Finance committee  Federal funding for museums has declined significantly over the years. The main funding mechanism, the museum assistance program, was started in 1972 with a budget of $7 million per year. Today, 46 years later, that budget is about $6 million—less than in 1972. If it had kept pac

Finance committee  I'd be delighted to. We've made a proposal, for a number of years, that the way to increase the stability of our institutions and to raise private sector support—I mean money or securities, not donations of works of art—would be to provide a matching mechanism. Currently, there

Finance committee  There are about 36,000 employees in museums, and 115,000 volunteers. To make another point on your earlier question, donations currently are about 10% at museums. We believe the matching donation can take that up to 20%. In the United States it's closer to 40%, but it is a diffe

Finance committee  Those are excellent questions. Thank you very much. We received some funding from the Royal Bank, and we have established an indigenous mentorship program. It's a very small program, but it's something that could be built upon. I take your point. We have very few indigenous tra