CHER Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON CANADIAN HERITAGE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU PATRIMOINE CANADIEN

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, February 23, 1999

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[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark (Dauphin—Swan River, Ref.)): I'll call the meeting to order. On behalf of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage I'm pleased to welcome all of you here.

Before we begin, as a courtesy to Wendy Lill, your local member of Parliament for Dartmouth, I'd like her to bring greetings on behalf of her constituents or the city.

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thank you very much, Inky. I'm really pleased to be here today. I would be here anyway because I'm on the heritage committee, but I'd also be here anyway if I was the MP because I'd want to hear what is being said here. I'm one of the MPs here.

This is the beginning of a cross-country tour of the heritage committee to fill out a part of our study on Canadian cultural policy. We've just been in St. John's, Newfoundland, and we had a wonderful session there yesterday. Tomorrow the group will be moving to Moncton and then Montreal and Toronto, and there's another part of the committee that is going out west and talking to literally hundreds of people out there.

It's really exciting to be here and we are looking forward to talking with you and hearing what you have to say about how this government and this country should be investing in our artists.

So that's all. Thank you for coming.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you very much, Wendy.

Perhaps we could begin by introducing ourselves around the table.

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Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm Joe Jordan. I'm a Liberal MP from Leeds-Grenville, which is in southeastern Ontario.

Ms. Trina Whitehurst (Board Member, Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum): Good afternoon, I'm Trina Whitehurst and I'm representing the Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum as a board member.

Ms. Anita Price (President, Council of Nova Scotia Archives): Hello, my name is Anita Price. I'm here representing the Council of Nova Scotia Archives.

Ms. Susan Charles (Executive Director, Federation of Nova Scotian Heritage): I'm Susan Charles, the executive director for the Federation of Nova Scotian Heritage.

Mr. Allison Bishop (General Manager, Pier 21 Society): I'm Allison Bishop, the general manager of the Pier 21 Society.

Ms. Barbara Campbell (Executive Director, Multicultural Association of Nova Scotia): I'm Barbara Campbell. I'm the executive director of the Multicultural Association of Nova Scotia.

Ms. Marion Pape (Provincial Librarian, Nova Scotia Provincial Library): I'm Marion Pape, provincial librarian for Nova Scotia.

Mr. Al Chaddock (Member, Cultural Federation of Nova Scotia): I'm Al Chaddock, artist, philosopher, member of the United Nations Association of Canada and the provincial round table on the environment and the economy for Nova Scotia.

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski—Mitis, BQ): I am Suzanne Tremblay.

[Translation]

I'm a member of the Bloc Québécois, my party's critic for Canadian Heritage and the MP for Rimouski—Mitis.

Ms. Martine Jacquot (President, Conseil culturel acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse): Good afternoon. My name is Martine Jacquot. I'm a novelist and the President of the Conseil culturel acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse.

Mr. Yvon Aucoin (Coordinator, Conseil culturel acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse): Good afternoon. I'm Yvon Aucoin and I'm the coordinator of the Conseil culturel acadien de la Nouvelle-Écosse. I'm also an actor, free lance radio and theatre narrator and author.

Clerk of the committee: I'm Norman Radford, the Clerk of this committee.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): I'm Inky Mark, vice-chair of the committee.

[Translation]

Mr. Gaston Blais (Committee Research Officer): Gaston Blais, committee research officer.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you. To all our distinguished guests and to members of the public in our audience, we'd like to thank you all for joining us today to participate in what we hope will be a dynamic and stimulating exchange of opinions and ideas. Don't forget, folks, this is round table discussion, not a panel presentation. I will certainly invite the audience to take part in our discussions as we have a chance to get it rolling at this end.

Assembling Canadians before a committee is an exciting opportunity and we are truly honoured that you have taken the time away from your busy schedules to be here with us today.

As I said earlier, the normal procedure is that people come before committees and make presentations, but hopefully we'd like to really discuss the issues with you through the vehicle of discussion. I'd like to describe what the committee is trying to achieve through our study in general and these roundtable discussions in particular.

