Mr. Speaker, last week, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages introduced a series of new measures to make our history more accessible to all Canadians, particularly our youth.
This announcement exemplifies the government's commitment and dedication to helping Canadians learn more about their history. Following the introduction of Bill C-49, the Canadian Museum of History Act, which is designed to change the name and mandate of the current Canadian Museum of Civilization, our government is forging ahead. It is introducing new measures that will help us to achieve our goal of promoting knowledge of Canadian history.
Included in these new measures is the creation of the Canada History Fund, which represents an investment of $12 million. This new fund comprises several elements.
First, the Government of Canada History Awards will be created to honour outstanding secondary school students and teachers who show an interest in Canadian history.
Second, the Speakers Bureau of the Memory Project, administered by the Historica-Dominion Institute, will see its funding doubled to allow thousands of students to meet with veterans and serving soldiers in the classroom.
Third, the Canada History Fund will increase funding to the Historica-Dominion Institute to create two new Heritage Minutes per year between now and 2017.
Fourth, references such as the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and The Canadian Encyclopedia will receive enhanced financial support to allow for additional Canadian history content. These two invaluable online resources help teachers with their in-class work. This support is important for those initiatives.
For example, this is what Anthony Wilson-Smith, president of the Historica-Dominion Institute, said:
History teaches us how we got to where we are as a country, along with a sense of where we are headed. These new measures give Canadians important new tools to discuss and debate those lessons from our past. We at the Historica–Dominion Institute fully support these important initiatives.
It is clear that the government is honouring its commitment to promote Canada's identity, but that is not all. Starting this year, July 1 to 7 will become Canada History Week.
That week, starting on Canada Day, will be an excellent opportunity for Canadians to explore their country’s history through activities organized at the regional and national levels. We will also provide information on activities organized by history lovers as part of national and regional Canada Day celebrations.
They preserve our heritage, shape our collective memory and stimulate our sense of belonging to Canadian society. However, Canada does not have a national museum offering a detailed narrative of our history. That is why our government is preparing to establish the Canadian museum of history. This future national museum will create partnerships with regional museums to form a network.
The objective is to expand access to the national collection and increase its circulation across the country. In this way, Canadian museums, both large and small, will be able to exchange exhibitions with the Canadian museum of history and access some of the three million artifacts from those collections.
An investment of time and money is obviously required to move exhibitions and artifacts. The third measure announced last week is designed specifically to enhance the capability of certain Department of Canadian Heritage programs to do just that.
The Museums Assistance Program, for example, provides financial support for the work of Canada's museums and museum sector. We will ensure that this program, which facilitates Canadians' access to their heritage and history, plays a greater role.
The Exhibition Circulation Fund, one of the program's five components, assists museums in paying the costs involved in hosting travelling exhibitions. Those exhibitions may come from museums in other provinces or territories or simply from a federal heritage institution such as the Canadian museum of history. For a museum, these expenses usually include packing, transportation and installation costs, special costs associated with security and additional insurance premiums as well as general promotional expenses. As I said, the costs involved in moving exhibitions and artifacts are often too high for small history museums. We will therefore ensure that the Museums Assistance Program enables museums to borrow artifacts from the national collection of the Canadian museum of history to enhance their exhibitions. This activity was not previously funded. In addition, to help the smallest institutions, financial assistance may be provided to cover up to 100% of eligible costs for museums with operating budgets of less than $500,000 a year.
Mr. Speaker, do you know there are over 1,700 Canadian museums in this situation? We are also going to make sure that the Museum Assistance Program facilitates the creation and sharing of exhibits about history by eliminating the requirement that exhibits circulate outside their province or territory of origin. This will help to encourage the circulation of historical exhibits to multiple towns in the same province or territory. By expanding eligibility and increasing the percentage of funding granted to small museums, these measures will increase the number of travelling historical exhibitions. Canadians will thus have better access to their history.
In closing, as Canada’s 150th birthday approaches, Canadians deserve a national museum of the history of Canada that will put their treasures on display for the entire world and tell Canadians about their collective history. Canada needs a national institution that tells its story. Canadian museums need to be encouraged and supported in creating a national network that will give all Canadians the opportunity to explore their history. That is what the government of Canada is proposing to us here today.