Thank you. Good morning.
I'm always hesitant to speak in such forums when I see the gravity of the issues that each of the other presenters is addressing here today, but experience in my day job at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick tells me that each group present today relies on research and information and eventually will turn to archives to solve their long-term information needs. One of them here actually has already done that.
I also note that several members of the committee are associate members of the heritage committee and the privacy and access to information committee, also of very important concern to archives.
Having archival resources accessible when needed makes many aspects of the federal government work more efficiently. In some cases, it's the only way to make the goals of the federal government attainable. I note in the presentation just three of these, two of them that have been going on for a while now. They are Agent Orange, which is an issue in New Brunswick currently; the residential schools issue, which has been a huge weight on the archival community across Canada; and of course, in the near future, sovereignty in the Arctic.
Similarly, a lot of entities the federal government gives money to need archives to achieve what they've told the federal government they are going to do. If this information isn't readily accessible, that pretty much eliminates the success of their initiative.
In an information age, access to information is essential. Efficient information is cost-effective and does not happen without planning and investment. Archives across the country pay for the infrastructure and day-to-day costs of the documentary heritage of this country, but without assistance from the federal government, much of that information will be buried for decades or not saved at all.
Archives, or our documentary heritage, are facing significant challenges today. We are in this situation today because sponsors of archives have been slow to recognize the integral role archives play in the information age. The Department of Canadian Heritage has never seriously understood archives to be part of its mandate, and as they were for municipalities, the budget cuts of the 1990s have been devastating to the archival world.
The next decade will be even worse: skewed demographics of the profession, the inevitable attempt of the federal government to redress the current budget deficits, and the avalanche of electronic records.
The Canadian Council of Archives recommends that the federal government invigorate its efforts to ensure Canada’s documentary heritage is accessible in the age of electronic information by increasing the budget of the national archives development program to $5 million per year for access and preservation activities and, by so doing, recognize information as an important infrastructure of the 21st century.
Second, the council recommends that the federal government exempt Library and Archives Canada from the strategic program review process, as it is counterproductive for an organization that's instrumental in the success of so many other federal programs and initiatives and currently does not have the resources to meet its existing federally established mandate. These sorts of across-the-board reviews--or cuts--impact organizations that are in survival mode now.
Third, the council recommends that the federal government invest $2 million per year through the Canadian Council of Archives for the digitization and dissemination of Canada’s documentary heritage to ensure that the necessary documentary heritage is available across the country to make the celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary of Confederation a meaningful event that brings Canadians closer to their individual and collective history.
Thank you.