Canadian Heritage Committee on March 1st, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We will begin the 97th meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. We will now continue our study of the state of Canadian museums.

We're starting this morning with our first panel. By video conference we have Ms. Gail Lord, co-founder and president of Lord Cultural Resources Inc. Here with us today, from the Inuit Heritage Trust Incorporated, we have Eva Aariak, president, and William Beveridge, executive director.

Because there may be technical issues along the way, we'll start with our video conference witness.

Ms. Lord, you have 10 minutes. It's a little hard for you to see me, so I'm going to ask you to keep an eye on the clock.

Why don't we get started? Unfortunately, I can't hear you.

[Gail Lord, Co-founder and President, Lord Cultural Resources Inc.]

They're going to turn on my microphone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Perfect. That's great.

[Gail Lord]

Thank you very much.

It is my great pleasure to be here with you all today to talk about a very important subject: the role of museums and Canadian heritage, and especially the role of community museums.

I thank you all for this opportunity. It's the first time that I'm making such a presentation.

I thought I would just start with telling you a little bit more about me because it will give you an idea of where I come from, if you'll permit me,

Madam Chair and members of the committee.

You know my name—I'm Gail Lord. My husband and I founded Lord Cultural Resources in 1981. We're both Canadians. This is the world's largest cultural planning entity. I was honoured a year ago with the Order of Canada, which I'm very proud of. I'm also an

Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

from the Government of France, and I have an LLD degree from McMaster University. I feel very honoured with all this.

Our company has offices worldwide, so I think we're a great example that you can achieve, in museums and heritage, the status of international renown in a creative industry.

We've conducted more than 2,700 assignments in 57 countries, and our clients include the Louvre—and when I say the Louvre I mean the Louvre in Paris, the Louvre in Lens, and the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, which just opened.

The proudest thing for me of all these statistics—and of course they're lived experiences; they're much more than statistics—is our work in Canada. We've done more than 400 projects across this country. That means assignments of museum planning, cultural planning, and museum development in every province and territory, in museums big and small, over 36 years. We continue to work in museums big and small.

In the national capital region where you are, we've conducted more than 20 assignments alone. We're working on the rehabilitation of the Centre Block of Parliament and the visitor's centre that will be established there in due course. So we're very involved in our nation's capital. You may know that my firm won the competition to do the Holocaust Monument, which I'm inordinately proud of, which is up and operating in Ottawa near the War Museum. The proudest moment for me—I think it's good for you to know this—is the 14 years I worked on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. Our master plan was submitted to the then Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Chrétien, and was voted on unanimously by the House of Commons. This is so incredible. I think that the results in Winnipeg are very profound.

We've also worked for nine years with Pier 21 in Halifax. I just think that it speaks volumes both to the knowledge and experience that I'm privileged to have in our own country, and also worldwide. Without further ado I would like to briefly outline for you what I see as the strengths, the weaknesses, and the opportunities of the small and medium-size museum sector in Canada.

The first strength is the dedicated staff and volunteer base of our local museums and the museum communities all across Canada. There are very commendable efforts such as the Ottawa Museum Network with which we are working right now, and the Nova Scotia museum system with which we have worked over many years to support, promote, and build capacity among community museums. Community museums are so heavily reliant on volunteer support. The capacity building is a very big issue for them. The decentralization of our national museums—and I know national museums are not the subject today—is a great help because I'm not a believer in trickle-down economics, but I do believe in trickle-up and trickle-down influence. That brings tremendous expertise to each of the regions of the country in which these museums are located.

I think that combining the impetus of the national and provincial museums and their expertise with the local knowledge of the smaller museums is really a major theme.

Museums need to be seen as transformative institutions. Because they're largely voluntary, and they're so community-based, I think they're too often seen as, I don't know, “keepers of old stuff”. That's really no longer the main theme, although it's a theme of many of them. They're inspiring spaces. They're places where young people go to experience the real material history of their lives, their new lives if they're immigrants, their family lives if they're settled for a while, and their changing lives, because the lives of all Canadians are changing. So museums are really places where you can measure change, where you feel change.

So the idea of them being stale and stuffy, really nothing could be farther from the truth. They're also elevating and inspiring places, and they're places for aspiration, and again, I think we underestimate the aspirational value of community museums. In Toronto there's a new initiative called the Myseum which is to establish a Toronto museum. Toronto is actually the biggest city in the world that doesn't have a city museum. I know no one ever feels badly for Toronto, but it's a reality, and the group that's starting Myseum has private funding and they are making this museum happen as dialogues all across this huge city, and it's working. I attended an event a couple of weeks ago on the history of the ward, and there were a hundred people who showed up, and they were young. The fact that it happened to be in a brew pub probably contributed to it, but of course, in Toronto there are lots of brew pubs, and the fact is that that was a very exciting evening for people to attend.

