Mr. Chairman, thank you for the question by the member.
I certainly agree with the way you have put the problem. I also grew up in the 1950s. I can still see Davy Crockett and I had a coon skin cap. And I certainly know that the Americans won the War of 1812 because of what took place in 1815 outside a certain battle of New Orleans, and can sing that song as well.
But those problems of mass media representation are not going to be overcome by simply renaming a museum. Mass media representation, the type of popularized telling of stories, telling of tales as done through Hollywood, is something that can only be competed against through having significant cultural activities and cultural industries: Canadian filmmaking, British filmmaking, other filmmaking.
Where does the Museum of Civilization and proposed museum of history fit into this? As it now stands, the Museum of Civilization does a very, very extensive job of portraying Canadian history. My calculation is that 75%, some three quarters, of all of the public exhibition areas are given to Canadian history. There are exhibitions on Sir John A. Macdonald, on D'Arcy McGee. There is nothing to say that these cannot be improved and I think it is laudable that they be improved, and the installations dating back to 1989 and 1990 can be improved. But fundamentally, does Bill C-49 improve it? My advice to you would be that it does not. The bill as currently constructed takes away from that broader mandate of understanding the world and being engaged with the world.
One of the proudest things I was involved in was opening an exhibition in the centre of Beijing at the time of the international Olympics, followed shortly thereafter with the opening of four exhibitions in Brazil showing aspects of Canadian life, Canadian artifacts, what we were accomplishing in Canada. That is a central part of the mandate of the Museum of Civilization.
So I don't know how the circle should get squared. I do believe as currently constructed, the legislation reduces and eliminates rather than enhances the ability of museums to contribute to solving the problem that you and I grew up with.