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From the Globe:
Museums in waiting
VAL ROSS
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Last Tuesday night, Parliament took a momentous step toward a contentious and radical decentralization of national heritage institutions. Almost no one noticed. No wonder: The precedent-setting vote to give the Montreal-based railway museum Exporail national-museum status passed right after amendments to the hotly debated Anti-Terrorism Act.
Traditionally, Ottawa funds the operation of museums and art galleries in the National Capital Region only. But if the Department of Heritage accepts Parliament's will, it will give Exporail not only national-museum status but also what comes with it -- the guarantee of an annual infusion of federal operating funds.
More important, the vote also opens doors for other museums across Canada seeking that status and those funds: the Portrait Gallery of Canada (should it go to Calgary); Pier 21 in Halifax; British Columbia's proposed national aboriginal art gallery and, of course, the Asper family's vision for a Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
Knowing that all these other institutions, and more, could come knocking on Ottawa's door for money, Heritage wants to defer the Exporail and Human Rights museum-status issue until it comes out later this spring with its long-awaited national-museums policy.
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Rendering of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as designed by Antoine Predock
Rendering of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as designed by Antoine Predock.
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The Globe and Mail
"But now we have the will of Parliament on this. It's the first time Parliament has weighed in on this [national-museum status for a regional collection] issue," said Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis), one of Exporail's champions.
He said Heritage is giving $30-million to the Aga Khan Foundation's Global Centre for Pluralism, a project for Ottawa that hasn't even got a detailed plan. "When the government has a reason to do something, it has no problem acting in advance of a policy," he said.
Exporail was founded in 1961 as the Canadian Railway Museum in suburban Saint-Constant/Delson (at the terminus of the Delaware-Hudson railway.) Toronto-based museums consulting firm Lord Cultural Resources has classified Exporail as one of the leading railway collections in the world -- "with all the North American locomotives and also a broad collection of European models," Barry Lord says.
As well as cheering railway buffs, last week's vote gives energy to Winnipeg philanthropist Gail Asper's efforts to launch Winnipeg's proposed Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Her pressures are not only familial (the museum was her late father Izzy Asper's project), but also financial. Last month, the Art Gallery of Alberta admitted that the costs of its expansion had gone up to $88-million (up 55 per cent from the original estimate of $57-million in 2005) because of Western Canada's building boom; Asper's sense of urgency increased. "The Museum for Human Rights has seen a $30-million cost increase since 2000. Every time another year goes by, it's another few million," she told The Globe and Mail. "I am profoundly concerned about costs and delays. You can end up having to raise more money for something less."
She says she knows of an old Ku Klux Klan uniform disintegrating for want of proper storage. Survivors of the Ukrainian famine are dying off, their sufferings not yet recorded, and documents concerning the Chinese head tax mouldering in basements could be lost. All are reasons why, she says, her $311-million project, which could revitalize Winnipeg and burnish Canada's image abroad, should go forward.
But everything is contingent on federal involvement -- including $72-million in private pledges, and the museum's ability to attract a chief executive officer.
Headhunters are doing a North American search, and a short list of candidates is imminent, says Kim Jasper, the museum director of communications. But despite a salary said to be in the $200,000 range, leading Canadian museum directors are not biting. Headhunters approached Mike Robinson, CEO of Calgary's Glenbow Museum, three times. At least two Quebec museum bosses have also declined. One candidate explained that leading a museum in an economically flat-lined city such as Winnipeg, without guarantees of continuing federal support, would involve too much fundraising to be worth it.
Asper's museum is seeking not only Ottawa's promised $100-million in capital costs, but also an annual $12-million in operating costs -- 70 per cent of the operating budget. About $6-million of that will be used to bring 20,000 students, Grades 9 to 11, each year from across Canada to visit the museum, discuss its message and tour Winnipeg.
But just a year ago, the Stephen Harper government tried to get out of the student-travel business when it killed the funding for the Canadian Unity Council, perceived to be a Liberal-tainted body, thereby terminating the council's Encounters with Canada program, which brought 3,000 high-school students to visit Parliament. After a massive protest, the astonished feds had to find someone, anyone, to resurrect Encounters (Historica, a Canadian history foundation, stepped forward.) Does this government now want to join in a far more ambitious student-travel scheme?
This is not the only innovative aspect of the relationship proposed by the Winnipeg museum. It also anticipates that the feds will use it to train public-service professionals including police, soldiers and justice officials. Gail Lord of Lord Cultural Resources says the museum has budgeted these training programs as a potential profit centre. "We asked police forces all over Canada, is this something you'd be interested in, and they all said yes, if there are subsidies," Lord said (they would be separate from the student-travel program).
The federal government has other issues about its relationship to the museum, Heritage Minister Bev Oda told The Globe and Mail: "We cannot support operating costs for a non-federal institution. And it's not only operating costs: There are outstanding issues of governance and programming."
Her department sent a letter to Asper in November, 2006, outlining these questions. Asper says she has replied to all the points and also has met personally with senior Heritage officials in Ottawa. There's still no deal. "But we respect the due diligence that the government must do around those questions," she adds diplomatically.
This spring, as Ottawa contemplates the Human Rights project and tries to shape its new museums policy, it now must factor in Parliament's thinking on the question of where Canada should have its national museums.