So these are places, community museums in all their different forms, are places for what sociologists call bridging and bonding, and I think for Canada bridging and bonding is one of the most important things. We're proud of our immigration policies and rightly so. They changed fundamentally in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I think that they're one of the most progressive aspects of our country today, and museums are places where people meet other people and create relationships, which is bridging cultures, and they're also where people bond, where they discover what they have in common. For us in Canada, especially at a time when we know that social media can be very very divisive, we have to understand that museums are inclusive and they're the opposite of divisive. They're bridging institutions. They're bonding institutions, and that would be pretty much the big idea there.

Now, what are some of the weaknesses? First of all, we have no federal museum policy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Two minutes.

[Gail Lord]

Good. I think that having a museum policy is very very important, and I would hope that that could be a recommendation and an outcome of your work together. Funding at the federal level is episodic, and as a result the logical place of entry into the museum world as a professional is in the community museum, but there is absolutely no job security there. Therefore, we are losing talented people outside the country. We're not retaining talent, and we have the situation that we find particularly in Toronto where right now, very few museum and cultural leaders are in fact Canadian, or even Canadian residents. I'm a believer in internationalism but for lack of a career path and career development, we wind up in a very very perilous situation with respect to who's leading our institutions and who understands Canada.

I think that the federal government has a great role. Obviously, you can't...I shouldn't say it's obvious but it's the digital realm that brings you most closely into museums, and I would urge you to see that the digital initiatives—which have been interesting, but they are basically episodic—are married with real progress on the ground. If we can do it in health, I think we can do it and must do it in museums.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Great.

[Gail Lord]

I hope I'm on time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Yes, you are perfectly on time. Thank you very much.

Now we will go to Ms. Aariak and Mr. Beveridge, please, for 10 minutes.

[Eva Aariak, President, Inuit Heritage Trust Incorporated]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Eva Aariak and I am the president of Inuit Heritage Trust, based out of Iqaluit. Iqaluit is the capital city of Nunavut that was created in 1999. I'm very pleased to be here with our executive director, William Beveridge. Inuit Heritage Trust represents 27,000 Nunavut Inuit and receives its mandate from article 33 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement between Inuit and the Government of Canada.

I am sorry to say though that I don't have solid information about our museum because we don't have one in Nunavut. I'm going to elaborate a little bit more about that. I agree so much with many of the comments that the first speaker just said, in terms of how lively and inspirational museums are and I'm going to elaborate a little bit more on that as well.

Within the territory, the Inuit Heritage Trust represents Inuit interests on issues that relate to heritage, archeology, ethnographic resources, and traditional place names. William will be handing out, to each and every one of you, the map that this Inuit Heritage Trust has been working on over the last 20 years or so. This also includes spiritual places, of course, in our traditional sense.

The Nunavut agreement is the largest indigenous land claim settlement in Canadian history. Nunavut has 25 communities and the size of the territory is about one fifth of the land mass of Canada, or three time zones. Nunavut is the only jurisdiction without a designated heritage centre. Article 33 of the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement identifies the need to promote, protect, and preserve the natural and cultural heritage in Nunavut. The need for the territorial centre has been recognized for decades. It means so much to the people to have such a facility to showcase our rich history and culture. It has a direct impact on education, career development, tourism, and so on.

Our smaller communities have a very small scale of a building that they will showcase what they have in the communities, but in the territory, we don't have such a heritage centre to warehouse over 400,000 artifacts that depict the rich traditional knowledge and skills of our ancestors. Where are all these artifacts stored? They are not in Nunavut, unfortunately. That's the initiative that we've been fighting for.

These artifacts that rightfully belong to Nunavut are housed in various places, such as the Prince of Wales Heritage Centre in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and other jurisdictions where there is a proper facility to store them. There is no such facility in Nunavut to keep them safe for years to come, so that our own children, grandchildren, and the next generation would have access to.

Museums are very much influencing our young people. What I'm wearing today is inspired by traditional design of our ancestors, but our youth today are very creative in adapting from what was and making it into modern contemporary art per se and design.

Can you imagine? If only these young artists and designers we had in Nunavut had access to see the true traditional designs that our skilled ancestors created. It's only with what they know and can see from their parents and grandparents that they are inspired, creating wonderful garments, jewellery, implements, and so on.

