Canadian Heritage Committee on June 16th, 2016

[Robin Etherington]

Beyond that is the grant-writing aspect. We're not arguing about writing grants; we're arguing about having that whole application process streamlined and coordinated with all three levels of government, because all three levels of government ask the same information, but in different forms. Quite often it's like getting a square peg into a round hole.

Alex mentioned it, and I'm going to expand on it. We have to be compliant with every law. I go annually to the Carters legal workshop for not-for-profits, and the phrase that I remember distinctly, apart from getting a rebate on the HST, is that charities and not-for-profits have to be compliant with every other single law that corporations and businesses have to be. We need to be compliant with occupational health and safety, accessibility, the heritage laws, human rights, labour laws, etc. For a small organization to be compliant on an ongoing basis is really a challenge. I'm not saying it's impossible, and we manage it, but it is indeed a challenge.

The reason I said it should be a review of the suite of policies and practices and strategies that affect us is that if you just change one, if you just update your museum policy—which, by the way, after 30 years would be a really great thing to do—then none of the other ones are in sync with that updated policy. It isn't just the federal government; all of us need to sit down and review it and work together to make sure that everything is in sync. If one is not in sync with the other, it cascades down like dominoes and it will affect us.

Does that make any sense?

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

You started on my question, and then you went to another place, but...

[Robin Etherington]

Okay. Go ahead.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

It was the question of those nuts-and-bolts problems, and you touched on some of them quite well—

[Robin Etherington]

On my nuts-and-bolts problems, I'm going back to something that I referred to about federal departments talking with each other and talking with community museums. My specific problem and huge challenge is NAC's construction, because I'm at the bottom of the hill. I haven't been able to get deliveries for a week. My bread and butter, the way I balance my budget, is lemonade and ice cream. I can't get lemons and ice cream down to my.... I get people because they figure out a way to walk down, but I cannot get my deliveries. That is a huge challenge.

The other thing is that I'm on Parks Canada's property. The NAC is at the top of the hill. If the NCC, the RCMP, and the parliamentary precinct make a decision, it shuts down my museum. None of them talks to the others, and the last person to find out that I'm being shut down is me.

If you want today's specific challenge, that's what it is, but it is representative of the situation ever since I've been here.

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

A rather radical idea that I've heard from some museum directors and that we've now heard from some witnesses is that there may be too many museums. Some are answering this situation by shutting down. Some are answering it with mergers, such as that of the McCord and Stewart museums in Montreal. Do you guys, from your perspective, think of mergers as being ways of pooling resources at an executive management level?

What are your thoughts on that, both of you?

[Alexandra Badzak]

I think that's a reality that we're all going to have to face, to be honest.

I think a natural progression for those that can find the means and the support to move forward and grow organizations versus those who started from a great place but just can't take it to the next level is that inevitably some museums will close. It's not what we want to see by any means, but I think that's the reality, given the pressures facing museums.

That puts on pressure to make sure that other museums are then taking on the mandate of those museums and ensuring that their collections are cared for and preserved and that their stories are told and interpreted.

What we're seeing is that a lot of grassroots community museums are suffering. Some of the larger institutions within their region might have to have that dialogue with them, but it's a huge process of thinking about deaccessioning works or artifacts from their collections and offering them back to their original donors, if they can even find them, and then looking at how best to create a collection management strategy for this foreign collection that might be coming in to some museum.

Yes, I think this may be the reality, but it's not a great one. What we would all like to see is sustainable funding that allows even the smaller organizations, which have such unique stories to tell, to survive too.

[Robin Etherington]

I concur. That assessment is spot-on correct.

Forty-nine years ago, for the 100th anniversary of Canada, many communities wanted their own community museum. There was an incredible growth in the number of museums across Canada. You're absolutely right.

One of the multiple issues now is the founder syndrome. Those people who founded those museums are either no longer with us or are about to step away as volunteers. The resources to support that number of museums are increasingly limited. We need to start thinking about partnerships and hubs, and not just in terms of the national museums serving as resource hubs for us, but in general.

Take, for example, the Ottawa Museums Network. All the community and city museums of Ottawa have joined forces under OMN. If nothing else, it allows us to work with the city on an overarching digitization project for the entire city. It helps us have—

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Can you wrap with one sentence, please?

[Robin Etherington]

Thank you. It helps us to have benefit packages for staff, which we couldn't do on our own, as well as to have joint marketing.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Next is Mr. Nantel, for the NDP. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My thanks to both of you for being here with us this morning.

