then we're going to be making recommendations to government. We look forward to our witnesses' contributions in their individual areas.

Today we have, from the John Fisher Memorial Museum, Judith Baxter, who is the volunteer director. It's nice to have you here with us, Judith. From the New Brunswick Museum, we have Jane Fullerton, the chief executive officer. From the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec, we have Pierre Wilson, the director-curator. Welcome to all three of you. You each have 10 minutes to present, and then we will have a round of questions and answers.

Does anyone want to start first? If not, we'll go alphabetically.

Go ahead, Judith.

[Judith Baxter, Volunteer Director, John Fisher Memorial Museum]

Good afternoon, my name is Judith Baxter.

I'm very pleased to have been invited to discuss ideas for the celebration of Canada's 150th anniversary, especially from a rural point of view. I represent a small community museum, the John Fisher Memorial Museum, which is part of the mandate of Kingston Peninsula Heritage Inc. The museum is located in the basement of an active school—from kindergarten through grade eight—in the heritage district of Kingston, New Brunswick.

As Kingston Peninsula Heritage Inc. is a totally volunteer organization and a member of the Canadian Museums Association, I would first like to say that we are huge supporters of the CMA proposal for the matching donation program, the Canadians Supporting their Museum Fund. Kingston Peninsula Heritage Inc. has also been a recipient of a Young Canada Works in Heritage Organizations program, and we support the CMA's effort to have these funds increased.

May I say that I clearly remember the 100th anniversary in 1967. I went to Expo. I hauled kids there. John Fisher spoke at our local 1789 Anglican Church as one of his stops on his cross-country tour, talking about small-town Canada in his capacity as Mr. Canada.

In 1967 the centennial farm designation was a great success, especially in our area. Each century farm was given a plaque, and there are even a few visible today as you drive around the country roads.

The family farm has been in decline since the 1967 celebrations. However, in recent years there has been a growth in small organic farms, which are attracting a younger generation of farmers. Located on the Kingston peninsula is a Saturday morning farmers' market, which works on the premise of 60% farm produce/product. In support of this small but growing farm sector, and since there are many such markets across the country that are highly supported by the general population and viewed as destination shopping, I suggest that these locations could be targeted as areas for celebrating rural Canada.

How might federal funds be directed? Please, let's not have any posters. A poster is at best a one-time waste of your dollars. A poster is quickly disposable. Since I suspect that in this economic climate there will not be an appetite for large-scale capital projects, consider something lasting and effective like a celebration kit.

Many years ago, Kingston Peninsula Heritage Inc. purchased cloth bunting—red, white, and blue fabric, very thin material. We have yards of it and we decorate everything. The bunting that is available for events now is plastic and is a one-shot-use expense. By packaging a celebration kit of reusable items—bunting, flags, banners, etc.—and including ideas on how these might be applied for local use you would be creating a visual expression of celebration across the country. A kit can be reused and recycled. These same celebration kits could be made available to museums, farm markets, schools, legions, etc.

In 1967 Canada was a different place, less corporate and more communal. The country was just beginning to discover and celebrate the diversity of its people, but in 2017 we may work to discover why we are all Canadians and celebrate being Canadian with less emphasis on our diversity. One way this may be approached is by telling the story of why we are Canadians and how this concept of one country developed; how people from differing backgrounds, financial status, and cultures were able to come to a fair and equitable consensus.

Why has telling the federal story been lost on our youth? There must be a way to highlight the story of the Fathers of Confederation, the arguments for and against Confederation, and what was taking place on the world's stage that brought about these discussions. How might federal funds facilitate this action?

In discussion with a friend, the following idea surfaced—six degrees of separation from our Fathers of Confederation. We saw this as a social media activity, hopefully targeting a youthful demographic. Perhaps this is an area that could be partnered with a RIM or a Rogers corporation for their expertise in design and promotion. Perhaps the corporate sponsor could run a competition for development of the program through tech schools.

Needless to say, this concept needs some fleshing out. This project would, however, have overtones of genealogy as well as social science. It may well be a project that may interest an online genealogy server like ancestry.ca.

The John Fisher Memorial Museum opened in 1982 and is only part of what this small community volunteer organization does, as is true with all community organizations. Located on a peninsula, the community has been saved from urban sprawl, as transportation is serviced by a ferry system. We have the advantage of being rich in vistas, built heritage, and low population. We are, however, cursed by being located in a local service district without municipal funding, nor have we businesses or deep pockets from which to draw much-needed funds.

