Canadian Heritage committee  The indemnification program is a complex business, partly because many parts of the exhibit come together at the last moment. As you know, that's a program for high-value exhibitions. There is generally a minimum threshold of $500,000 for the value of the exhibit, and the government can assume liability of up to $3 billion at any one time.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm going to turn that question over to my colleague responsible for the museums assistance program.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, it does once again have minimum criteria as well. I would say the challenge is that with fixed amounts of funding, in particular when we are talking about the museums assistance program, which has a total budget of about $6.7 million, without thresholds we would simply not be able to meet the demand or to process in anything like an efficient manner.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. Thank you for the question. First, I would like to say that a number of museums do not charge admission. The majority do, but some do not, and some provide free-will offerings. I've seen great debates among museums about whether or not they should charge admission as a source of revenue.

Canadian Heritage committee  We know that about 72% of all the museums and galleries in Canada are 40 years old or more. Many are starting to experience significant needs for upgrading of their infrastructure or for major repairs. We don't have a comprehensive survey of the physical state of all museums, nor of the state of all the artifacts.

Canadian Heritage committee  Museums generally tell us that their most significant challenge is to have adequate operating funding. They are challenged to fundraise. They can only charge so much for admission fees because they are essentially a public good. They struggle, as do many not-for-profit organizations, with the cost of running their businesses and creating compelling exhibits to bring people in and keep their audiences interested.

Canadian Heritage committee  Okay. One significant change that we are unable to explain is that membership in museums and galleries has declined significantly since our last survey. It's down about 64%. The next few pages just look at the revenues by size of institution. In all of our data you'll see that we break it down by small institutions—those with budgets of under $100,000—and then the medium-sized institutions, those from $100,000 to $1 million, and the large, which are considered to be anything above $1 million.

Canadian Heritage committee  Good morning. Thank you very much for the warm welcome. I'm the executive director of the heritage group at the Department of Canadian Heritage, and with me today are Guylain Thorne, who is the senior director of heritage policy and programs, and Kathryn Zedde, who is the senior analyst and manager of policy and legislation.

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, it is the same clause.

Canadian Heritage committee  I can't, I'm afraid. I'd have to check with the museum to get some records for you. I could do that if you'd like. I don't have information regarding how much would be destroyed in a given year, for example.

Canadian Heritage committee  Thank you. The word “destroy” is in the act, as it was in the previous act, but it's an extremely rare occurrence. At times it becomes necessary to destroy an object because it might become unstable over time, or it is composed of dangerous material. It is a very rare occurrence but it's part of the management of the collection.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's one possibility.

Canadian Heritage committee  That's another possibility. For example, an artifact that may be deemed to be of no value could be given to the Canadian Conservation Institute to do experimental conservation techniques upon it.

Canadian Heritage committee  The Canadian Conservation Institute is always experimenting. It's a leading-edge special operating agency of the department. It's continually testing new ways of preserving material. They will sometimes take an old map, or something where they are testing a new chemical composition, to see what impact it would have on the artifact in question.

Canadian Heritage committee  A map is probably not the best example because we wouldn't normally do it on maps. Carbon-14 dating is a perfect example. My colleague's giving me an example of carbon-14 dating. As technology becomes more and more sophisticated and we test new ways of seeing how old artifacts are, we sometimes need to use that kind of technology.