Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 27th, 2018

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

One of our first witnesses, Mr. Kim, was asked where the most successful museums are and what's happening with them. He talked about the United Kingdom and some connections they're making there. He said that all of their museums are free to go into, but the successes have come by identification with particular cultures. The Scottish and the Irish and the English all seem to be able to identify with and become a part of that.

You talked a bit about that type of connection. Is that your experience as well?

You've just described a specific with respect to looking at other cultures and what has happened in the past, and identifying with people who are feeling more engaged with it. Will museums be more successful, in your experience, if they connect like that in personal ways, like Mr. Kim talked about in the United Kingdom and your one example there? Do you have other examples of that? Is that something that works well for you?

[Tom Beasley]

You have to connect with people and you have to connect ... know your community. Our community are people who are interested in and focused on maritime, things maritime in the Arctic and the Pacific. I think it's of great significance if you can reach out beyond the doors of the museum and engage with those communities and make them feel almost like a, probably perhaps the wrong word, a community centre for things maritime where people who are interested in the ocean, water and engagement on and about can come together and enjoy commonality experiences, common experiences.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Are there some values, principles that go across all museums? You're focused on maritime museums. Are there some principles that go across all museums that might be of value to this committee to look at? Principles that might help enhance and grow the type of things that you're talking about in terms of connections and stories?

[Tom Beasley]

I would encourage the committee to reach out into the professional world of museums, to people like Bill Haley, who, as I described, designs museum exhibits around the world—not the shell of the museum, but the guts of the museum and the storytelling in it.

That's enough from me.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

What are the two most important things that we need to know?

[Tom Beasley]

For museums to make them successful? Know the audience, have fun, engage.

[Gordie Hogg, Liberal, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

Okay.

Can you tell us a joke that will be funny?

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you, that's perfect. Thank you very much.

We will be moving to Mr. Van Loan for seven minutes please.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Beasley, you have been around and seen some ups and downs and all kinds of interesting changes.

I'm intrigued by the part in the cycle where you guys were at a low, and you went to a non-museum manager. There are of course some government programs that depend on people being professionally trained curators in order to get funding. I've certainly seen in my visits to museums that some of those that have been most successful are those that have turned to non-museum people with considerable expertise in marketing or in knowing the local community. Stratford Museum has a former local newspaper editor who is a very charismatic fellow and has been quite successful.

I wonder if you could provide your observations on the non-museum person as manager, on that experience and how it helped.

[Tom Beasley]

We were near death. No museum professional wanted to join us. We needed to have somebody who was a true manager to right the ship and get us on a good path. We hired Ken Burton, who was retiring from the RCMP. We had him for six months free, which is not bad. He turned the ship around, because he managed the place well and he had a strong focus on people.

That's my background as an employment lawyer: do the human resources side well. That wasn't good before. He did that well and he got the budget in line, but then he hit a roadblock, because the museum professionals got a bit uptight about it. They were snotty about it, saying, “You don't have a degree.” Well, Ken had the passion and the skills. He recreated the voyage of the St. Roch. In 2000, he left Vancouver in an RCMP ship, turned right, and came back.

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

Thank you.

I have a question for both sides here. We've heard a little about tourism as the icing on the cake but not the bread and butter of museum attendance for the Aga Khan museum. I was wondering if you could provide your perspectives on the importance of tourism, and the economic impact that your museums may or may not have. Start with the Atlantic folks.

[Kim Reinhardt]

As I mentioned in my presentation, a very big portion of our annual visitation comes between about mid-May to the end of October, and it's very closely aligned with the cruise ship industry. A lot of cruise ships come into Halifax.

Probably one of our strengths in terms of the tourism market is the fact that Halifax has a strong connection to the Titanic. I won't lie: a lot of people who come to visit the maritime museum, particularly those off cruise ships, come with the assumption that they're coming to the local Titanic museum. We're always happy when those visitors come and enjoy our Titanic exhibit, but they walk away or come up and comment to us afterwards about how they didn't know about the Halifax explosion, about the role of Halifax during the wars, or about just how active and busy our harbour was and is.

Certainly, having a really iconic exhibit or something that really resonates with people from all over the world, that being the Titanic, certainly helps our visitation in terms of the tourism market. It is a very substantial part of our revenue stream in terms of the visitors who come in throughout those months. We appreciate that, we need that, and it's essential, but we are always asking ourselves, what we will do if for some reason they decide to move the cruise ship terminal? For many years now, because of that and also because of our changing mandate in the department that we're a part of, we have been trying more and more to make sure that we are building meaningful connections with our community. That goes back to the previous question about connections.

We do put a large focus not necessarily on increasing the visitation from the local markets but on making sure that we're important to the local communities and markets. We're hoping that the visitation follows the fact that we've become relevant to them in some way. It might be that we partner with groups so they can make their programs happen, programs that we may have a connection with. Sometimes it's a pretty vague connection, to be honest, but I think the benefit is that we are working with community groups and developing relevance and value for them. Often there's a snowball effect in terms of new opportunities that end up coming out of it and are many times more closely aligned with our mandate of promoting maritime culture and heritage.