Besides the museum, our mandate covers a heritage river lighthouse, an 1810 cottage in which we operate a tea room and gift shop, an artifact collection of 3,449 items, and a heritage garden that attracts a great deal of day-trip attention. We operate through the summer with federal and provincial student employment grants. These students are taught everything from accessioning artifacts to doing genealogy research, dealing with the public as tour guides, or waiting tables. They learn to sell in the gift shop and cook in the kitchen. Each becomes well versed in telling the story of the Kingston peninsula, gaining many skills through the summer and developing a pride of place.

How might federal funds aid in what we do? Our biggest hurdle is renewing an aging volunteer organization. This is an area where the CMA's Canadians Supporting their Museums Fund would be of great benefit to our organization. This shared donor giving may also encourage more volunteer participation, as the museum sector is seen to be an honourable contributor to the Canadian way of telling each of our stories.

Our second hurdle is accessing funds already available to small museum organizations. All the available programs at present require the organization to have at least one full-time employee. At present and in the foreseeable future, any funds we raise or have donated go to maintaining the heritage structures we own.

How we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of this beautiful country? In the past, we have celebrated the landing of the Loyalists with parades, teas, and special exhibits. We celebrated the provincial bicentennial with folk festivals, built heritage, and special exhibits. We celebrated the millennium by having the crossroads at Kingston—which include the 1789 church with a Loyalist graveyard, the 1788 rectory, the 1788 Union House, the 1810 Carter House, and the 1910 Macdonald Consolidated School—designated a provincial historic district.

Last summer, in celebration of the first European community in New Brunswick, the 400th anniversary, we held a cairn rededication on Catons Island in the Saint John River.

This year, in celebration of the War of 1812, we are supplying a heritage choir for the various celebrations that will be taking place across the province.

As volunteers, we are adept at working on a shoestring and at the last moment. I can guarantee that with your support and, if necessary, without your support, we will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of Canada, for the simple reason that in the museum community, we remember our diversity and celebrate our heritage. It's our passion.

I thank you for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you.

Next we will have Jane Fullerton.

Jane, I want to congratulate you for your exhibit at the War Museum. I understand that it's not often they have exhibits from other museums, and it was successful. So congratulations on that.

[Jane Fullerton, Chief Executive Officer, New Brunswick Museum]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

The floor is yours.

[Jane Fullerton]

Thank you.

We were very proud to be able to open the exhibition on New Brunswickers in war at the War Museum in December. This was the first time a provincial museum had an exhibition at the War Museum. It's a great opportunity for us to share stories of New Brunswickers not only with the broader population here in Ottawa but also with a national museum at the national capital.

The New Brunswick Museum is the provincial museum for the province. We have a very broad mandate, everything from billion-year-old fossils through the natural science stories, through human history and art and archives right up to contemporary art created six months ago. So it's a broad mandate. We are Canada's oldest continuing museum. We started in 1842 with a collection by Abraham Gesner and existed in several forms through to 1929, when we became the provincial museum. So 2017 is a really important year for us because we will be 175 years old. That's something we will take great pride in celebrating and sharing that year.

Today I'm here to talk about another important event—perhaps almost as important, if not more important—and that's Canada's 150th birthday. This is certainly a great opportunity for Canadians across the country to be able to understand more about how Canada came to be, how we came to be this country, how we have survived a number of different natural, economic, and other situations over the years, what we have achieved as Canadians, and where we can go in the future. It's an opportunity to learn and to understand. It's for those who have generations of roots here in Canada as well as for new Canadians. We see this as a really important opportunity for Canadians to come together as a group to understand more about where we came from and where we can go in the future.

Museums certainly have a role to play in that. Some people think museums are about things, about objects—the fossil, the plant, the piece of art, the hat sitting on a shelf somewhere. But we're really about stories. We're about the stories behind those things. Without a story, the thing is not important. It doesn't have any relevance. It's the story, the person who wore that hat, who then did something while wearing that hat.

