Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
We are very honoured to be here today to present to you on behalf of museums.
I would like to make note at the beginning that my presentation today will be more focused and a bit briefer than our brief was, as we have chosen to focus on one issue and one issue only.
To begin, I would like to refer to this committee's report from last year. During your consultations you made a recommendation that the government undertake a study of museum policy and funding. We very much thank you for this interest in Canadian museums and for this recommendation. It would be very useful to turn back to this recommendation to see what progress has been made.
I think we can begin by saying that Budget 2011 will be a difficult one in many respects. We recognize that it will need to strike a fine balance between spending and restraint as the government begins to address the deficit that has accumulated in fighting the recession. This will translate, we all know, into difficult choices in 2011-12 and beyond.
Today, we come before you with a creative and innovative proposal, which is basically how the Government of Canada can help museums to help themselves. We understand the fiscal context in which the government currently operates and in which Budget 2011 will be tabled. Accordingly, our input to this consultation is strategic, sensible, and practical, and our single recommendation is modest. It will provide an enduring self-reliance rather than greater dependence.
This committee may be surprised to hear words such as “strategic”, “sensible”, and “practical” come from an organization in the arts and cultural sector. You may even be shocked to hear the words “greater self-reliance” rather than “greater dependence” upon government from an arts organization. We are here today not to ask the government to fund art for art's sake or for entitlement support or to ask the government for a handout. We are here with an innovative initiative that could help reframe and redefine the relationship of the government with this sector. We are here today to invite the government to invest in a new program to increase private sector support for museums, to be called the Canadians Supporting Their Museums fund. This fund would match money raised by museums from the private sector on a dollar-for-dollar basis to an annual ceiling. We call for this to be a five-year pilot project with an annual budget of $25 million.
This would be a wonderful case of museums working with the government, hand in hand in partnership, to increase private sector investments in museums and our long-term stability. We also think this initiative will be well aligned with other current areas of government, namely addressing the country's productivity and innovation gap.
Today, private donations to museums represent just 9% of their operating budgets. Despite a reduction in both individual and corporate taxes in recent years, donations to museums have not seen a substantial increase. At the same time, studies show that programs such as the one we propose, namely the Canadians Supporting Their Museums fund, are powerful incentives for existing private donors and non-donors to increase their donations to charities.
We need to create the right conditions for Canadians to donate more robustly to their museums and galleries, enabling museums to improve their earned revenues and their long-term stability. Our overall objective would be to increase private donations of cash and securities from 9% to between 15% and 20% of their operations.
From our studies, an impressive 45%, almost 50%, of Canadians are more likely to donate if a museum donation is matched by the federal government. Further, among those who have never donated, a full 35% are more likely to donate if there's a matching case.
We will be bringing this idea to Parliament Hill on November 23 in meetings with members of Parliament to celebrate Museums Day.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we believe this proposal is congruent with the priorities, productivity, and innovation set by this government, that this proposal is conceived in the spirit of greater self-sufficiency, and that it is designed to strengthen museums as important cornerstones to our society.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.