Canadian Heritage Committee on March 22nd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

I now call the meeting to order.

I know that everyone is excited to get started with this meeting. I am going to jump in, because we have a lot of people to hear from today.

Welcome, everyone, to the 99th meeting of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage—one away from 100.

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

It doesn't feel like more than 97.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

We're continuing our study on museums today.

I would like to welcome our witnesses.

We have, from the Royal Ontario Museum, Josh Basseches; and from the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums, we have Bruce Bolton, Dennis Moulding, and Anastasia Pivnicki.

Lastly, we have Lydie Olga Ntap, from the Musée de la Femme.

Welcome everyone.

We'll start with presentations. Each witness will have 10 minutes.

First, we'll hear from the Royal Ontario Museum representative.

[Josh Basseches, Director and Chief Executive Officer, Royal Ontario Museum]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning everyone.

Thank you for the invitation to speak with you today. As the chair mentioned, my name is Josh Basseches, and I'm Director and CEO of the Royal Ontario Museum. It truly is an honour to be here with you this morning.

I believe that museums are vital community builders and trusted sources of information. In our complex and media-saturated world, where facts compete with alternative facts for attention, they are more important than ever. Museums were curating our understanding long before Instagram and Facebook. Canadian society is undergoing rapid change. If museums are to remain essential sources of insight, wonder, and knowledge, if they are to be catalysts for our diverse, informed civil society of the future, then they must evolve as well. They must refocus outward toward our communities even more.

I've dedicated my 30-year career to museums. I've worked in such art institutions as Boston's Museum of Fine Arts and the Peabody Essex Museum, the oldest museum in North America, and in such science institutions as the Harvard Museum of Natural History. For the past two very exciting years, I've had the privilege to be at the ROM. Armed with graduate degrees in both art history and business administration, I look at museums from a vantage point that integrates the content of what we do with management and financial awareness.

Museums steward our past, interpret our present, and help shape our future. They have a vital impact on people's lives. In fact, overall annual attendance at museums typically exceeds that of all professional sporting events combined. Museums are change agents and springboards to happier, healthier lives and stronger communities. They have great potential to help transform society in the 21st century.

Let me share some of the approaches we're using at the ROM as an example of one institution's efforts to navigate our rapidly changing times. The ROM, as you may know, is our country's largest and most comprehensive museum of art, culture, and nature. One of the top 10 museums in North America by many metrics, it is among the most internationally respected encyclopedic institutions. We are also proud to be a recognized leader in research, learning, community outreach, and accessibility.

Just a few numbers tell a compelling story about the ROM in recent years. In 2017 almost 1.4 million people visited the ROM, a 49% increase over just three years ago, which is the highest annual single museum attendance in Canada. Our membership has also grown by almost 30% and now includes 117,000 members. More than 300,000 children annually attend our programs, which foster a lifelong passion for learning. I should mention a couple; I was told by committee members just recently that their children were there.

Our experts currently undertake research in 32 countries around the globe. Perhaps most importantly, in partnership with 75 community organizations, we annually provide over 100,000 free ROM passes and extensive programming to vulnerable populations, ranging from indigenous youth to new Canadians from Syria.

Museums promote scholarship, innovation, and knowledge locally, nationally, and internationally. Museums also enable Canada to tell its story globally, enhancing knowledge and cultural diplomacy. For instance, building on our century-long relationship with China, ROM exhibitions were seen last year by more than one million people in three Chinese museums. The ROM is also honoured to be part of Minister Joly's creative industries trade mission to China next month.

Given the evolving community demographics and expectations of our audiences, museums must become even more responsive to the public, more inclusive and democratic, more engaging and relevant. A recent Culture Track study asked 4,000 people what culture means to them. The findings were unexpected, and suggest a changing view of why people attend cultural activities. The study showed that people want culture for four top reasons: to broaden their perspectives, build community, provide educational experiences, and foster empathy. That's quite different from what the same study found only 10 years ago. Simply providing intellectual, aesthetic, and historical experiences is no longer enough.

Consider these words: perspectives, community, empathy. They focus on engaging the heart as well as the mind. They necessitate presenting users with material and topics that feel relevant to their daily lives and concerns.

Towards this new paradigm, the ROM and many of our most innovative peers are changing the way our institutions look, feel, and interact with the public. We're leveraging the strengths and excellence of our collections, research, exhibitions, and facilities to engage with and stay relevant to our diverse public; to open our doors even wider, both figuratively and literally; and to become a critical gathering place for community activity.