Ms. Etherington, I can confirm that your museum sells excellent ice cream. I was there last year and I ate a Magnum bar, and my wife scolded me for it.

I was quite impressed to participate in a session dealing with a specific page of history. About 15 people were seated and listening to a presentation. They did not seem to me to be tourists, but rather people from the region who were passionate about history.

I’m not sure whether you take care of local mediation much, but we are talking about the national capital, which is not just a simple region. Many tourists come here to visit. Do a lot of people in the region participate in your activities?

The next question is more specifically for Ms. Badzak.

I visited the site called “Ottawa, Canada’s Capital” at the address www.ottawatourism.ca, but I was not able to find you there, Ms. Badzak.

[Robin Etherington]

I'm going to answer in English. I'm sorry.

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

That's no problem.

[Robin Etherington]

We really do participate with the community. Apart from partnering with our colleague museums and community museums—of which there are a handful, and they are very good—we also partner with the businesses and the business improvement areas that sponsor us. The Downtown Rideau BIA sponsors our Winterlude ice sculpture. The ByWard Market BIA helps us with our joint programming and marketing. The Kichesippi Beer Co. sponsors our receptions and, because we're going to be 100 next year, is doing a 100th anniversary Bytown Museum beer next year.

We partner with The Haunted Walk for their school programming in haunted walks. We partner with the Department of Canadian Heritage and deliver their youth program called “Click!”. We partner with Ottawa Tourism, and they bring down their familiarization tours, etc. The fam tours are the tour operator tours.

As I said, we have a community gallery. One of my pride and joys is our youth council for those 16 to 23. Forget writing essays—we let them do blogs and podcasts. We let them redesign an exhibition in the museum. In actual fact, we've made presentations at national and international conferences about it because everybody is asking how we pull it off, but we're also going to be in the Ontario government's new history textbook as an example of how to engage youth.

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

Obviously you are very active in networking in the area.

Ms. Badzak, I've had the chance to be here for a few years, and you're very close to the University of Ottawa. Why don't I see you in the official offerings from Ottawa Tourism?

[Alexandra Badzak]

That's a really good question.

Ottawa Tourism is a pay-to-play process. To be honest, I felt that we just didn't have the space to live up to the national offerings, and so we didn't feel it was worth our money yet to spend that money with Ottawa Tourism. Now, with their game-changing expansion, which is happening right next door, as part of which we will have the Ottawa University theatre department, that's a game-changer. That's when the dialogue with Ottawa Tourism will begin. That's where I hope to see us as part of day two on that trip to Ottawa.

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

I'm asking you this because if you were in a region other than Ottawa, you could have a network, as an offering for tourism, that would be related to a mine or to a specific activity. We've been very pleased to hear that at the nomination of the new president of the nature museum, if I'm not mistaken, they did take the initiative of gathering three museum offerings in one card for Canada 150. I think clearly for foreign tourists to come here, it will be so easy to go through a network.

[Alexandra Badzak]

It's a lovely idea. We'd love to see more of that sort of initiative. I think that at a local level, we're very interested in having that dialogue. I've been having conversations with the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra and with Ottawa Dance Directive. Robin and I have had many conversations about how to create some cross-marketing.

You're absolutely right. We know that tourist dollars are limited and tourist time is limited, and if we can package that up and deliver it in a way that's easy and palatable, all the better.

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

I will piggyback on the question from my colleague, Ms. Dabrusin, about digitization. Your approach to making an interpretation and a contextual exposition of the art work is very different from having a picture of the art work, which then can be used by people making their own birthday cards.

Do you think it would be a good opportunity for Canada to offer to the lowest bidder some centralized approach to digitizing, to volunteering for education, storage, etc.? Do you feel there may be a need for some central...? All of these small museums do not have the resources, but if they all gathered together in one program, could it be helpful?

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Make it one minute, please.

[Alexandra Badzak]

I think it would be challenging, that's for sure.

It would have to be regional in its approach. I don't think you could do it on a national level, unless you were dealing with the national institutions. Local solutions could be found in that way, and those are conversations we're having right now about how to find efficiencies amongst ourselves.

I think we have to take a good, hard look at board members, insurance plans, and all those sorts of things. It would not be so much for institutions at our level that are now ready to take that next step forward, but for many institutions that will go under if they don't find those efficiencies.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Samson for the Liberals, for seven minutes.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I will first turn to Ms. Etherington from the Bytown Museum.

You said that the national policy has not changed in over 20 years and that it no longer reflects your challenges and needs. Would you happen to have two or three suggestions for a possible new policy?