That's what museums are about: we're about the stories. Our role is to collect, preserve, and understand those stories and to communicate them to the public in a variety of different ways, so we can take the past, we can bring it forward to the present, and we can also make sure it's there for the future. We link the past and the future together. In that role, it is certainly appropriate that we, the museum community—whether it's a provincial museum, a community museum, a regional museum, a museum of interest, or a national museum—are thinking about how we can participate in 2017.

There are a number of different ways museums can do that. Certainly, as Judy mentioned, museums will be doing exhibitions. We'll do larger exhibitions; we'll do smaller exhibitions. We'll find ways of connecting with the communities we serve on the stories of Canada—how Canada came to be and where it may be going in the future.

That's something we'll do, and certainly opportunities to facilitate that and encourage that would be very beneficial.

But I think there's another opportunity museums could be taking advantage of, and that's to connect Canadians. We work in our own communities, whatever that community is. But what's really important is that Canada is a large, geographically diverse country with a lot of different interests. Not just the scenery but the people, the work, and the activities in Canada differ from region to region. It's really important that Canadians understand the different regions and what is happening in those regions.

There are opportunities for museums to connect regions together, to connect communities together. It could be by a travelling exhibition like the one the New Brunswick Museum did in Ottawa, to be able to bring what looks like a New Brunswick story to the national capital and talk about it as part of the national picture. Or it could be through smaller scale showcases of special treasures. The New Brunswick Museum could send to Alberta several treasures that are important to New Brunswick and have Alberta museums exchange those. The links that are actually there now today, and have been there historically, are actually recognized and discussed around some really key stories. So, certainly showcase exhibitions, probably on smaller scale smaller than a larger travelling exhibition, are realistic and could link a variety of parts of Canada together and encourage some dialogue.

Certainly technology now offers us so many opportunities to connect.

The New Brunswick Museum could be looking at doing discussions with the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife, an opportunity for school kids or for senior citizens to connect with others about what life is like in a different environment, what is important to them, what their heritage is, and how we can share it. There are a lot of opportunities to link children and families, students, seniors, people who have been here for a long time and people who are new to Canada, across Canada so that they're sharing stories themselves and learning more about what Canada is and how we're going to go forward in the future.

There's the opportunity, as we look at 2017 itself and at that key period around Canada Day, to look at a program that might support museums across Canada offering free admission. June 21, National Aboriginal Day, through to July 1, Canada Day, would be a great opportunity for museums, with some financial support, to be able to offer free admission to encourage people not only to come in, learn about the past, and think about the future but also to encourage communities to use museums and other cultural and heritage centres as locations for celebrations. Museums are not actually supposed to be boring and dull. You're supposed to have fun and enjoy yourself when you go to a museum, and the opportunity to think of those as places of celebration and to encourage communities to build some of their activities around that and to be able to offer free admission I think would be a significant opportunity. It could be a great gift to the present activities of 2017 to be able to do that.

There's also the opportunity to look past 2017 and to ensure that what is being developed as we go towards 2017 and afterwards is something that will contribute to the longer term growth of Canada. I'm certainly in favour of opportunities that will enhance what already exists rather than building new. I think that the long-term sustainability of new opportunities may not be there, so we really have to make sure that whatever is done is something that can carry forward in the future. The idea of a matching program, which the Canadian Museums Association is in favour of, with a limited time period where private donations to museums or other cultural institutions are encouraged with matching funds from the federal government, would be a very important way of encouraging Canadians to think about how they will contribute to the future of Canada and preserve the past.

We all know that if something is right in your own community, quite often it's human nature not to think it's that important, that the museum down the road is not anything really special. When someone from elsewhere says that's important, that they want to ensure that it's there for the future, that they want to recognize it and assist us in doing that, that can be a significant improvement. It can mean that people will pay attention and start to think about how they're going to support the future, the future of an institution and the future of Canada. I think a matching program would be a long-lasting legacy to be able to leave as we go forward after 2017. It's important in what we're doing now that we think about how it's going to work later on. And for museums, we're both the past but we also know that we're here forever, so we have to think in terms of that long-term lifespan.

I would also like to think that we can look at how to take some of Canada's stories to the international stage by building on existing opportunities, using opportunities that are already there, whether they're international visits, trade shows, conferences, or all of those kinds of things. We really need to look at how we could layer in more of Canada's heritage into that. Again, when someone from away, from outside Canada, says, what a great story you have, that's an important thing that you're doing, it helps create pride in Canadians. We know it happens in a local community. It happens nationally as well, and I think there are existing opportunities that just need to be leveraged more to make sure that we can strengthen our international recognition as we go forward towards 2017.