The ROM's strategic vision is to be a hub of civic engagement, to present multiple voices and diverse perspectives, to embrace innovation and change, to infuse digital thinking across all levels, and to engage the public in dynamic ways that they find meaningful. This vision is the foundation of our evolution into a truly 21st-century museum, one that is at the heart of our community and is vibrant, inclusive, and participatory.

To survive and thrive, I believe every museum, whatever its size and location, will need to embrace the changing landscape of cultural consumption. There is no substitute for authentic objects and for experiences that are etched into people's hearts and minds. However, institutions must continue to find relevance in a tech-obsessed, digitally-disrupted environment.

The predictable response about how to best foster a thriving Canadian museum ecosystem is simple: just increase annual operating support for museums. However, I suspect that this is not sufficient for this committee's current purposes, nor does it offer any new or creative thinking.

I do believe there are opportunities to leverage comparatively small financial investments for big impacts, impacts that will help our museum sector. Here are a few ideas for your consideration, and I'd certainly be happy to discuss them either in the question period or at some other occasion.

First, expand the endowment-matching program of the Canada cultural investment fund to include museums, since it currently principally covers performing arts organizations. Donors are attracted to matching gift opportunities and will often give, or give more, if their gifts will be matched. Endowments—for everything from positions to operations—provide institutions with financial support in perpetuity. Extending this program to museums would leverage finite public funds to maximize private support. These endowment funds would also secure the financial future of museums, assisting them in weathering changing economic times.

Second, create a program to fund technical assistance for the museum field. Many museums need to rethink their positioning to succeed in the current environment that I've been describing. They need to develop a new business plan, consider merging with another institution, test the feasibility of an innovative program or a facility renovation. Creating a competitive program where museums can seek smaller targeted support for this kind of technical assistance has proven in other places to be an efficient way to leverage modest resources for outsized impact.

Third, create a talent mentoring program for the museum sector. Right now, the talent pipeline for key leadership and curatorial jobs in Canadian museums is not robust. Large museums often look abroad for talent, and emerging professionals regularly head to American and European institutions to develop their skills. Creating new programs and scaling up existing ones that encourage seasoned museum leaders to mentor emerging professionals would enhance strong domestic museum leadership capacity for the future.

Museums play a unique role in fostering engaged citizens. In a flourishing pluralistic society, people need to know their past, ask critical questions, take thoughtful action in the present, and build for the future. In a thriving democracy, we need more and varied voices, not fewer. Our cultural institutions ensure that lesser-known stories and marginalized perspectives are heard. This creates understanding and empathy for our fellow citizens. Museums can help us be our best selves—today and for tomorrow.

I thank you, the committee, for the opportunity to speak with you this morning. Your work will help to define the vision and vital role that museums and other cultural institutions will play in assisting all of us to learn, participate, and understand ourselves and our world.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you very much for that. We now have three witnesses from the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums.

You have 10 minutes between the three of you.

[Bruce Bolton, President, Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums]

It's simple; I'm talking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Perfect. We look forward to hearing from you, Mr. Bolton.

[Bruce Bolton]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning everyone.

We thank the committee for inviting the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums to appear as witnesses for this important study the government is undertaking.

With me today are Dennis Moulding, a long-time supporter of the organization and a former museum director—

[Dennis Moulding, Former Director, Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums]

I was a senior manager.

[Bruce Bolton]

—senior manager, and Anastasia Pivnicki, from our summer youth employment program, under the graduate program. Without people like Dennis and Anastasia, we wouldn't exist.

It was Canada's first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, who said that Canada was a country that suffered from too much geography and not enough history. However, as Canada celebrates its 150 anniversary, Sir John would have been pleasantly surprised to note there are now more than 2,600 accredited museums, public art galleries, and related heritage institutions that are preserving and promoting our Canadian heritage in various ways. Museums employ more than 28,000 people, made up of part-time and full-time employees. However, over 106,000 volunteers far outnumber the paid employees and contribute over 5.6 million hours per year across the country to help heritage institutions, museums, and art galleries to meet their mandate.

While the Canadian Museums Association represents the interests of most of the accredited museums and heritage institutions in Canada, the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums, the CFFM, was created in 1977 to be the national voice of the thousands of these selfless individuals who so willingly give their time to the majority of the same museums and heritage institutions that have to rely on them for their existence, in particular the small local and community museums.

