Canadian Heritage Committee on April 26th, 2012

[Marie-Claude Reid]

We could offer advice on how to restore a railway car. We do that kind of work at the museum. However, our facilities are very small. We often ask our volunteers to make an enormous contribution, in time, to restore a vehicle. That varies with the type of vehicle, its condition and so on. The costs for a single vehicle can amount to $200,000. This is no simple task. If there are a number of vehicles, we have to have a very big budget and a lot of time. You can't do that by waving a magic wand. There's also the entire dynamic involved in moving vehicles that have to be restored. Some businesses may cooperate on the restoration, but you have to look for them.

Whatever the case may be, we normally don't do that work for others, but we could cooperate in developing files and a strategy.

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

Thank you, Mr. Gill, and Madame Bélanger.

We heard much earlier in testimony that the way the Olympics worked with first nations communities was better than had been done in the past.

I'm going to ask two questions and I'll let all of you answer, but I'll start with Mr. Gill.

Obviously, we can use the Olympics as an example of how we work with first nations moving forward. My question more specifically for all of you is this: Is the 150th anniversary more of an opportunity for smaller museums, and maybe the larger museums as well, to do one thing to celebrate 150 years, or do you see it more as an opportunity to look at some of the problems you may be having?

Maybe one of the benefits of the 150th anniversary is to solve some of the problems, be it financing small museums, be it our historic relations with first nations. If you could have one or the other, what would be your ultimate goal out of the 150th anniversary? It doesn't just have to be about having a great party in 2017. That's for the francophone community and Acadian community as well.

[Marie-France Kenny]

Celebrating is absolutely wonderful, but we could correct some of the inequities in justice. I'm not talking specifically about francophones, but any of those we've had over the last 150 years. That would go a long way to re-establishing my pride.

I am proud. I said I am a very proud Canadian. I'd show even more pride on the 150th birthday of Canada. That's for every component of this society. We want Canadians to be proud.

There are things over the history that, as a Canadian, I'm somewhat ashamed of and there are things that I'm really proud of. I'm not just speaking as the présidente de la fédération, but as a Canadian. If we could correct some of the things that have gone wrong in this country over the past 150 years, man, I would celebrate and I would pay for my own celebration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Calandra.

Ms. Sitsabaiesan.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank all of our witnesses who have joined us today.

My first question is for Exporail. Since the adoption of the motion in Parliament in February 2007, which you mentioned in your introductory remarks, to officially designate Exporail as Canada's national railway museum, have there been any steps to respond to the motion, to make it happen?

[Stephen Cheasley, President, Exporail, Canadian Railway Museum]

I'm pleased you asked that question because I was here at the hearings five years ago when this issue came up. This committee at that point was holding a hearing on the Auditor General's report that had come out about the deterioration of Canadian heritage. The committee had met to look into this.

One of the recommendations was that the railway history should be preserved, and that Exporail should become the national railway museum. That went to Parliament, and Parliament adopted it.

Following that, we met with Bev Oda, who was the Minister of Canadian Heritage at that point. She recommended that we meet with the Museum of Science and Technology to work out a proposal that it could give to the minister, which we did.

We met with the science and technology museum. We looked at how we could integrate the railway collections, and we came up with what we thought was a very good a proposal.

Then that proposal was taken by the science and technology museum to the minister, but by that time the minister had changed and was now Minister Moore. After he looked at it, he came back and said that unfortunately, they didn't have the funds to carry it out. That's where it ended. That was five years ago.

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

That was five years ago, and ever since there's been nothing to actually make the designation happen.

You did mention in your presentation that it would be a nice thing to have it officially and properly done for the 150th celebrations.

My question is for both Exporail and the Museum of Rail Travel. Both of you mentioned that if anything helped build this nation, it was our coast-to-coast railway. You suggested that museums be included in the 150th celebrations.

Will your museums be financially sustainable and viable up to and beyond the 150th celebrations? If you think you won't be, what do you think you may need to ensure that you get to the 150th celebrations?

[Garry Anderson]

We are self-sustaining to a point already, but our profile is not very high. We require not only that local people see us, which is a small population base, but also a lot of people who are travelling.

I wanted to bring up one of the problems. It's a public perception, I think, in Canada that for many of the railway museums, because we deal with such large objects, it's very hard to maintain them in a display-looking condition, unless you happen to be in a building, which the CRM now has. Many of these collections are still outdoors. Ours are still outdoors, but we maintain the interiors beautifully. That's where the money goes for environmental controls.

The outside ones are much more difficult and they're more cosmetic, but I think it leads Canadians to look at railway museums as maybe unprofessional. A lot of them look like they're on their last legs. Some are doing okay. Funding would help, but I think in building the profile of the importance of the railways and some of the major collections in the country, it would help the various museums to help themselves more.

We really need to do more profile-building, along with some of the funding that would come for the celebrations.

[Marie-Claude Reid]

We receive assistance from the Quebec government. It's an operating grant that we have been awarded for 35 years now to help us carry out our projects. We won't conceal the fact that maintenance costs, that is just insurance and heating, have amounted to nearly $490,000 a year since the expansion in 2004. However, we are temporarily receiving $490,000. We get 25% of our funding from the Quebec government. The rest comes from donations and museum admissions.

We talked about a pass, and we are interested in that, but an adult has to pay $17 to visit our museum. That's very expensive, based on museum standards, but, to obtain funding, we have to do rentals, weddings, films, a lot of looking for donations, in short everything we can do.

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

Sorry, I need to interrupt you because I know my time is running out.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

I hate to interrupt you, but your time ran out.

Mr. Calandra, for just a couple of minutes.

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

I'll ask one question, and then you can come back and finish it afterward, Mr. Gill.

Ms. Kenny, it seems like we're getting a good sense that perhaps we should also be putting a bit more focus on how official languages can become part of the 150th celebrations. I'm going to assume that would agree that we should maybe take a look at official languages and separately take a look at doing something in that regard when it comes to Canada's 150th.

[Marie-France Kenny]

I think official languages should already be a part of everything the federal government does, and they should continue to be.

You were speaking before about whether we should be correcting.... We've had this wonderful Official Languages Act for 42 years, yet it's never been applied totally in its integrity in any government in those 42 years. Something as easy as saying “Allô, bonjour” is not being done in a lot of our federal institutions. The only thing we need to correct this is will. It's not money.

I'm a former federal employee. We used to manage the national official languages program for a crown corporation in Saskatchewan, so I'll leave you to figure out which one it was. We were able to do it. My unilingual English CEO at the time, John Ryan, received an award from the Commissioner of Official Languages, the Leon Leadership Award.

You don't need to be bilingual, and we don't expect everybody to be bilingual. I respect anybody's right to teach their children whatever language they want as long as my rights are respected as a francophone.

If we were able to win the Leon Leadership Award in Saskatchewan for official languages, I don't see any reason for our not being able to do this here now in Ottawa and across the country. As I said, all we needed was the will of one person way at the top, but over those 42 years, we have not been able to do that.

The day we start doing that, I'm going to be very proud of my Canada. If I'm already proud, I'll be even prouder.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Calandra.

Thank you to our witnesses.

This is our last meeting to hear testimony on Canada's 150th, and we will now be formulating our report. Thank you, merci, for your input.

The meeting is adjourned.