My final comment would be that 2017 is not that far away. For us, this is the planning time if we want to build on what exists, if we want to take advantage of the upcoming commemorative activities. New Brunswick certainly is recognizing the War of 1812. We have a really important story to tell. Without us, Canada might not have existed in the way it does now. So we are looking in the next couple of years to talk about the War of 1812, but we also know there's 2014 and the beginning of World War I, and 2015, and the end of World War II. Some other significant anniversaries or commemorative activities are happening over the upcoming period. We need to think about how we can build those in, build toward 2017 and make sure that 2017 is a very strong year of activity. It's a year that we don't want to regret afterwards.

Individually, organizations and museums will do things, but together, with some support and perhaps some direction from the federal government, I think there are opportunities for us to do a lot more, to do it better and create a stronger series of events, a stronger year for 2017.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you.

Finally, Mr. Wilson.

[Pierre Wilson, Director-Curator, Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec]

Hello everyone. My name is Pierre Wilson, and I am the director-curator,

which does not translate.

[A voice]

It's close enough.

[Pierre Wilson]

Yes, close enough.

“Curator”, okay.

As I said, I am the director-curator of the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec and have been for more than eight years.

Founded in 1962, the museum specializes in handcrafted objects made by Quebec masters and artisans. The museum is one of 42 that are recognized and supported by the province's ministry of culture, communications and the status of women. The museum is also a Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board designated institution. We are the only museum in Quebec specializing in this area, which we like to describe as a continuum that ranges from handcrafted homemade objects and pieces by commercial artisans all the way to professional works of art.

Our material culture collection comprises more than 10,000 objects, from current pieces to items dating back to the 17th century. We receive operational funding from the ministry of culture, the borough of Saint-Laurent, in Montreal, and the Conseil des arts de Montréal. Unfortunately, those funds have been frozen at the same level since at least 1995. With everything else being equal and no such cap on inflation, this freeze has obviously diminished our financial capacity every year. To offset that reality, we managed, for a time, to increase our own revenues through sponsorship, fundraising activities and patronage, but there is a limit to how many new patrons we can find, not to mention, that there are clearly more and more of us vying for this source of funding.

In order to cut spending and reduce our accumulated deficit, in 2005, we also eliminated any expenditures not directly related to our collections. Consequently, we no longer have anyone working on communications or any advertising budget to speak of. And yet, we are very active: collections have grown by 30% over the past 5 years and, on average, we host 16 exhibits and produce 4 catalogues every year.

Located in the Montreal borough of Saint-Laurent, the museum is far enough away from downtown that we do not see any tourist traffic, even though we are right next to a metro stop. Unable to attract tourists, who, on average, account for 70% of museum visitors in Quebec, we had to set our sights on the local population. According to 2006 census figures, 51% of Saint-Laurent residents were not born in Canada. If we take the children of those residents into account, generally speaking, 85% of the local population is made up of immigrants and those with close ties to immigrants.

By reaching out to social agencies and community groups, we have been able to develop a bottom-up approach, as they say. This approach has made it possible for us to present more than 10 exhibits a year, projects that are actually put together by the groups themselves, not by the museum. Our results have even garnered us invitations to speak at the Metropolis Conference in Vancouver in March 2011, to jointly facilitate a workshop at the International Metropolis Conference on immigration in the Azores in September 2011, and to share our experience at a workshop hosted by the Museum of Civilization in Quebec City this coming October.

I think it's safe to say that these invitations reflect, to some extent, acknowledgement of how unique and effective our approach is, as well as the fact that multiculturalism and interculturalism are on the radar of researchers and policy makers in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and around the world.

Cross-border movement by different populations is an inevitable reality, so instead of trying to restrict it at all costs, we might be better off using non-coercive means to swiftly turn newcomers into contributing members of society who have a wealth of resources to offer. The men, women and children who leave their homes and families to immigrate to an uncertain world they hope and believe will be a better one, are in fact the best, the cream of the crop, so to speak, and they deserve to be given the means to succeed and produce wealth for themselves and their countries.

