Evidence of meeting #6 for Canadian Heritage in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was 2017.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Moore
We'll get started here, folks.
We're pleased to have with us Mr. Daniel Jean, deputy minister, Department of Canadian Heritage, Nicole Bourget, assistant deputy minister of sport, major events and regions, and Denis Racine, executive director, major events and celebrations.
It's nice to have all of you here to join us.
There is no opening statement, I believe, so we will continue with our questions on Canada's 150th anniversary.
MP Tilly O'Neill Gordon has the next question.
Conservative
Tilly O'Neill-Gordon Conservative Miramichi, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I want to thank you all for being here and say how much I enjoyed the minister's talk and explanation of what is going on with the celebrations. Being a former primary school teacher, I was interested in his comments about history in the classroom and the need for that everywhere. In New Brunswick it is part of the curriculum.
I also want to say that it's interesting to have these programs in the later years, but as a primary school teacher, I know this information is absorbed even by kids in grade three. If it's a fun thing, as it is on Canada Day or any celebration, they get right into it and they enjoy it. It's something that has an impact on them at that age, something they will carry with them that will become part of their lives. They will come to realize how much Canada really means to us all.
Not only do they celebrate things, but children at that age are very quick--as we all know if we have children at home--to get the people out, to get their parents or grandparents, or aunts and uncles, to take part in these things. That will also spread through the community and make our communities even more aware. Like the minister said about the celebrations and the children with their mitts and everything, they would have been out there regardless; I know that in my riding it was pouring rain, but those little ones were out there with their flags and their mitts.
Is your department planning anything that will be beneficial to the teachers in the classrooms for students of that age?
Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage
My colleagues are the ones who do all the major events in Canada. Whether it's the royal tour last summer or the state funeral recently, they do all of these major events, and they are extremely good at it. As somebody who is fairly new to Heritage, I must pay tribute to the work they do.
For these commemorations, we often work with our partners in the portfolio, whether it's the National Film Board, the CBC, or others. While respecting their independence, we work on trying to create content that will be helpful to various segments of the population, particularly youth. That's one of the reasons we are moving into new media. Take the National Film Board. Most of us grew up in school watching NFB documentaries and cartoons.
Interestingly, as for what is cool about the NFB today for youth nowadays, they're cool on mobile applications, where they're very good in documentaries and cartoons. There are ways to work with our programs and with our partners to try to create content that inspires youth.
Denis and Nicole, would you like to give more examples?
Nicole Bourget Assistant Deputy Minister, Sport, Major Events and Regions, Department of Canadian Heritage
Sure. To build on what Daniel said on the programming, whenever we do major commemorations, there is the development of a website, and we do use all the social media used by youth, from young people to those who are more mature and in high school. A good example of a success was during the 400th anniversary of Quebec. We had an interactive website and it had games on it. Young students at the primary level could go into the site and learn and discover and walk through the historical parts. We firmly believe that it's important to offer these learning and educational materials to children and to youth across the country.
So we will reach out. There will be programming. There will be special initiatives. We work often with the Historica-Dominion Institute because they specialize in history. We benefit from the wisdom of an advisory board of historians to help us with the accuracy of information. There will be events across the country, we're assuming, where people will celebrate, and it won't be just with red mittens. I'm sure we'll find something else, as we did with the torch relay, but it is the kind of objective that we try to reach.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Ms. Bourget, Mr. Jean, Mr. Racine, thank you for being here today.
Obviously I'm very excited about this, but I also have a few concerns. I see a lot of similarities between the preparations for the 150th celebration and the 2010 Olympics. In both cases, there would obviously be a huge amount of patriotic support and funding from various levels of government.
While this is great, of course, we found that in Vancouver this funding was often diverted from other sources, such as health care, education, and especially the arts. In the buildup to the 2010 games, the BC Arts Council saw its budget slashed by 82%. The 150th anniversary offers us an opportunity to celebrate Canadian arts and culture in a way that we haven't seen since the centennial celebrations, and I believe it's very important to capitalize on this opportunity to celebrate and to promote Canadian artists and musicians.
Can you talk about what safeguards are in place to ensure that funding for the anniversary celebration is not diverted from arts programs, as it was during the Olympics?
Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage
To start with, we are in a difficult fiscal environment. We have to make sure that money is efficient and effective in everything we do. The money that is in our programs for arts and culture is being spent on arts and culture. It was the case for the Olympics and it will be the case in the context of 2017.
We're very good at taking the dollars we have for arts and culture and the commemoration of events like these historical events and then leveraging money from partners who have existing programs. Take the $28 million that the minister referred to for the War of 1812: we're leveraging $76 million from partners who will also invest in the commemoration of the War of 1812.
This is all money from partners who have programs for commemorative events, whether it's the Mint doing a special coin for 1812--and they'll certainly do something for 2017--or whether it's Canada Post doing a stamp or other partners that are doing something from that angle.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Okay.
I'm usually a Status of Women gal--I'm very happy to be sitting here, of course--so I'm going to bring a gendered focus to this. We have a very proud military and democratic history. Obviously 1867 is a very important thing to celebrate, but obviously it was founded by men, and a lot of our early military history is mostly about men. While these do inspire Canadian patriotism, I'm worried that we might equate patriotism with patriarchal history.
The women of this country should be able to look back 150 years as well, and see themselves, and recognize—
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
I'll get to that. Obviously in 1812 Laura Secord was a very important woman. She was mentioned in the minister's speaking notes.
We'll obviously be celebrating the rights that women have gained, but I'd like women of today to be able to look back at 1867 and see themselves and their history. Beyond celebrating Laura Secord, what measures are being planned to ensure that Canadian women's heritage is as equally celebrated as it should be?
Deputy Minister, Department of Canadian Heritage
I think it's an excellent question.
I think the minister spoke about the importance of making sure that what unites us as Canadians, all coming from different perspectives...and what have been the contributions from various people. Whether it's people who were here before the first settlers, the first settlers, or the wave of immigrants who've come here, they're people of all genders and from all backgrounds. For example, in 2016, “On the Road to Confederation” will mark the 100th anniversary of access to the vote for women. That's a good event that we certainly would like to underline.
NDP
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
Well, then, it looks like I'm out of time.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Moore
Thank you, Ms. Freeman.
Folks, we're going to have a vote. The bells will be ringing at 10:38 a.m. I would propose that we ask another question. We did have some committee business that we wanted to get done. I'll leave it to the will of the committee, but when the bell rings we'll have to leave here and not return, and we do have some things in committee business that are important for our future meetings.
Is it okay, then, if we ask one more question and then go to committee business? What's the will of the committee?
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Moore
So we'll have a five-minute question from Mr. Weston and a two-minute question from Mr. Nantel. Then we'll go to committee business.
Liberal
Scott Simms Liberal Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL
But I thought we were starting a new round.
