Evidence of meeting #14 for Canadian Heritage in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pieces.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ms. Gideon, I asked you two questions earlier to which I did not get answers.
Is there a plan to compensate the artists who have been hurt in this tale?
November 19th, 2025 / 5:10 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
At the moment, as I said, we have not documented the disposal of any artworks. We are not at the stage of having those conversations with the artists.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
On that point, have there been conversations with the indigenous communities?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
No one has had a conversation directly with me, no. The people in the indigenous communities have not asked us about it at all. No one has communicated with me to get more details about this.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
The audit talks about the recommendations that were made and it says they have not been entirely implemented, so I have questions about this. The report also says: “The audit also observed unclear roles and responsibilities related to follow-up actions to take in the event of unaccounted for art pieces.” I will skip the rest of the paragraph, which you will be familiar with.
Why have the recommendations in what was actually a rather harsh audit not yet been put in place, when you have had this report in hand since November 16, 2024? This situation has been known for longer than that, from what we know.
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
As I said earlier, we have a draft document. We first have to ensure that we get feedback from all sectors. Everything is then essentially subject to my approval and the approval of the senior management committee.
It's not that the measures have not been implemented; it's that the policy is still being written.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
How many other artworks can disappear like this? After realizing that some artworks had disappeared, did you continue to acquire indigenous artworks? Have you made any other acquisitions?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
Since the audit last year we have not made any other acquisitions.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
How long have you known that there were works that had disappeared?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
We realized this early in the transition, just before the pandemic. I don't remember the precise year. We had asked that the Canadian Conservation Institute, which is associated with the Department of Canadian Heritage, as you probably know, review the space dedicated to the collections in 2013. That was when we started to discover that there were too many risks associated with the internal loan program and recommended that it be terminated, there having already been a moratorium in place since 2012. In 2017, after the review by the Canadian Conservation Institute, the loan program was officially abolished.
Liberal
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Do you have any idea who has the 120 pieces of art that are missing and that have been borrowed? Do you have that?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
Yes. Obviously, they are not listed item by item, but we know that we have 48 artworks that were part of regional and headquarter displays. We have nine items that were part of regional displays, but two of them are reproductions. We have the specific years. The first set of 48 artworks were between 1994 and 2004, and the nine items were from 2005 and 2006.
I'm just giving you an example, but we do have documents with categories by year of where they were.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
Have they been contacted?
Let's say I had an art piece in my office. I leave and all of a sudden that art piece is missing. Have you reached out in the last number of months to connect the piece to where it was and who had it?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
We had already proceeded with respect to repatriating all of the artwork from regional offices to bring them all into the vault. All the offices that had held artwork were contacted. They were directed to actually bring or send back the artwork, which was a complex logistical process, in order to be able to repatriate all of them back into the vault.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
For those that didn't get returned and you do know who had them last, have you contacted police about this? Have you started the search professionally by going to the police and saying, “That piece is over there. We're not hearing from that group or that person, and we need to get that piece back”?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
There's no indication at all of any type of theft or criminal activity associated with this process. This was a documentation process, and we are continuing to go through the inventory. We have had absolutely no evidence that anyone appropriated this artwork in an inappropriate way.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
How many pieces have been brought back? You just said, I think, that 132 were missing. You've recovered 12.
For the other 120, 20 are reproductions. Do you have an idea about the other 100, then?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
We know that 91 were part of this internal loan program. Some were part of regional displays. Some were part of headquarter displays. Some were part of regional and headquarter office loans. We do have a drill-down list of those categories.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
Have you reached out to any of these groups to find the 100 that were left unaccounted for?
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
It's 91.
Conservative
Deputy Minister, Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs
We are looking at the records we have. The first order is to confirm which ones are duplicate records that were part of the transition that we did in 2010 to the new information system.
Conservative
Kevin Waugh Conservative Saskatoon South, SK
You should know what's missing. It wouldn't take that much.