As you can see, we take our social responsibility very seriously, and we sincerely believe that a museum can serve as a catalyst for social cohesion, intercultural understanding and a collective sense of belonging.

But before our social mission, is our duty to preserve the cultural heritage, first and foremost. That is a museum's primary responsibility: ensuring that this heritage never dies, that it lives on forever, because donors entrust us with collections so we can preserve them for future generations, indeed time immemorial. This duty must be taken seriously and serves as the benchmark against which all our efforts must be measured, particularly in periods of financial hardship, when many a museum comes to a crossroads. Some may have to make deeper cuts still to staff and certainly customer service, in the short term, at the risk of becoming less competitive in the difficult arena of sponsorship and patronage, perpetuating a vicious cycle that may ultimately lead to the disappearance of the weaker and smaller institutions.

In this struggle against time, it is paramount that we believe that all governments are aware of the issues facing the smaller among us and support us by adjusting our assistance and programming.

I am saying this because, although I agree the 150th anniversary of Confederation is an occasion to celebrate and dazzle throngs of tourists, it is also important to remember continuity, what will endure and stand the test of time when all the tourists have gone home and the international media has turned its attention elsewhere. All too often, electoral politics—which, by necessity, reflect a short-term vision—trump the rationale for long-term viability when deciding which projects to support. While fireworks displays are extremely exciting—and I am the first to ooh and aah—the fact remains that once the celebrations are over, it would be unfortunate for the smaller among us not to come out the other end stronger as well.

I have always said that for every Maurice Richard or Wayne Gretzky, there are thousands of little guys playing hockey in the street or on a frozen pond. The few at the top of the pyramid, whether we are talking about a social, economic or sports pyramid, are basically supported by thousands of anonymous and invisible faces who bravely form the base. Your duty, in my humble opinion, is not just to help the big players in the downtown cores and major centres, so they can stand out and dazzle tourists and international visitors, but also to help the small local players in outlying areas grow, endure and recover from a much too lengthy fall.

In this world of capitalism, progress is the only way, and that applies to institutions as well. And freezes and moratoriums are not the way to achieve that progress. Certain cultural heritage institutions, such as museums, will never make money hand over fist, they will always need government and community support because their success is measured by the richness of our cultural heritage, not dollars.

And yet, a number of cultural for-profit businesses also receive government support, sometimes considerable support. I am not asking you to turn your backs on them; I am simply and most humbly asking you not to forget about us.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

We will now move to our question and answer time.

Mr. Armstrong is first.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all three of you for your presentations today. Being from Nova Scotia—and Amherst is in my riding, so I'm just across the border—I'm going to start with you, Mrs. Baxter.

You mentioned the structure of your museum. I'm just going to ask you a couple of quick questions about that before I get into my questions about Canada 150. You said you're below a public school?

[Judith Baxter]

Yes, we are. The school was built by William Macdonald, of tobacco fame, in 1904; it burned down in 1908 and was rebuilt by the community from the first storey up. It has kindergarten to grade 8, with just under 350 students.

So we them as a primary source to test our stuff on. We tell our story in the museum from that age level. We take them through what kids did on farms. We talk about what the shoemaker did and that kind of thing.

We are named after John Fisher simply because John Fisher once walked through the community, and he also, through the Macdonald Stewart Foundation, gave us a bucket of money to get started. So that's why we're named after John Fisher.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Your museum is on the ground floor, or where is it? You're in the basement of the school.

[Judith Baxter]

We're in the basement. You come downstairs, but we're not accessible by wheelchair, which is one of the things we are working toward trying to accomplish but it hasn't been forthcoming yet. We don't own the building and it's not a usable place for students, so the community gets to use it.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Does the school board charge you rent or do they do it gratis?

[Judith Baxter]

No, we have a nice set-up. We have our rent and our heat free—maybe sometimes too much heat—but we also have our hydro, which is quite nice.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

First, I think that's an excellent partnership. In areas of declining enrolment, particularly in Atlantic Canada, lots of schools have room in them, and I think putting some—

[Judith Baxter]

There is a Macdonald Consolidated School in Nova Scotia. It's down in the valley and it's used as a community centre.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

I think it's a good partnership for schools with declining enrolment. They have extra space and opening it up to the community like that.... I'm sure you have a separate entrance so security issues are taken care of.