Many of the museums and heritage institutions have organized their volunteers and associations of friends as legal entities, registered as non-profit corporations that can issue tax receipts for donations, both monetary and in kind. This applies to large museums as well as to the smaller institutions. The CFFM considers all those individuals who volunteer their time, such as trustees and donors, and not only front-line volunteers, to be friends of museums. In the last few years, the CFFM has noted an increase in retired professionals, such as doctors and lawyers and trained museum specialists, volunteering in both large and smaller museums. Dennis worked in a museum. I worked in a museum for 40-some-odd years. This is due to the so-called baby boomers reaching the age of retirement and wanting to give back to their communities.

We understand that the standing committee is particularly interested in reviewing the state of local and municipal museums, and the CFFM welcomes this focus. While the larger federal and provincial museums have their own issues with inadequate resources, it is the smaller museums that are in desperate need of help. An analysis of the data contained in the “Government of Canada Survey of Heritage Institutions: 2015” reveals that about 42% of heritage institutions that are archives, art galleries, and museums have an operating budget of less than $40,000, and that slightly larger institutions, about 19%, have an operating budget of between $40,000 and $99,000. Thus, over half of heritage institutions in Canada must get by with less than $100,000 per year, which means the collections are generally poorly stored and maintained, exhibitions are not very sophisticated, and professional staff cannot be hired, which of course increases the reliance on volunteers.

The number of these smaller museums and heritage institutions known for their importance is not well understood or appreciated. There is some anecdotal appreciation of the cultural importance of preserving local history, of them being invaluable resources for local schools, of them being gathering places for communities, of them reconnecting and remembering places for an aging population, and for offering opportunities to newcomers and immigrants to learn about the history and culture of their new home; however, there has been no definitive or in-depth study to determine and to articulate the real economic and social impact of this vital sector.

We like to refer to our museum volunteers as “unsung heros”, and the CFFM, together with the CMA, has a modest program to recognize a volunteer each year from a slate of nominees submitted by the host institutions, the Museum Volunteer Award. Two years ago our winner was Doreen Romanow, from the Manitoba Museum, with 45 years of volunteer service at the museum, and it's estimated that she taught and worked with 60,000 students.

The CFFM welcomes a recent initiative by the Governor General and the Chancellery of Honours to recognize volunteers by awarding those chosen with the Sovereign's Medal for Volunteers. The CFFM collaborates with the CMA to identify and nominate museum volunteers for this medal.

Finally, at the international level, the Canadian federation is an active member of the World Federation of Friends of Museums, where it is a member of its council. Reciprocal support between the Canadian and world federations has been strong, with a prominent Canadian, the late Edmund Bovey, being elected president of the world federation in 1984; and the CFFM hosted the WFFM congress in Toronto in 1987. The world federation membership consists of national federations of friends from many countries around the world. As president of the Canadian federation, I will be attending the world federation congress in Madeira in May, and we're hoping to have the council meeting in Montreal next May.

We have some recommendations. Given the close relationship between the CFFM and the Canadian Museums Association and the fact that we represent the same community of museums and heritage institutions, the CFFM is pleased to endorse a number of recommendations submitted by the CMA. In addition, the CFFM recommends the following.

We recommend that the committee undertake a more in-depth and complete study of Canada's museums sector than what is already proposed. We believe there has to be recognition of the economic benefits of museums and heritage institutions, and we call upon the federal government to increase its financial support to museums, especially local and municipal institutions, through its museums assistance program.

I'm just going to insert something here for a moment. Imagine this scenario. In a small museum, a volunteer curator has to put together a grant application for the museums assistance program. I used to do that in the 1970s when it was first introduced. The volunteer has an eight-page Excel spreadsheet to fill in that looks like a small corporation, and then will have to wait for eight to 10 months to get an answer. I think something has to be done there.

Most volunteers in museums are self-trained, with minimal support from paid employees who are busy with their respective duties. The CFFM recommends that funds be made available to provincial museum associations to develop training programs for volunteers, and also recommends the production of training materials at the national level that could be shared across Canada.

The CFFM is very interested in encouraging young people to become involved with heritage institutions. It strongly supports the young Canada works program and urges the government to increase its funding. Small museums depend on whatever summer staff they can afford, and in this regard we recommend that a means test be applied so that some of the smaller museums can receive 100% of financing as opposed to the current 75%.

