Finance committee  Mr. Naidoo, very briefly.

Finance committee  Well, I think the question is sound, in that, yes, we need to balance our federal budget as much as we would be balancing our household budgets. The question of how that is implemented—

Finance committee  There are opportunities. However, that program is greatly oversubscribed.

Finance committee  No. We operate, on behalf of the Government of Canada, what is called YCW, Young Canada Works Heritage. That is a program of about $7 million. It funds a lot of young people. What it also provides is quality jobs. These are not mowing lawns kinds of jobs. These are research jobs, jobs in technology, in public relations, and all kinds of different areas.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm very pleased to be here, and for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I feel right at home in this room, because this structure, this building we're in, used to be the Museum of Contemporary Photography. I remember touring it before it was officially opened.

Canadian Heritage committee  There are a number of federal programs to fund research, but museums are not eligible to apply. For example, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council is a huge funding council, but that money is restricted to higher-education institutions. We assert that museums should be eligible for that kind of funding.

Canadian Heritage committee  One idea that was touched on briefly in our brief was the idea of what happened in 1967. There was a train that was established, and each car was a mobile exhibit, as it were. We had eastern Canada, western Canada, the north, the prairies, and so on. We wonder if that is an idea you might want to consider.

Canadian Heritage committee  These are the kinds of things that I guess in the interests of time we didn't elaborate on very carefully here. One example is in Britain. The BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, just did an absolutely amazing series of the history of the world in one hundred objects, and this was on the radio.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think there are a lot of opportunities for museums to work together. This point has come up on both sides of the table. Some of the good examples are actually in Montreal, where virtually all of the museums worked together and established one warehouse, one conservation facility.

Canadian Heritage committee  The Young Canada Works program in heritage has been an extremely successful program. I believe its total budget is about $10 million, more like $8 million or $9 million. We at the Canadian Museums Association administer one of the components. The Heritage Canada Foundation administers a component, the Canadian Library Association represents a component, but the museums tend to be the biggest one because of the nature of our business and being open in the summer.

Canadian Heritage committee  Just very quickly, we had been thinking about it before this committee started, and let me tell you, it's really exciting, because we get a chance to blue-sky it. It's not very often that we get the chance to do that. So we see there being a big opportunity, not just for museums, but for Canada and community organizations as a whole.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, I think there is. I think we are witnessing right now a great increase in the museums' expertise in fundraising. Not long ago there was probably an attitude among museums that we should be 100% funded by the public. That attitude has gone through a remarkable change. Right now many of the big institutions have decreased their reliance on public sector funding from 80% or 90% down to often 30% to 40%.

Canadian Heritage committee  The very fact that the Canadian War Museum or the Museum of Civilization would be doing it, the word “museum” will be getting out there. I think that will benefit the community as a whole. The other thing we have done is we have established the Museums Foundation of Canada to be a collective fund, like United Way, as it were.

Canadian Heritage committee  Let me jump in and then invite colleagues to respond. Of all visitors who come to Canada, 60% visit museums. They really don't come here to visit our forests, the logging industry, or open-pit mines. They come to see the magic of what this country's all about. I think there's a tremendous opportunity for Canada in 2017 to use the Canadian experience and the Canadian story diplomatically on an international stage.

Canadian Heritage committee  Actually, there is a museum policy right now, but in our opinion it needs to be updated very significantly. I'll give you just a little bit of history. In 1972 the first national museum policy was brought in when the Honourable Gérard Pelletier was the Secretary of State, and then the Honourable Marcel Masse in the Mulroney government updated and renewed and expanded the policy.