There is much stake in having a place where schoolchildren, youth, and even—I'm not so young any more—mine and William's age group are always intrigued. Every time we go to a jurisdiction like Yellowknife or here, we are invited to see our stuff, our artifacts, and the clothing, tools, and implements that have been kept safe in the dark, in the drawer. Whenever there is a drawer that opens and you see all these artifacts, these beautiful creations of our ancestors, it always hits your heart.

I can imagine how touching it would be for our own children and grandchildren and the next generations to come to be able to enjoy what we have briefly seen in various jurisdictions. It's very important to our territory to have such a facility.

It is our hope and dream to be able to showcase artifacts in our own homeland, when someday a Nunavut heritage centre can finally become reality. Our heritage centre is very much working with Inuit organizations in Nunavut. We are continually trying to outreach to other entities, including the Government of Canada. We had wonderful meetings with government officials a few weeks ago here in Ottawa, explaining what we are doing. We will be providing the presentation that we gave when we were here once it's translated, and you'll have access to that.

We have 25 small communities ranging in population from 450 to 3,000, depending on where you are in the territory. They are trying hard to showcase their culture. To do that, they solicit a little money from the Government of Nunavut; they fundraise and so on, so that they can have a small place for visitors and youth and the community to have a little showcase. That is nowhere near what is needed in terms of a humidity-controlled, well-established facility, where we would be welcoming our rich cultural heritage information and so on. I'm talking more about the fact that we don't have such a facility, but I would very much like to entertain your questions for deeper information on what you want to know.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

Now we're going to go to a question and answer period. There will be some questions in French. Everyone, use your earpieces if you need translation.

Mr. Hébert, you have seven minutes.

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Lord, Ms. Aariak, thank you for your presentations, they were very interesting.

My question goes to you, Ms. Lord.

Your organization's documents mention that you want to supply a variety of programs to develop sustainable governance practices that will be adequate and useful for your clients, in this case, museums that call on you for your services.

Have you developed specific programs for local and rural museums to ensure their long-term survival? The museums that experience problems with funding, and even visitor traffic, are often the most remote, such as the Musée Louis-Hémon, located in Péribonka, in my constituency, that showcases the Maria Chapdelaine novel. These problems could be passed onto the provinces.

What would you suggest that the government do to help the more remote communities?

[Gail Lord]

It's a great question.

Let me say that it's always been a fundamental philosophy we have had that large learn from small, and small learn from large. I would say that above all, in Quebec, your smaller institutions are incredibly creative and have much to teach the world. There are different reasons that I think this is so, but maybe we won't go into them.

In fact, one of the Canadian leaders—and I stress the word Canadian—here in Toronto came from the Musée d'art de Joliette. It's not tiny, but it's not Quebec City. She is really one of the great leaders in the province of Ontario. In fact, I would say that Quebec is almost a searching ground for talent for the rest of the country, even in places where bilingualism isn't a requirement, but where people are looking for talent. I would like to underline that.

We work for small museums everywhere. We've written a set of books. We feel that these books are almost equally applicable. Planification de nos musées was the very first one. It was published in French in 1983. The financial challenge for Canadians, and I believe for Québécois as well—and it's also probably also true in Nunavut—is that these are private-public financial opportunities. This is Canada and we need the leadership of government. When government shows consistent leadership, I believe the private sector will step forward with support. That would really be my advice.

The problem now is that most monies going to museums are episodic, and that's a very bad basis on which to go to the private sector for support.

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Aariak.

As you have revealed, Nunavut has no official or territorial museum. How could the federal government help to create such a place? How should a museum in Nunavut be tailored to the geographic and cultural aspects of the territory?

[Eva Aariak]

Over the last number of years, the Inuit Heritage Trust has been working with the Qikiqtaaluk Inuit organization, an organization in our jurisdiction. Just recently Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, which is the parent Inuit organization, contributed a bit of money to start this initiative in a more concrete fashion.

We have been talking about the need to have such a centre for many years, but it never really did advance anywhere because there was no money involved in the discussions. However, once you put money in there, there is much more of an initiative.

It's a very small amount from Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, at $5 million, with the Qikiqtani corporation contributing the same amount, so now, we have more of a concrete plan. We are engaging our own government, as well as the Government of Nunavut. It is crucial that all different entities work together and plan together, including our government.

Nunavut heritage centre is part of the land claims agreement to be implemented, so it is very important that serious thought and initiative be put into this. We need the support of our own territorial government, as well as the Government of Canada. In doing that, we need a concerted effort to work together and plan how we can all come to realize this initiative. I think that we are well on the way, but again, we need that commitment from the government to fully implement it.