We recommend that the expertise of the Canadian Conservation Institute be better shared, with more training seminars, more webinars, and more in-depth training sessions, not only at its headquarters in Ottawa but also at locales across Canada, in particular as it applies to the maintenance of artifacts in storage and on display and the identification of risks to museum objects. Many of these tasks are performed by volunteers in local and municipal institutions, with little or no training.

We support the recommendation that the museum insurance and indemnification program be reviewed and expanded to provide immunity for certain types of civil liabilities for those who serve on non-profit boards of directors, as well as to protect volunteers from personal liabilities.

We support the proposal to establish a new council of museums and indigenous people to undertake a two-year review of the status of the various recommendations resulting from a task force struck in 1992 under the title Task Force on Museums and First Peoples. The CFFM is particularly interested in recruiting indigenous youth to participate as volunteers in their local museums.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

I'm just going to let you know you're at 10 minutes, so please wrap it up.

[Bruce Bolton]

I have one paragraph left.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

That's great.

[Bruce Bolton]

Similarly, a task force was created in 1990 to examine the development and care of various military history collections in Canada. The terms of reference of the task force were expanded, with the consent of DND, to study the facilities, needs, and other requirements of the Canadian Forces museum system. While the care and maintenance of priceless military artifacts in regimental museums improved because of the recommendations in the task force report, much remains to be done. Thus, the CFFM recommends that the museum study currently under way also include military museums managed by DND.

In conclusion, we thank the committee again for inviting the Canadian Federation of Friends of Museums to attend the hearing, and we sincerely wish you the very best in this important undertaking.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you very much.

We will now go to Lydie Olga Ntap, from the Musée de la Femme.

You have 10 minutes.

[Lydie Olga Ntap, Founder, Musée de la Femme]

Great. Thank you.

On behalf of the museum's board, team of volunteers, and myself, I'd like to thank the committee for inviting us to be here today and giving us the opportunity to contribute to your study on the state of Canadian museums.

In our brief, we focused on the relationship between museums and the government and, of course, the responsibility of the government to ensure museums have a guaranteed minimum revenue, this being vital to their survival. As you can tell, this relationship between museums and the government attests to the public responsibility for museums and the role they play. Funding is of paramount concern, because, in order to fulfill their mission and promote their relevance, museums need grants, sponsorship, merchandise, and admission revenue.

The federal government has made significant investments in national museums, but at the expense of the country's other museums, which have had to make do with little to no funding.

Women's museums emerged during the height of the feminist movement, in the 1970s. They tell the story of women against the male-centric or gender-neutral backdrop of history. The first museum of its kind, the Frauenmuseum, the women's museum in Bonn, was created in 1981.

The International Association of Women's Museums, of which I am vice-president, was founded in 2008 in Merano, Italy, and brings together some 80 women's museums around the world.

Women's museums are mirrors of social transformation, showcasing female emancipation models and combatting stereotypes by shining a spotlight on women and their achievements. Spread across four continents, women's museums focus on a variety of themes but have a common mission: telling the stories of women.

Our museum is located in Longueuil. It is Canada's first women's museum. We opened our doors in 2008. We have a permanent exhibit that showcases 400 years of women's history. The exhibit helps visitors discover the relationship between women and history, as we endeavour to reclaim women's stories and achieve historical balance. It exposes an often overlooked part of history: the women who built Quebec and Canada, the silent, ordinary women who are all extraordinary in their own way. I am talking about grandmothers, mothers, wives, daughters—all of us women.

I would like to point out that, during its 10-year existence, our women's museum, the first of its kind in the country, has never received any federal funding, be it for operating costs or status of women projects. That is inconceivable for Canada's women, their heritage, their history, and their stories. The Government of Canada has a special duty towards the women of this country.

What makes us different is our curatorial approach. Like that of other women's museums, our strategy is built on an avant-guard, or experimental, approach to museology. This approach is in step with the dematerialization of male and female heritage, respectively, cultural tourism, and sustainable development. The approach now also takes into account the important issue of human rights and people's advancement towards social change.

This new approach has set the stage for the emergence of institutions such as our women's museum and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, as well as the Empathy Museum, in London, and the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, in Chile. These are structurally meaningful museum institutions that have shifted the perspective from “us” to “I” in order to promote empowerment, awareness, and action.

