Thank you very much.
Good morning, Madame Chair.
The Museum of History is very appreciative of the opportunity to discuss Bill C-391 and the proposed creation of a national strategy for the repatriation of aboriginal cultural property.
As an institution that has been historically at the forefront of discussions on this subject, and on reconciliation with indigenous communities more generally, we are pleased at the invitation to share some notes from our own experiences and recommendations and have had an opportunity to meet with the sponsor of the bill earlier this year to provide, directly, some feedback and advice and I will reiterate that a little further in my remarks.
The museum, as many of you know, is Canada's national museum of history. It is one of Canada's six national museums and is mandated onto the Museums Act of 1990 to collect objects of historical or cultural interest to be preserved on behalf of all Canadians. The museum's unique collection represents the entire country, all of its peoples, and it is very well documented. It was built and continues to be built with very particular deliberation in terms of collections, building and management.
It holds, I think, the largest collection of objects related to indigenous history and culture in Canada, collected over the past 150 years. It's well known in the museological community for its close work in collaboration, consultation and partnership with indigenous communities, and many of those same communities are, in fact, quite proud to have their cultures and their histories represented in the museum and its activities.
The museum recently opened the Canadian History Hall, the most comprehensive exhibition of Canadian history ever developed, and that hall begins with an indigenous creation story and continues to weave indigenous stories throughout approximately 15,000 years of Canadian history that are depicted in the hall, fully integrating indigenous stories into the fabric of the museum in its entirety. A section of that hall—to point out one example—presents a digital forensic depiction of the likenesses of a high-ranking indigenous Shishalh family that lived approximately 4000 years ago. This module was created in very close collaboration with that indigenous community, and a second version of the module was presented at the same time in the community's own museum in Sechelt, on the Pacific coast of British Columbia. The entire hall, in fact, was created through that kind of collaboration with indigenous communities around the country, as well as in consultation with an indigenous advisory committee. The hall, too, was designed by someone many of you know, indigenous architect Douglas Cardinal, who was the designer of the original museum building itself.
The museum's leadership in that kind of principled engagement was, in fact, highlighted in the 2015 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by name. Such projects build, we believe, strong and positive relationships with communities, and they share knowledge and expertise. They achieve all of that through day-to-day museum work, as well as through more formal programs, such as something called the sacred materials project, which brings community members to the museum to share appropriate and traditional care and handling of the materials and knowledge of same.
The RBC Aboriginal Training Program in Museum Practices, which was created in the early 1990s, offers professional and technical training for first nations, Métis and Inuit participants from the around country so that they may gather, preserve and share their own histories and cultures in their own communities. That has now graduated more than 100 young indigenous museum professionals.
In the field of repatriation activities specifically, we have been very heavily involved for around four decades. Beginning in the early 1990s, the repatriation of objects in the national collection was also added as a topic in treaty negotiations. The museum engages directly in those negotiations, providing information about the collections to participants and discussing repatriation in the context of its own repatriation practices and policies.
In addition to treaty negotiations, custodial agreements or sharing agreements are another important way that the museum shares responsibility for, and access to, its own collections. The museum has a custodial agreement, for example, with the Nisga'a Nation whereby Nisga'a objects are shared on a permanent and ongoing basis with the community.
That agreement speaks to consultation and the inclusion of Nisga'a cultural practices in the care of objects that remain at the museum and of any future acquisitions by the museum of Nisga'a material. Nisga'a Museum director Stephanie Halapija called the implementation of that agreement, “a tangible representation of reconciliation in action.”
The underlying purpose of the bill we are discussing today, as reiterated by the sponsoring member before this committee on September 18, is to provide an additional voice or doorway to the repatriation discussion. This is an objective my museum certainly shares.
As we understood it directly and indirectly from the sponsoring member, his intent in drafting the bill was to address concerns he had for a small museum in his riding in an effort to help it repatriate an object held in an international museum. The proposed strategy that has resulted, which was kindly shared with the museum in the spring, promises to support the return of aboriginal cultural property under specified conditions and to improve access to that property for educational and ceremonial purposes as matters of equal importance.
The museum shares fully these objectives. In fact, as I've already indicated, the museum is doing much of this work now, and has been for a very long time. However, the museum would add for the committee's due consideration—as we shared with the member after meeting with him in the spring—some suggestions on how the bill's current language might better serve these purposes.
As written, the bill's language may be more expansive and imprecise, and therefore not as helpful as originally intended. The strategy could identify more clearly the types of material to be subject to repatriation and the terms and conditions under which requests or demands might be entertained. For example, the current draft offers little distinction between legally acquired objects and all objects, a difference of cardinal importance to all collecting institutions, and indeed to all collectors the world over.
Further, the notion of physical and legal availability of an object is likewise currently absent from the bill's language, as is the notion of compliance with existing and relevant indigenous protocols. The bill, we believe, would be further helped by clearly defining what “available” or “availability” means in its context.
These suggestions would help hone and target the bill's efforts to realize what we understood to be its original spirit and intent. They would also serve to clarify the work and deliberations of any strategy or implementation framework that would later be created by the bill to help manage the flow of information, claims and decisions.
In our experience, this important but delicate work also requires clarity on the link between the requester for repatriated material and the material being requested. This, too, is presently imprecise in the bill's language, which specifies objects that are “of importance” to requesters. Describing objects as “linked to” or “originating from” the requester's specific indigenous group would, we think, be closer to the professed intent.
The bill may also be enhanced by including the notions of access and/or accessibility in addition to that of repatriation. As we indicated earlier, there are other means in addition to repatriation that can enhance accessibility to stories and to objects. As the bill proposes ways to measure progress and eventually to create metrics for success, it might also acknowledge awareness of the work already being done today by cultural institutions of many types, and the ways in which the bill can support such institutions in their work.
Any such metric should differentiate between existing efforts that are successful and new initiatives that stem from the bill and might also be successful, to ensure that future reporting is effective, accurate and encouraging of future results.
In closing, we've been guided in these comments by the text of the bill itself; by what the sponsoring member indicated about his motivations and intentions, including his comments to you on September 18; and by our own considerable experience in repatriation work and related fields as a very privileged participant and, humbly, a leading practitioner for some 40 years in this field, in anticipation of greater and more impactful efforts yet to come.
We certainly believe that the bill holds promise. We also believe that it needs some additional diligence and tighter drafting in key areas to ensure it meets its author's and this committee's expectations, so that if enacted, it can serve as a usable, effective and respectful framework for many years to come.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today. We hope the committee finds our recommendations to be of use in its deliberations.
I look forward to your questions.
Thank you very much.