[Judith Baxter]

Yes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

As far as the federal government supporting you heading toward our 150th, what type of opportunities would you like to see us try to provide in support of you as we work together to try to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday?

[Judith Baxter]

That's a loaded question. We were able to access federal funds for the millennium, which is rare for our community. We were able to partner that with funding we received from the Macdonald Stewart Foundation. Through that partnership we were able to do large structural jobs on our 1810 cottage, and we were able to secure that building.

So there are things like that on which we were able to partner. I really don't know how that would work out.

We apply for student programs. We never have enough students. We train our kids. We train our kids to boil water, for goodness' sake—there's no home economics any more. There's no manual training. When kids come into our employment, we're teaching them pretty basic stuff. By the end of the summer we can send them off to university, and they can actually boil water and cook an egg.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So it's actually an effective partnership. You apply for both provincial and federal funding for students in the summer.

[Judith Baxter]

Yes, we do.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Do you have any funding or support for...? It's all volunteers, I guess.

[Judith Baxter]

Yes, it's all volunteers.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So during the summer your volunteers need a bit of a break, and the students provide that option to you.

[Judith Baxter]

Yes, but it would be really good if there were some sort of program that allowed for management, even management in the off season. Students can come from university at an earlier base, and we're hard pressed to get those 10- or 12-week students. That would be a big plus for rural community museums, to get that longer term....

Even so, even if we could figure out a way...and I've never figured it out, so I'm not sure that anybody's going to figure it out for me, and I've been doing this for a long time. We need one person consistently in the museum, mainly for continuity, mainly to organize our volunteers. That's a big job just to make all those telephone calls.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Right.

This question is going to all three of you. We're talking about federal support and what partnerships we can form so we don't forget our museums, particularly our small museums. You've all mentioned that. We're working in this committee. We're going to submit this to the department. They're going to come up with a plan.

I need to know a timeline. For you to adequately plan and execute events for Canada 150, when do you realistically need to know what types of federal or provincial programs and support will be there so that you can adequately use those to plan? What timeline would meet your needs?

[Judith Baxter]

We can do it at the drop of a hat. Last year for the 400th anniversary of Catons Island, which should have been taken on by various other groups because the river goes by us, we ended up jumping in and taking it on just because we felt it was too big an event to let go by. We did that within six months. With a lot more lead time, we'd certainly be happy.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

The more the better—

[Judith Baxter]

The more the better.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

—but if you have time to access and do the applications, you can make use of whatever funds whenever they come out.

Ms. Fullerton, how about your situation?

[Jane Fullerton]

We're a provincial museum, so from a scheduling viewpoint, from the research and development viewpoint, certainly a longer period of time would really be beneficial to put it into the bigger picture that you want it to go into. Depending on the program, whether it's an existing program or a variation of a program, the kinds of matching funds you might need.... One of the programs that I was speaking about here, the idea of doing showcase exchanges with other museums in other parts of Canada, is a program that isn't available federally right now. There are traveling exhibit programs, but they're more complex. They're not ones that a small community museum can get necessarily, and they're ones that we would be careful about applying for, too, because of the commitments that are required in order to do that. I think there could be some program variations that would perhaps enable “one-off” kinds of things that could happen within various levels of the museums.

But for all of that, to my mind, it would be a couple of years out that we'd want to look at that kind of opportunity. This year, as we're looking at 1812, we're scrambling a little bit and it would be nice to have a bit more planning time to ensure that we could do it effectively.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So you think around two years would be adequate.

[Jane Fullerton]

Two years, two years and a bit more, depending on....

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Do you agree, Mr. Wilson?

[Pierre Wilson]

Yes, absolutely. Two or three years would be best. To prepare an exhibit of that kind you'd need a year to a year and a half. Prior to that you'd have to apply to the program, have the answer, whatever the answer is, and then you'd be able to start working. So two years would be better.

Actually, we are working in Montreal on 2014, which is going to be an aboriginal year in Montreal. We are working, we are preparing all the planning right now for that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong.

Madame Boutin-Sweet.

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

Mr. Chair, thank you one last time.

I, too, come from a museum background. I spent at least 19 years in that world, so I know just how difficult it is for you to make ends meet.

Museums are critical not just to mark Canada's 150th anniversary, as you all pointed out, but also to represent our national memory. Mr. Wilson, you spoke at length about museums. It is important to ensure their survival, now and years from now.