I will now turn to the issue of funding.

As you endeavour to make constructive recommendations that will benefit Canadians, I encourage all of you to visit the women's museum, as well as all the small and medium-sized community-based museums that find dynamic ways to carry out their mission.

The women's museum runs on donations, the support of dedicated volunteers, and private partnerships. We do not receive any government funding whatsoever.

As the museum's founder, I give of my time, money, and expertise. I am also a museologist. I do this for free for the greater good. It is simply unacceptable that the Canadian government, and all other levels of government, have provided no support, neglecting us completely.

The only member of Parliament who has visited the museum is NDP member Pierre Nantel. In fact, I didn't realize he was going to be here today. What a nice surprise. Back on March 19, 2010, former Bloc Québécois MP Jean Dorion, who represented the riding of Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, rose in the House of Commons to describe the grassroots efforts of our women's museum. We received an ovation for our work, but no money came with all of that enthusiasm. It is now 2018, and the government has to take action.

Changing economic, political, and social conditions mean that museum personnel need special training. They need to be well-skilled in management in order to cope with the lack of funding, seek out partnerships and philanthropists, promote social inclusion, and reach out to a broader clientele in order to attract more visitors. The effort to expand their clientele base is also clear in the programming various museums offer. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts recently developed programs focused on well-being and mental health, for instance. The women's museum focuses on promoting the status of women. That work requires funding contributions from a number of departments: Canadian Heritage, Health Canada, Public Safety Canada, and Status of Women Canada. Clearly, institutions like ours may require the support of several organizations.

As for training, it is no secret that the curator's role has become complex, involving much more than collection recovery, preservation, and restoration. The new fundraising reality calls for new skills. We have become entrepreneurs, marketing experts, community managers, public relations officers, and beggars—yes, museums have beggars as well. What about scientific research, professional development, and activities for target populations?

Museology students from the Université du Québec à Montréal and the Université de Montréal, and their work around our curatorial approach, have helped shape the museum's position, perspective, exhibits, impact, and outreach.

The Université de Montréal recently created a research chair position, held by Yves Bergeron, in order to examine museums through the lens of museology, management, and the law. Museums must therefore cope with realities that have nothing to do with their primary role, as defined by the International Council of Museums. Control over their image and the whole issue of financial administration are at play.

These factors cannot be addressed without regard for major societal changes involving economic gender disparity, social inclusion policies, and cultural diversity. Museum governance takes all of this into account.

Turning now to our volunteers, I will say that their support is essential. They play a significant role in what we do. To help keep the museum running, we turn to volunteer centres—such as the Centre de bénévolat de la Rive-Sud—and social media to find volunteers. They are an important resource, but managing volunteers takes time. On top of our already enormous workload, we have to spend time training them.

How do we have an impact, add value, as well as acquire and secure collections that are in the public interest? How do we ensure our volunteers—most of whom are retired—have a constructive and positive experience?

The government must consider how it can provide help and support. What criteria are used to grant funding to museums? What vision of society do certain museums promote? What cultural, social, educational, and historical contribution do they make? Do they put forward an outdated perspective? What counts as an outdated perspective? It's important to think about that. Some museums, regional and others, have, for years, received recurring funding, and yet, no one has ever questioned whether their perspective or contribution is in line with today's reality. The time has come to examine a number of things.

I will now share with you our recommendations.

The first is this. In recognition of the fact that today's visitors demand more and more from their museum experience and that museums must operate in a new climate dominated by the Internet and the virtual world, the committee should clearly define the criteria that determine whether a museum is eligible for funding. It is time to rethink the whole notion of museums as eternal institutions that go on forever. We must not be afraid to go there.

Small and medium-sized museums are the big losers in the current museum universe. Even though we lack their infrastructure and human resources, we still have the same management goal: balancing our budget. When all is said and done, we have to provide a service, secure collections, raise the museum's profile, and put on exhibits.

For example, at the women's museum, our exhibit budget is $4,000, and we have now put on 27 exhibits. We can make that happen with just $4,000 because we recycle everything possible and ask the major museums for help with furniture and museum support. I, myself, am in charge of research and graphic design. Four or five of us, together, provide the communications function for free, working on such things as press releases. By harnessing all of our energy, we manage to save the museum about $45,000 per exhibit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

I'd just like to let you know that your 10 minutes are just about up.