Tourism is very important. We do benefit greatly from it, but that doesn't lessen our efforts and our value of connecting more with the local communities.

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

I think we have 30 seconds for the Vancouver folks on the same subject.

[Duncan MacLeod]

Very briefly, I can't talk about the numbers related to what kind of economic impact we have, but I will say that museums are regarded more highly than any other source—there are recent reports on this—in terms of their credibility of information. Museums are highly respected and believed when it comes to credible information about history, so I think that plays a significant role in our economic impact for tourism, for people who come to learn about the city where they visit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We'll now go to Mr. Nantel for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll speak English.

Do you get it in French when I speak French? Do you get the English translation?

Mr. Beasley, you did mention your perception of the study was about the impact of local museums in the community. I haven't had the chance to visit the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Actually, some of us will be going to the Junos in Vancouver, which are on March 24, 25 or 26—I can't remember—so if you want to invite us, please forward that to the clerk, and we'll do as much as we can to see your venue.

Mr. Beasley, your commentary brought me yo my recent visit to the Halifax maritime museum. I can actually say I did go out of general interest, but I did pay a lot of attention to the Titanic exhibit. It was a very hands-on experience, and I really appreciated it. What shocked me most about this museum is how it's sitting in the old port of Halifax.

I wanted to ask you, Ms. Reinhardt, whether you think the museum has played a key role in the vitality that you can sense in the area, on the waterfront. It is the most human-scale, lively wharf or harbour area I've seen, and you are right in the centre of this. Did you play a key role in this? I can see you had many prizes about 20 years ago, so I guess you've always been very popular, and now the site actually needs to be a little more renewed and fresher. Am I right to say that?

[Kim Reinhardt]

Yes, and thank you for that question. It's an interesting thing. One of the challenges with our facilities is the loading bay, all of the access for operational things, was all put on the waterfront side of the museum. When the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic was first developed in its current site, they always thought the main entrance would be the roadside entrance. Of course what happened is the waterfront side became the main entrance to the museum. When the maritime museum was there originally, there was really nothing. It was parking lots and old warehouses. It's was quite derelict actually. I think it's a fair assessment to say the maritime museum did play a role in revitalizing that area and creating a little bit of inertia to develop the waterfront so that it could become a destination. Now it certainly is. The waterfront side of the museum is very, very much the main entrance during our peak season. We have begun partnering with Waterfront Development, which manages the entire waterfront, to do things like host public concerts and activities, to showcase seafaring music and other cultural community music, just to do what we can to continue to leverage the fact that we are positioned in a really vibrant part of the waterfront. That's been done through efforts such as concerts and workshops and activities and engaging as much as we can with the community on the waterfront. I think that's fair to say.

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

Actually, if I'm not mistaken, as a tourist in such a location, what you do appreciate is talking about boats and actually getting on a boat. There was an old boat there, the Acadia, and it was a very nice experience with the family to go on the boat. If I'm not mistaken, you also have the art boat, which is actually involving everyone around to get—

[Kim Reinhardt]

Yes, that was a program a couple of years ago. That was a community-driven partnership. Some artists came to us and said, “We'd really love to do this and we'd like to build a boat.” So the whole process of building the boat out in our boat shed became an artistic, creative, musical experience. It was just a fun whimsical boat. If you've been in Halifax in the last year, there's a major development happening now directly to the north of the maritime museum. There was a parking lot there, and that's now one of the last chunks of land on the waterfront to be developed. They're developing a major—

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

The jazz festival was there.

[Kim Reinhardt]

The jazz festival was there, and that will probably move down further south. There's a development directly beside us. The developers are very keen. They have come to us. They really want to work with us because they value the fact that we create this unique, authentic heritage experience on the waterfront that is unique from all the fancy restaurants and pieces. They want to find ways we can complement what we offer with what they're beginning to develop and design. I think that is another good indication of how we have served as a connection to further the development of the waterfront in a really positive way.

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

I could sense there that the whole place was 20 years old. You can feel this. I wonder if an interpretation centre, for example, from Irving shipyards, could be shared. Do you get support from them? Do you get involved with them? They are an important shipyard there, and they do get contracts.

[Kim Reinhardt]

Are you asking if we could approach them for support for the museum?

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

Yes. When I went to see this maritime museum and saw the big Irving shipyard just beside it, I would have loved to see all the boats that have been built there, for example. Do they get involved?

[Kim Reinhardt]

They do, indirectly. The foundation works closely with the museum. The Canadian Maritime Heritage Foundation provides an award annually. We've formed a partnership with Cunard, the Queen Mary 2. For the past three years they've brought the Queen Mary 2 into Halifax and they host a very wonderful luncheon on board the Queen Mary 2, and provide a Nova Scotia Cunard award to an individual who, like Samuel Cunard, who was a Haligonian, has the characteristics of pure entrepreneurship: vision, courage, and creativity.

The first award on the Queen Mary 2 three years ago was awarded to Jim or John Irving, one of the Irving brothers, and they received that; and that was a partnership with the Maritime Museum and the foundation. This program was developed as a way for us to connect with the donor class. Unlike a university, for example, we can't hand out honorary degrees, but we can hand out this prestigious award.

We made a connection with Irving—