Thank you.

[Richard Hébert, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

You are facing some particular problems that the heritage organizations in Nunavut are confronted with. Do you believe that new technologies and techniques could help improve the situation? I am specifically thinking about the Internet, the Web.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We'll have to have a quick response, please

[Eva Aariak]

Yes, I mean technology is very important in our territory because we are so remote. But at the same time, we need this hands on capability as well because in reaching out to the smaller communities, we can showcase certain artifacts and whatnot, and technology plays an important role. If we have the bandwidth enough to carry out what needs to be done. In the North, bandwidth is challenging. Therefore I think it is so much more important to really when it comes to heritage aspect of what we are talking about is to have a facility where it will be helping other communities such as travelling exhibitions and so on to have a hands on access to our wonderful heritage and artifacts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

We will now be going to Mr. Van Loan, for seven minutes.

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

Ms. Lord, people all around the world in the museum sector pay a lot of money for your expertise, experience, knowledge, and insights. I want to get as much of that as possible. I'm simply going to ask you to focus on what you think are the challenges for museums in Canada and your suggested recommendations to us to make to the government to help museums in Canada.

[Gail Lord]

Thank you very much for that very kind comment.

I used to say to my late husband that is the town doesn't have a pulp mill, we couldn't work there because we did not start in the big cities. We started it in small communities all across Canada. I'd just like you to know that from a feed point of view, we make ourselves very accessible. I would just like to make that clear.

Now to get to your points. I know that you're sponsoring a repatriation bill. I'd like to say that I think that that's very important.

Pardon?

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

It's not me.

[Gail Lord]

It's not you? Oh. Okay.

I think that bill, whoever is sponsoring it, should be supported. I was misinformed, but that also happens in our country and everywhere else. I think repatriation, to the point that Eva Aariak is making, is really very foundational; and I think repatriation, of course as she's pointing out, does have costs attached because we have to make sure that, when works are repatriated, the proper process is undertaken and the proper facilities exist in the communities. So that's a cornerstone. And it's very interesting, by the way, that even in Europe, the idea of repatriation is gaining ground, although—alas—not for some collections that should be returned to Montreal. But that's maybe another story.

I think the issue is having a robust museum policy where our government actually takes a stand and says that museums are important, that they matter. They've made the statement about many other aspects of Canadian life: the CBC, the Canada Council. A number of other major institutions have received recognition in the last few years, but there hasn't been a museum policy now for many years, and museums have changed. I think that a policy should say that museums are part of Canada's soft power, and Canada is a soft power nation. Museums are fundamental to trade. They are places where international relations are celebrated. Museums are important in education. They're important in areas where federal government doesn't have jurisdiction but where federal government can offer incentives. I think my problem is that our incentives are episodic and they're unrelated.

I think the issue that was just raised around technology is a significant one. Yes, technology is important, but we're also seeing how divisive technology is. Human agency is actually what counts, including if the human agency is, as Eva Aariak has said, to actually study how this garment is made. I can have a close up of what she's wearing, and this dress is absolutely fantastic. If you are interested in design, students in design actually need to handle those older materials, they have to see how they were made, they have to open then up, and they have to look at the seams. It's the same for archival material. People want to learn what their relative did in World War I or World War II. It's one thing to see it online; it's a very different thing to see the actual death record or the actual birth record in its physical reality.

I think having a balanced view of the digital and the physical is really something that human beings need, to learn, and frankly if we don't, it's at our own peril. I don't know if that answers your questions fully, but it's a start.

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

Let's go through some other things. For example, we've heard a lot about the sustainability of museums in the long term and the funding needed for that. There's talk of our national policy that provides for matching funds for endowment contributions for performing arts organizations. Some say that should apply in the museum sector.

Is that the way the government should fund it? Are there other ways the government should be funding museums that are preferable and better? And is government funding really an answer if you're looking at sustainability?

[Gail Lord]

I think government in Canada primes the pump, so government has to offer some funding that will attract the private sector to match those funds. Government funding by itself is not the answer. Endowment is partially an answer, but, again, that money has to be both public and private.

Again, it would start with a policy, government money comes into it, and then the private sector should be encouraged to match it.

Probably the most retrogressive way of funding museums is through admission charges. Canada charges admission to its national museums, if I may say so, whereas neither the United States nor the U.K. does. The French do. I think the whole question of how we charge, and why we charge, and what we charge for needs to be looked at.