[Lydie Olga Ntap]

Okay.

I was going to touch on the crucial role that the Société des musées du Québec and the Canadian Museums Association play. Suffice it to say, the support is great on that end.

I'll move on to our second recommendation.

It is recommended that the government set up—yet another—organization, one that would have a mandate to support museums and include members of the public. To do this, the organization would identify what the needs of target populations were, as well as recommend which museums should be given funding and how. Such a body would open the door to more insightful thinking by a broader stakeholder community, no longer limited to a select few government employees and museum experts.

The mandate of museums is to serve the public. It is to preserve the collective heritage of our communities, and yet they don't figure anywhere in the process. Nevertheless, it is often the volunteers or friends of the museum who provide that service. Knowing what they want and need matters a lot.

I will stop there. You can find more detailed information in our brief.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Julie Dabrusin]

Thank you.

We have some time for questions, so you may have a chance to tell us more in your answers.

We are going to start with Ms. Dzerowicz for seven minutes of questions and answers.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your presentations.

They were excellent. There are so many questions for three completely different organizations.

I'm going to start with the Royal Ontario Museum. I'm familiar with it. I grew up maybe about a 20-minute walk from the museum, and I know the before and the after. I used to visit the planetarium all the time, and I know it's gone. That's kind of what I associate the ROM with.

One of the things we have heard quite a bit about is the fact that a number of leaders in our bigger organizations, the bigger museums, across Canada are international, so I find your recommendation for creating a talent mentoring program for the museum sector very interesting. I would love it if you talked a bit more about why we don't have a talent pipeline, and maybe be a little more specific about what you think we can do at the federal level to help support that, because I do think it's important.

[Josh Basseches]

I know there's certainly something a little ironic perhaps in someone who is, in fact, not Canadian by birth representing that point of view, but I'm very glad to be here in Canada, very glad to be at the ROM. I have noticed, as I talk with colleagues, the fact that many of the senior managers in museums, particularly larger museums, are not necessarily from Canada.

I believe that is also because there's a bit of a leap between the fair number of small to mid-sized institutions to many of the largest institutions in the country. There isn't the same way for people to make their way up a kind of a chain of leadership to develop the skills that might be necessary in the more complex, largest institutions.

I think what I've seen elsewhere and basically have in mind is the need for a perception of—not discouraging, by the way, international talent from coming to Canada, because I think that infuses different insights into the Canadian museums sector—of how we can build mentorship programs and consider what the role of the federal government is in supporting endeavours to increase these mentorship programs? By that I mean—just very quickly—where someone in a senior role could be partnered with someone who represents emerging talent in a different level of institution, scale, or size, and if that could be encouraged both by the federal government as a conceptual advantage and something to be supported.... Also what I've seen in these programs is that there often needs to be a small amount of money to set up that program and then to continue to encourage the interaction and to pay things like travel if there's some distance between us.

There are a variety of steps. I think it's partly conceptual and partly about providing some small financial support to make that happen.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Do any museums in Canada that you know of—either large, small, or medium-sized—form any relationships with local universities or colleges to help maybe build some of those programs into some of their local programs?

[Josh Basseches]

Without question. We, for instance, are very closely tied to the University of Toronto and have collaborations with other schools in the area. One of the University of Toronto's programs is a museum management and museum administration program. I think that's a little bit different. I'm proposing something that's sort of peer to peer at different levels, with someone being in a mentoring role as opposed to formal training programs at universities. They are both valuable, by the way.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

The ROM benefits quite a bit from tourism. What more can we do at the national level to promote tourism that would benefit not only the ROM, but maybe also some of the other medium-sized museums that might be in Toronto?

[Josh Basseches]

There is no question that tourism is critical to most museum institutions. About 30% of our attendees are tourists, either Canadian or international, mostly international.

In terms of support for that, I think of the work that is already being done to encourage local chambers of commerce and other groups, such as those in Toronto working internationally, to bring people who are in foreign affairs roles or who are involved in the tourist industry to Ottawa or other cities. All of that supports recognition of these wonderful institutions.

Furthermore, I would say that another piece to bringing people in is projecting the Canadian story outward and finding ways to support programming, exhibition travel, and exchange of expertise, so that someone who is thinking about coming here from Europe or from South America will perhaps have encountered a Canadian exhibition, program, or activity. That would have the same impact.