AoD
Museums in waiting
VAL ROSS
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
Last Tuesday night, Parliament took a momentous step toward a contentious and radical decentralization of national heritage institutions. Almost no one noticed. No wonder: The precedent-setting vote to give the Montreal-based railway museum Exporail national-museum status passed right after amendments to the hotly debated Anti-Terrorism Act.
Traditionally, Ottawa funds the operation of museums and art galleries in the National Capital Region only. But if the Department of Heritage accepts Parliament's will, it will give Exporail not only national-museum status but also what comes with it -- the guarantee of an annual infusion of federal operating funds.
More important, the vote also opens doors for other museums across Canada seeking that status and those funds: the Portrait Gallery of Canada (should it go to Calgary); Pier 21 in Halifax; British Columbia's proposed national aboriginal art gallery and, of course, the Asper family's vision for a Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
Knowing that all these other institutions, and more, could come knocking on Ottawa's door for money, Heritage wants to defer the Exporail and Human Rights museum-status issue until it comes out later this spring with its long-awaited national-museums policy.
Related to this article
Rendering of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as designed by Antoine Predock
Rendering of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as designed by Antoine Predock.
Follow this writer Follow this writer
* Add VAL ROSS to my e-mail alerts Globe Insider
Latest Comments Comments
* Start a conversation on this story
The Globe and Mail
"But now we have the will of Parliament on this. It's the first time Parliament has weighed in on this [national-museum status for a regional collection] issue," said Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia (Lac-Saint-Louis), one of Exporail's champions.
He said Heritage is giving $30-million to the Aga Khan Foundation's Global Centre for Pluralism, a project for Ottawa that hasn't even got a detailed plan. "When the government has a reason to do something, it has no problem acting in advance of a policy," he said.
Exporail was founded in 1961 as the Canadian Railway Museum in suburban Saint-Constant/Delson (at the terminus of the Delaware-Hudson railway.) Toronto-based museums consulting firm Lord Cultural Resources has classified Exporail as one of the leading railway collections in the world -- "with all the North American locomotives and also a broad collection of European models," Barry Lord says.
As well as cheering railway buffs, last week's vote gives energy to Winnipeg philanthropist Gail Asper's efforts to launch Winnipeg's proposed Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Her pressures are not only familial (the museum was her late father Izzy Asper's project), but also financial. Last month, the Art Gallery of Alberta admitted that the costs of its expansion had gone up to $88-million (up 55 per cent from the original estimate of $57-million in 2005) because of Western Canada's building boom; Asper's sense of urgency increased. "The Museum for Human Rights has seen a $30-million cost increase since 2000. Every time another year goes by, it's another few million," she told The Globe and Mail. "I am profoundly concerned about costs and delays. You can end up having to raise more money for something less."
She says she knows of an old Ku Klux Klan uniform disintegrating for want of proper storage. Survivors of the Ukrainian famine are dying off, their sufferings not yet recorded, and documents concerning the Chinese head tax mouldering in basements could be lost. All are reasons why, she says, her $311-million project, which could revitalize Winnipeg and burnish Canada's image abroad, should go forward.
But everything is contingent on federal involvement -- including $72-million in private pledges, and the museum's ability to attract a chief executive officer.
Headhunters are doing a North American search, and a short list of candidates is imminent, says Kim Jasper, the museum director of communications. But despite a salary said to be in the $200,000 range, leading Canadian museum directors are not biting. Headhunters approached Mike Robinson, CEO of Calgary's Glenbow Museum, three times. At least two Quebec museum bosses have also declined. One candidate explained that leading a museum in an economically flat-lined city such as Winnipeg, without guarantees of continuing federal support, would involve too much fundraising to be worth it.
Asper's museum is seeking not only Ottawa's promised $100-million in capital costs, but also an annual $12-million in operating costs -- 70 per cent of the operating budget. About $6-million of that will be used to bring 20,000 students, Grades 9 to 11, each year from across Canada to visit the museum, discuss its message and tour Winnipeg.
But just a year ago, the Stephen Harper government tried to get out of the student-travel business when it killed the funding for the Canadian Unity Council, perceived to be a Liberal-tainted body, thereby terminating the council's Encounters with Canada program, which brought 3,000 high-school students to visit Parliament. After a massive protest, the astonished feds had to find someone, anyone, to resurrect Encounters (Historica, a Canadian history foundation, stepped forward.) Does this government now want to join in a far more ambitious student-travel scheme?
This is not the only innovative aspect of the relationship proposed by the Winnipeg museum. It also anticipates that the feds will use it to train public-service professionals including police, soldiers and justice officials. Gail Lord of Lord Cultural Resources says the museum has budgeted these training programs as a potential profit centre. "We asked police forces all over Canada, is this something you'd be interested in, and they all said yes, if there are subsidies," Lord said (they would be separate from the student-travel program).
The federal government has other issues about its relationship to the museum, Heritage Minister Bev Oda told The Globe and Mail: "We cannot support operating costs for a non-federal institution. And it's not only operating costs: There are outstanding issues of governance and programming."
Her department sent a letter to Asper in November, 2006, outlining these questions. Asper says she has replied to all the points and also has met personally with senior Heritage officials in Ottawa. There's still no deal. "But we respect the due diligence that the government must do around those questions," she adds diplomatically.
This spring, as Ottawa contemplates the Human Rights project and tries to shape its new museums policy, it now must factor in Parliament's thinking on the question of where Canada should have its national museums.
AoD