If I listen to what Mr. Armstrong said and what people will say, we are here to discuss the country's 150th anniversary, and museum survival in general.

Mr. Wilson, I want to start by congratulating you on the recognition your museum has garnered so far. If you do not work in a museum, what comes to mind are exhibits because that is what you see. However, there are many other considerations involved. Your website says, for example, that you are in the midst of building a museum reserve housing an exhibition centre that meets museum standards and that you received assistance from Quebec's ministry of culture, communications and the status of women, as well as the borough of Saint-Laurent. It does not mention the federal government, however. Did you receive any federal funding for that project?

[Pierre Wilson]

Unfortunately not, but it was not for lack of trying. That is exactly what I wanted to say. The very heart of our business, if you will, is the collection.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Excuse me, Mr. Wilson, we have a point of order here.

Mr. Calandra.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

We're prepared to discuss the Canada 150; we're not prepared to talk about other issues. So if there are some other issues that they're talking about right now, we'd prefer to have a briefing from the member before we actually...so we can properly engage the witness. If we can stick specifically to the 150th, I'd appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Okay.

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

We are talking about the museum's survival, and that includes funding.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

As you know, we're talking about Canada 150.

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

But other members have raised other issues.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

He asked some questions; you obviously didn't have a problem with that. I'd have a problem with talking about other things. I want to talk about Canada 150. That's why we're here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Okay, let's carry on. Our focus is on the 150th.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

I'm not here to talk about programs. We can do that when the minister comes.

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

What can the federal government do to help you survive so you can host activities celebrating Canada's 150th anniversary?

[Pierre Wilson]

The 150th anniversary celebrations are very important, we agree, but before then, other less prominent museums that are in trouble will first have to survive. In other words, what good will the 150th anniversary do? These institutions may no longer even be around to celebrate it. So thinking about continuity and survival is equally important. As I see it, your role, as parliamentarians tasked with studying Canada's 150th anniversary, is to make certain that it is more than just a day-long or year-long celebration. It all requires planning and sustainability.

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

You said the museum had sought its own revenue sources, but you also said that there was a limit to just how much the museum could do. Could you elaborate on that please?

[Pierre Wilson]

We have done that for years. From 2002 to 2008, private museums in Quebec increased sponsorship and patronage revenues by 171%. Obviously, the problem we face is that everyone in the cultural sector is competing for patronage. I don't think society has an infinite supply of patrons. At some point, the well is going to run dry. It's getting tougher and tougher.

In my opinion, governments should provide indexed funding. We aren't asking for a full-on increase, just enough to allow for inflation, because we cannot get around that reality.

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

At least two of the museums here today are small museums. I think the New Brunswick Museum is a bit larger than the other two, but small institutions are not in quite the same boat as the larger ones. Someone—and I can't remember who—said that it might be time to provide support tailored to small museums. What kind of tailoring are we talking about? Ms. Baxter, for instance, mentioned grants, which are harder to go after when you rely solely on volunteers. What could be tailored to help smaller museums?

[Judith Baxter]

You can't hire and you can't fire volunteers, so it all depends on the quality of the volunteer you have at the time who can apply for the applications.

The applications could be dumbed down a whole lot. They are pretty elaborate pieces of paper, which get shoved away because people don't want to deal with them. There might be a simpler form that someone in that area could look at.

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

If you want to plan activities marking the 150th anniversary, the paperwork requirements could be simpler there, as well. Is that what you are saying?

[Judith Baxter]

Yes. I would definitely say so, especially for small museums or volunteer operations. Rural establishments don't usually have access to lawyers to read these things and get us on the right track, so a simpler form would be very nice.

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

Does anyone else have anything to add?

[Jane Fullerton]

I would add that small community museums—and here I'd point out that the New Brunswick Museum is the big sister to the community museums in the province, so we work a lot with community museums—are quite often limited in their ability to access certain kinds of federal heritage programs because they don't have a paid employee. That also limits what they are able to do in other ways.

I think as you are looking at the 150th, it would be really important to have opportunities to have programs that museums can apply for whether or not they have a full-time staff person, as would be having simpler forms. It's important to ensure that it doesn't matter what your employee situation is, that if it's a volunteer person doing it, you can still access the money.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Mr. Trudeau.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

One of the things we heard in the previous hour was an emphasis on youth and Canada 150. I know the youth issue came back a little bit from you, Judith, but also from the others, and there are concerns about the aging volunteer workforce.

