Canadian Heritage Committee on June 9th, 2016

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

The indemnification program is a complex business, partly because many parts of the exhibit come together at the last moment. As you know, that's a program for high-value exhibitions. There is generally a minimum threshold of $500,000 for the value of the exhibit, and the government can assume liability of up to $3 billion at any one time.

The challenge is that most of those exhibits come from out of Canada. Our obligation in processing those files is to ensure that the exhibit is as safe as possible, so that there is no damage to any one part of the exhibit. In doing that, we have security requirements that must be met, environmental standards that have to be met, and so on.

We have been able to be flexible with some smaller museums in the past. In particular, I think of places that aren't usually the recipients of special exhibitions. Last year the Magna Carta travelled across the country and went into some places that had not previously received valuable exhibit material. The value of that exhibit was high. It's a combination.

It is true that sometimes notice comes late in the day, but it's generally reflective of the fact that some of the exhibits...It's easier with a turnkey exhibit, in which everything is coming from one place. It's much more challenging when an exhibit requires sometimes hundreds of individual agreements with lenders, the details of which come together late in the day.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Nantel, you have seven minutes.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to the three witnesses for joining us this morning.

Ms. White-Thornley, when your presentation was interrupted, you were on page 9 of your document, which clearly talks about the ratios of government financial support, donations, and so on. That graph allows us to see that provincial governments and the federal government are very committed in the funding.

I will ask Mr. Thorne the question. Ms. White-Thornley and Ms. Zedde, I could then give you my remaining time so that you can share the content of your document. I want to give you time to go over it, because I think your contribution to this study is key. You are here to tell us what you are doing to support museums. Then we can meet with people, ask questions and determine whether needs are being met.

Mr. Thorne, do the provincial culture ministries, including the Quebec culture and communications ministry, have a co-operative relationship?

Is there a coordinated approach in some areas?

[Guylain Thorne]

At our level, we don't have a lot of contacts with the provinces and territories. Of course, in terms of programs, we are always trying as much as possible to complement the work that has already been done. For instance, Quebec already has a number of museum programs. It also provides a lot of funding for the activities. In our programs, we focus on the other aspects that may help museums. Clearly, we understand that the provincial funding is being used to compensate—

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Do you feel that improved co-operation would be more productive?

I imagine that grants are being accumulated to be able to fill gaps, but that there are not always multiplier effects and growth generators from one program to the next.

In your view, could the situation be improved?

[Guylain Thorne]

No one can be against motherhood and apple pie, or improved co-operation in this case. I think that's very clear.

With the provinces, especially in terms of heritage, the levels are completely different. It depends on the provinces we are working with.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

Page 16 of your document mentions the museums assistance program. The briefing document provided by the analysts includes a very good question. Question 6 asks: “How many heritage institutions on these 2,600 receiving funding through the MAP?”

I think the answer to this question is on page 16, which says that 58% of museums have received $3.8 million.

Am I understanding the figures correctly?

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

Let me clarify this for you.

Actually, only 115 projects have received funding. There are almost 1,600 heritage institutions and art museums. That's the number of projects that have been funded. It is a small proportion.

However, I would like to make a clarification.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Actually, you can continue until my time runs out. I invite you to continue with your document. I think that's important for everyone.

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

I would like to specify that

Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, there are no minimal staff numbers for that. I wanted to be precise about that.

I'm trying to think of where I left off. I think I left off at around page...

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It was page 10.

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

Thank you.

There's a mistake, I believe, on your copy. We were doing this late last night, and we had a typo in the amount of provincial support. It is 45%, that's correct, but the number should read $291 million and not $219 million.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It's $291 million.

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

Yes, exactly.

This page breaks out the support. I think it's getting to the heart of what you were asking, Mr. Nantel.

The kinds of support we provide differ between the various levels of government. With regard to the federal government's portion of support, the vast majority of that goes to support the operational costs of the six national museums. Most, or a great deal, of the provincial and territorial money goes to support the operations of local and provincial museums.

For the programs that we have, of the $229 million the federal government has, about $184 million of that is for the national museums. The remaining money is other federal money, about half of which is for the programs of the Department of Canadian Heritage, but there are also other sources. For example, national defence finances its own museums—about 50 of them across the country—Industry Canada provides some money to the major science museums across the country, and Parks Canada has historic sites, etc. The money comes in various ways, but the majority of the federal money goes to the six major operating museums.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

You have one minute remaining.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Are these monies that are coming from various ministries in the 35.5% of the support that comes from the federal side?

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

Yes.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

That includes heritage and other ministries.

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

Yes, exactly. It's federal support.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

Page 11 of the deck shows you that we've broken it down by the size of the museum, and you can see where the operating expenses go. What you'll see is that it's a labour-intensive business, and this speaks to the challenge I was asked about earlier, in that because it is such a labour-intensive business and because there are fixed facility operating costs, this is where the major challenge is for museums. So much of their resources has to go into professional contracts, staff, management of the facilities, maintenance, and so on that it doesn't leave a huge amount of money for experimental work or for new exhibitions and so on that they would like to undertake.

Page 12 outlines the federal role in museums.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Larry Maguire]

Thank you, Madam White-Thornley.

We're going to have to move on to Ms. Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much. I'm really excited to be subbing in on this committee for the day.

I notice the study is focusing on local and community museums. In Oakville and Burlington, which are my communities, we have two small galleries: Joseph Brant Museum in Burlington, which celebrates the famous Mohawk who settled at the head of the lake, and then Oakville Museum, where we have a fantastic permanent exhibit about our ties to the underground railroad. According to your charts, it would be classified as a medium museum, but I find that a bit of a stretch. Its budget is $500,000, so I think if you asked anybody in our communities, they would say it's a local museum.

[Cynthia White-Thornley]

Yes.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

The only one of those four I could reach yesterday when I found I was subbing was Oakville Museum. The person there said that 80% to 90% of their funding—and it's typical across Ontario—is municipal. The balance is mostly provincial, with a very small portion being federal.

That's quite a bit different from your charts. I'm wondering if small museums like that are not being differentiated from perhaps some of the bigger ones.