Canadian Heritage Committee on March 22nd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Julie, you have two minutes.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I'm going to move on to our next group.

How can we at the federal level help to acknowledge, encourage, and support the important work of museum volunteers in this country? I ask because there are a lot of them and we hear a lot about how volunteers are very much the heart and soul of museums whether large, small, or medium-sized. What can we do at the national level to be supportive of that?

[Dennis Moulding]

One of the most critical pieces is that we are still struggling with the idea of exactly what our impact is so we can really make the case.

Just to pick up where you left off, when I was with the National Gallery, we were getting short shrift from the Ottawa community at the time of the major Renoir exhibition. We did a study and found that we had injected into or had had an approximately $34 million impact on the community. To support your point, it wasn't just that we benefited from tourism; we made tourism, we had an economic impact. That's for a big institution.

For the smaller institutions, we know anecdotally about the impact they have on their communities from all the things we've said, but there is no definitive study, report, or exploration of that with some rigour and some vigour that would bolster the case.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Okay, great.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

That is the end of your time, so thank you very much.

We will now go to Mr. Van Loan for seven minutes.

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

Thank you. I thought those were great presentations, with a bunch of good, focused recommendations, which the committee will appreciate.

In my travels, I've encountered many museums, some of which are entirely volunteer-run, and some of whom their paid staff is a summer student, and an even larger number that at the management level are entirely volunteer and maybe pay a few people to man them.

One of the things I've heard from those people about the museums assistance program is that it's not just difficult to apply to, but that they aren't allowed to apply to it because they don't satisfy the qualification for a full-time curator, which seems to be a condition.

Is that, in fact, the case, and is it something that should be changed?

[Bruce Bolton]

My understanding is that you could still apply, but I think it's the kind of organogram now where really it's the professionals who makes the difference. When I was mentioning earlier the eight-page Excel spreadsheet, for a small museum to do that is next to impossible.

When I started in the museum world in the 1970s, the museums assistance program began then. In the 1970s it was simple, easy to get to, and it was certainly open to every museum in the country. We got our answers within two or three months. It made a huge difference and actually encouraged all the museums at the time.

The impression I get now is that a lot of the museums just don't bother applying because it's turned into a bureaucratic nightmare, and this is the same for all of the museums. You have medium-sized museums that employ people to do grant applications because they have become so sophisticated now.

I think every effort should be made to get the museums assistance program to encourage small museums. For example, one of my things I've been discussing for years is project management. You can only have a project when you apply to MAP. You can't put in underlying factors. I would like to see the program add, say, something like 10% to every grant that is approved, and it's strictly for underlying factors—the furnace, the electricity—just to help the museum get through the basics as well as the actual project.

Yes, every museum in the country should be eligible for the MAP program.

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

What is the number of volunteers in the country and what proportion of the labour that museums get is volunteer, as far as you can tell?

[Bruce Bolton]

That varies.

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

I'm just saying to take the country as a whole.

[Bruce Bolton]

If we take the country as a whole, our figures here show that there are 106,000 volunteers. However, when you consider the number of friends of museums—the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has 100,000 friends.

Do you have any idea how many—

[Josh Basseches]

It's 117,000.

[Bruce Bolton]

You see that the numbers change radically with the big museums and at the smaller museums, something like the Château Ramezay, which has an annual budget of $600,000, has 70 to 100 volunteers.

One of the points that we made in the presentation is that we just don't know. The study that should be undertaken vis-à-vis the survey of Canadian museums has to include all of these different factors. Yes, there's a financial factor, but there's also the social factor and I think that's very important.

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

In Canada, I think we see this voluntary sector on the fundraising, finance, and contributions side. What you see strongly in the United States is that the volunteers who are front of shop, if you will, are called “docents” and are treated like the learned people they are. You really recognize and know they are there. They're a very visible and well-known presence. I don't see the same thing in Canada.

Do we have the same number of front-of-shop volunteers? I know that when I talk to the folks in Atlantic Canada and I ask about volunteers, a lot of them tell me that they actually can't put volunteers front of shop because it creates the perception that we're taking away somebody's job. I've been told this by several museums and museums associations in Atlantic Canada.

[Bruce Bolton]

I would say that's unusual. From what I can see, there are many museums, especially the smaller museums, that have the volunteers up front. There's an emotion with a volunteer that you don't necessarily get with—

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

I've discovered it, but you have to ask about three questions before you will find out they're a volunteer.

[Bruce Bolton]

Exactly. Some of them are very—

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

In the States, you have a way of recognizing them and really showcasing them.

[Bruce Bolton]

We hope to do that through these two programs, our volunteer recognition program and the sovereign's medal program. Of course, in the sovereign's medal program, the museum sector is a very small part of it, but we are very active.

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

Do you want to say anything Martin or Jim?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

How much time do you have?

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

I have a minute and a half.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I know when we started this study—

[Lydie Olga Ntap]

I'd like to answer the previous question, if I may.

Volunteers in small and medium-sized museums are on the front lines, but we need to have the resources to look after them. At the women's museum, we organize a dinner every month. Everyone attends, and we all chat. We are trying to foster a positive workplace culture. However, when everyone is exhausted and overworked because of a lack of resources, we obviously cannot look after them the way we would like.

We can give them T-shirts and training here and there. That is all well and good, but if we don't have the basic tools we need, there is absolutely nothing we can do. We can host dinners and other events of the sort, but we can't do anything to publicly recognize their contribution, much to our dismay.

For instance, a local representative will soon be honouring one of the volunteers. As wonderful as that is, we can't invite everyone to a reception afterwards. We can't put together a press release to let people know that the person is being honoured or give the volunteer some public recognition, because it takes too much time. We wish we could, but we simply don't have the resources.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

That's all the time we have for this round.

Mr. Nantel, you may go ahead for seven minutes.