When we talk about museums in particular, it sometimes becomes difficult to get young people interested or excited about engaging with our history. What kinds of things do you think the federal government could do to encourage young people to connect with museums around Canada 150?

[Judith Baxter]

I really liked your representative for tourism, who I thought had a perfectly good idea.

I would go back to Katimavik. I have some experience on the ground with Katimavik. It's a super program and a really good idea.

The only thing with the Katimavik program was that you were bringing kids from across the nation and these kids were dumped into communities that weren't prepared for them. Although we could make out the application beautifully and say we wanted six barns in our community painted, these kids didn't want to paint barns. It was hard for a community like ours to really take hold of that program.

However, there are programs for moving kids around the country that are very good. The Terry Fox program right now works beautifully. It brings kids from all across the country and they get the experience of Ottawa and learning about government.

I think the social media is certainly going to be a big hook in whatever kids do today. I really like our little idea of our six degrees of separation from the Fathers of Confederation. I'm sure every Newfoundlander would love it; they all have a Joey story. I'm sure we could bring the history forward.

Justin, all you have to do is to get dressed up in a top hat and you're going to fit the part with that hairdo.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Thank you, Judith.

Does anyone else have comments on youth involvement?

[Jane Fullerton]

I would certainly like to reinforce the opportunity for technology. In museums, when they get to grade 7 and grade 8 it's definitely hard to keep kids engaged. They are very excited when they're younger.

I think there are opportunities for technology and linking to other parts of Canada to have other experiences. There's a program called Students on Ice that provides opportunities for kids to connect. We've had school classes come into the New Brunswick Museum who've talked to kids and families in the Northwest Territories. It's really strong: they're learning first-hand from their own peers about experiences in other parts of Canada. It makes them come back to spend time in the museum and look at some of the material we have from the Arctic.

There are opportunities to do that with technology. The technology can be a bit of a trick as far as the cost and being able to manage it are concerned. But if there's support for that, I think there are ways to bring in youth, especially in that critical time period between about 13 years old and 18 or 19 years old, to get them engaged and to get them want to continue. It's really important. They have to be a major part of the 150th.

I have memories, as well, of 1967. We want everybody to have those memories and to care about what they're going to see in museums and every other part of Canada. I think technology is going to be a big part of that.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Mr. Wilson, could you tell us about youth and master artisans?

[Pierre Wilson]

We have a project that is still in the early stages, that is still being developed. The objective is to make our programs accessible to school groups via the Internet. So it involves real-time visits, as well as virtual visits.

The basic idea is to take the stories we have within our museum walls and to share them with schoolchildren across the country over the Internet. We came up with that idea because of the high cost of busing students to the museum. There is a radius of about 20 kilometres, and schools farther away than that do not visit the museum. We figured this was a good way to reach people across Quebec, so why not those in Newfoundland or Vancouver? Ultimately, we want to conquer the world.

With today's technology, a project of this nature takes money. As far as the 150th anniversary celebrations go, projects could be put in place quickly to make sure that a number of institutions offered this programming by 2017. The New Brunswick Museum could also join in and offer exhibits to schoolchildren in Montreal and Vancouver.

We are still in the very early phases on this. I just gave a bit of information. I have approached the Société des arts technologiques à Montréal or SAT for technical assistance, because we do not have the necessary resources. But this is a project that could be set up quickly.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

Indeed, and it would be a network. It would include not just you, but everyone.

[Pierre Wilson]

The goal is to develop it for everyone. I don't have the money for that.

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Papineau, QC]

If I could just perhaps correct the record on Katimavik, it is not about painting barns in any case. It's about....

Have any of you had Katimavik volunteers go through your museums in years past?

Jane.

[Jane Fullerton]

In years past we've certainly had them, both in New Brunswick and Alberta, where I worked for a while. It depends a bit on the individual and what he or she looks to get out of it, but there are certainly some great learning opportunities as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Trudeau.

Thank you to our panel for your suggestions and advice. We certainly look forward as a committee to our report and recommendations to government on this issue.

We have another committee that's coming in right now, so could we vacate the room as quickly as possible.

The meeting is adjourned.