Canadian Heritage Committee on March 1st, 2018

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Oh, okay. Well, maybe the last question's to Ms. Collison. I would love to come to your museum at some point in time. You make it sound so wonderful. Other than government funding, how else can the federal government help you? Is what you're looking for from us is just government funding? How else can we be very helpful to you?

[Nika Collison]

I'll touch on government funding briefly, which is that, in particular, Canadian Heritage has been incredibly supportive. That being said, in the granting realm it's often highly prescriptive outside of Canadian Heritage, and sometimes within, and doesn't allow for operational funding or positions. What it does, it creates projects that burden us with additional work.

One of our biggest things, of course, is in the decolonization and indigenization of this country, if Canadian Heritage could do a country-wide tour into indigenous communities, with the understanding of the need for time, patience, and a building of trust, I think you would gain an incredible insight into the variety of nations and different needs. We need to create more equity, easier access, and more respect for indigenous scholarship. We need to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

I'm going to cut you there, unfortunately, because we're well over our seven minutes. Maybe someone will pick up on that.

The next person we will be going to is MP Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to thank the committee. I'm a guest of the committee today, but what a fascinating topic. I'm not going to lie to you: 10 or 12 years ago, if you talked about museums, I would have yawned. As I get older, and as I've lost my parents and grandparents, I start to recognize how important museums are, and how important some of our local museums are to me.

Ms. Collison, you said you've been with your group for 18 years. What things in the past have governments done right? If you repeated that, it would really help us. Is there anything we can learn, where you could say that this worked? Instead of reinventing the wheel, and always trying to do something new and different, and as you said, creating new burdens, could you identify something that worked really well but ended for some reason, and if you brought that back it would really help?

[Nika Collison]

We've been supported by the Canadian government, but there needs to be, on a higher level as well, a real drive toward what I spoke about earlier, the supporting of an equity-based museum world and Canada.

You provided some significant funding over the years, and have come to visit us, which means a great deal to us. There has been—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Are there any specific programs? Is there anything that you could identify and say that type of program was really good?

[Nika Collison]

The museums assistance program has been very important to us, as well as cultural spaces. That's been some of the biggest support we've had. It has allowed for some of our biggest and most successful exhibitions and publications, which have been literally reaching around the globe.

Other support from government has allowed the creation of the Haida Gwaii Museum originally, as well as the expansion into the Haida Heritage Centre. The participation in the museum's task force report of 1992 and the recommendations that came out of it were pivotal in supporting mainstream museums, and beginning to work with indigenous nations and cultural centres.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

So we should go back and look at that report, then.

[Nika Collison]

You should look at that report.

I'm part of the Canadian Museums Association Council of Museums and Indigenous Peoples, which is a follow-up from the museum's task force report. It is looking at the past 20 years and where we are today with museums in regard to the indigenous component and our working together with Canada. We're looking at what we are lacking in as a society and for museums. We're looking at the equity, etc., and the need for repatriation, which is hugely healing not only to our nation, but to working with other nation state museums. That really trickles down into society, it's one of the greatest forums.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mrs. Levy, I'll ask you the same question. In your experience have you found programs and just said, this really works well, why don't you continue doing this?

Then also, what programs have you looked at and said, this is absolutely stupid, why are we doing it this way?

Do you have any advice in that context?

[Shauna Levy]

Are you referring to the Ministry of Heritage programs in particular?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Any type of program that you say “hey, this was really good, let's keep doing it”.

[Shauna Levy]

Yes.

When we first started in this new strategic direction, as I mentioned, we focused on bringing in exhibition and program designers who had that ability to reach that broader audience. We were able to secure record sponsorship, record support, attendance.

The challenge though is that as a small institution without a benefactor, there's no net. Even if you are bringing in significant dollars, and EDIT is a perfect example of that, if there's a loss there's nothing to save you. I come from the private sector, and I organized trade shows and consumer events for most of my life. If one show doesn't do that well it's okay, because you're leaning on the others and you're compensating and balancing it out. As a small institution there's nothing, there's no net. You're driving into a deficit situation.

