Government Operations committee  Absolutely, Mr. Cannan. I should probably have said, in answer to your earlier question, that the national museums also make a lot of effort to bring travelling exhibits to local museums, which is also a benefit for communities. As you know, I mentioned in my opening remarks tha

Government Operations committee  That does not sound familiar to me, from the way you say it. As you know, I explained in my comments earlier that we have more than $24 million worth of investments in music. Music programs are affected by the deficit reduction action plan. The program related to the "creation"

Government Operations committee  I don't think I used that language, sir.

Government Operations committee  I won't pretend to be a historian. What is important is that the renovations are completed. Once the renovations are completed, of course, they have more space for exhibits and things like that. What you're seeing here is an adjustment that was made to the operating expenses of t

Government Operations committee  Once again, it is often more a matter of profile than of recurring spending because we make transfers. For example, in the supplementary estimates, I believe you will see a transfer to the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council of Canada because a one-time research proje

Government Operations committee  I did not refer to challenges. I basically said this was not a cut. The chair suggested that the fact that there was less money this year was due to a cut. What I said is the remaining money that was attributed by the Government of Canada, the $100 million, was done last year, wh

Government Operations committee  All our museums do. René can provide more details on that. We did a comparative analysis a few years ago on how they compare, let's say, to the Smithsonian and other museums around the world. Of course, the nominal sums are not the same, but in terms of percentage, our museums do

Government Operations committee  It's interesting. We brought in a very famous American historian—Alan Taylor. He has studied that a lot, and he's actually been using the Library and Archives as a place for research. In his view, this is fundamental, because if the invasion had not been repelled there would prob

Government Operations committee  I never said that, sir.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. With me today, as the chair has mentioned, is Robert Hertzog, who is the department's chief financial officer, and René Bouchard, who is the executive di

Government Operations committee  With pleasure, Mr. Blanchette. If I remember correctly, when I appeared here in May, I explained to you that, about three years ago, our department was facing a structural deficit of more than $60 million. Actually, when salary increases were included, we realized that it was cl

Government Operations committee  I have two comments about that. First, that is the reason that the cuts made in order to deal with the structural deficit have been made to the administration only. The minister has been clear on a number of occasions: he did not want programs affected and he wanted to see more e

Government Operations committee  It is a matter of timing, really. It is all about the appropriation cycle. It was announced in the main estimates last year. We had to put it in the supplementary estimates (B) so that we could access the money.

Government Operations committee  The thing is that, in each year’s budget cycle, when we show our main costs, amounts are always added in or taken out during the year. Those are spread out over the three supplementary estimates. In this case, the $5 million amount was announced in the budget for 2012. So it co

Government Operations committee  No. I have to correct one thing here. It was announced in Budget 2011. It is just a technical matter of timing, of the appropriation cycle. Robert may be able to explain it better.