A project like EDIT has proven to be a very successful model. But it also means that we need to dip into other funds to help support it, which we just don't have.

I would say that these projects that are meaningful, authentic, that relate to a broad audience, that are accessible, those all work really well, but we're not in the private sector where we have a widget to sell and we can just keep producing more widgets. We need some support to enable that kind of programming.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Any programs that you would say, “hey, don't ever do that again, that was stupid”.

[Shauna Levy]

I never say that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I thought there would be a list actually. It is government, so....

[Shauna Levy]

I would just say, as I said earlier, the programs of the Ministry of Canadian Heritage really don't apply to us. We sit and we read them and we're trying to fit round holes onto square pegs. We spend all this time trying to figure out the angle to take, and then all of a sudden you're delivering a project that has nothing to do with who you are because you're trying to fit it into the right pocket.

It's difficult for me to answer that question because it just doesn't appeal.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

You said that you had square holes and round pegs, so in your scenario how would you like the bureaucrats to work with you? How do you create a program when you have a government that's used to having square holes and square pegs and round holes and round pegs?

How do you give them that flexibility without creating all sorts of other problems?

[Shauna Levy]

Minister Joly has come out and said that design will be included in the definition of creative industry. We're anxiously awaiting to understand what that means and if it will have an impact on the existing programs.

I also talked about flexibility in programming, that from my perspective—and maybe Gail talked about this—the definition of museum is changing, much like the definition of a library. Earlier on someone was talking about it being a place for community, and that's certainly what it is. It's a place for growth, education, and all the other things that are happening now in museums that didn't happen before. Funding should be flexible to allow for that kind of project.

Again, I bring back EDIT. It brought in 35,000 people who didn't know anything about design—nothing. They walked out inspired, wanting to change the world and have a positive impact on the world, because of design and this experience. It was entertainment, it was fun, it was interactive, but they were leaving with very important messages.

We need more flexibility in granting, and then again an inter-ministerial approach.... Design continuously falls through the cracks. It's not considered innovation, which I think it is, and it's not considered culture and heritage, which I consider it is. It needs some inter-ministerial thinking around it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

You're out of time.

[Shauna Levy]

I'm sorry. I talk too much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Mr. Nantel, you have seven minutes.

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

You are certainly not speaking too much, Ms. Levy. On the contrary, your situation is very interesting. I thank the Chair for being in your organization's photos. I don't know if it was you who insisted that we receive them.

Your museum reaches out to a different type of community. You excel in mediation and in getting people to know your museum's theme, as well as creating interest among young people. That is very appropriate.

Your museum is located in a very large community, but your theme remains about the interest of the community for things that are modern and new, as well as those which fill young people with enthusiasm. It's another kind of museum. We can learn a lot from you have to say.

I hope that your initiatives will be cited often, because most other museums face precisely the opposite challenge. Let's say that there is a fishing museum somewhere. The theme of the museum will be eligible, and the museum will certainly receive funding. The issue is getting people to visit it. On the other hand, your museum draws in people without having a theme that would make it eligible for funding.

[Shauna Levy]

Yes, that is absolutely correct. I like to say that in a way we're a museum of the future because we are talking about issues that relate to the future with, of course, a nod to the past and how that impacts us.

I will add that the highest number of people who came to EDIT were in the millennial demographic, the 25-to-34 age group. The second highest was the group immediately above and below it. It was huge. The fact that we were able to speak their language I think is really key. I think as a cultural industry we all struggle to figure out how to communicate with them. I think we've succeeded in that.

Yes. I think we're speaking the right language. We just need that additional support to help us speak a little louder.

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

My next question is for Ms. Collison, because, if I'm not mistaken, the Haida community has probably the best-known art that we know from first nations. I think it's probably the most iconic and recognizable art.

In terms of mediation, to get back to Ms. Dzerowicz's question about your being so far, what can be done? I know that in the Canada 150 celebrations.... I was looking for the special word...sesquicentennial.