The study: The heritage committee decided in the fall of 1997 to examine what the federal government is doing to support the arts and cultural industries in our cultural heritage. We wanted to look at the types of support measures that are already in place, such as content and ownership rules, direct grants to artists, and tax incentives, to name only a few, to determine whether these measures will stand up to the challenges that the next century will present.

There are three challenges in particular heralding the new millennium that we wanted to focus on to determine how they will influence Canadian culture and, in turn, how they may affect the way the federal government supports the culture sector. These three challenges are new technologies, globalization and international trade agreements, and the changing demographics of our society.

These three challenges raise an enormous number of complex issues, some of which may be hard to answer without the aid of a crystal ball. For example, what will be the impact of the Internet on communications in Canada and around the world? Will it be even more profound than the sea change introduced by Gutenberg's printing press? Will the multilateral agreement on investment mean death or new life to our cultural industries? Will the aging baby boom generation have a positive or negative effect on museum and theatre attendance figures? And what about generation Xers? What kind of cultural consumers will they be over their adult life cycles?

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Finally, after we identify the major changes that technological trade and social development will introduce, then we will want to consider whether the federal government should remodel or reaffirm the roles it has been playing to support the arts, cultural industries, and the preservation of our heritage. To help the committee grapple with these issues in recent months we have received briefings from officials of the Canadian heritage, international trade, and industry departments, as well as from expert witnesses, on the effects that international trade, new technology and social change may have on federal cultural policies and support measures.

We have also heard from the representatives of our federal cultural institutions. This week the committee is travelling across the country to speak with artists, emerging cultural entrepreneurs, and consumers of cultural products in their own communities to explore their views on culture and the federal government's role in supporting it. The committee has also hosted a series of round table discussions to explore these issues with established and successful professionals from the arts, heritage, publishing, film and video broadcasting and sound recording fields.

Having set out the committee's general plan of action, let me now zero in on today's proceedings. Our guests today are the people who see and feel the impact, whether good or bad, of the federal government's support measures. Also, they witness first-hand the effects new technologies, international trade agreements, and changing demographics are having in their fields. To focus this discussion today, I will be inviting everyone around the table to address five questions.

Just to shorten this, again because we're here for two hours, the first question really deals with the range of federal cultural support measures currently in place, or used in the past. Which ones work well in your sector or industry and which do not?

Perhaps we could group the next three questions together. Again, they talk about technological change, trade, and changing demographics.

The big question deals with what role the federal government should perform in the future to support the cultural sector or industries. For example, should the federal government exercise the following roles, or others in this field: the role of legislator, regulator, owner and operator of national institutions, the role of funding partner or patron of the arts, the role of business developer and promoter? That's the big question. What should the federal government be doing in terms of culture and heritage?

Maybe we could start with a brief commentary, if you'd like to address those three broad questions. First, what has the government done for you, good or bad? Then address the changes in technology, liberalization or demographics, if you wish. The big question is what should we be doing then? If we could get a short comment from each of the guests at the table, then we could probably open it up and have greater dynamics in terms of the real discussion. And would you identify yourself for the record.

Ms. Trina Whitehurst: I'm Trina Whitehurst, board member with the Cole Harbour Heritage Farm Museum.

In response to the first question about what kind of programs have been useful for our organization, the two that come to mind are Young Canada Works—especially for employment during our peak season at the farm we tap into that program—and indirectly the museum assistance program, because through the provincial museum association, the Federation of Nova Scotian Heritage, our members take advantage of the training opportunities provided, and that particular federation takes advantage of the museum assistance program for assistance with its training program. So indirectly that affects the farm for our professional development. Those are the two most important programs that we take advantage of federally.

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Actually, we found question two very difficult to answer in terms of the major impacts of new technology. Our main concern is getting the hardware, essentially. There's a handful of community museums that still do not have access even to basic computers, even to fax machines, that kind of thing. So there's a hardware difficulty there that creates physical barriers, and then there's the software and constant updating and maintenance that goes into it in terms of financial and human resources that a small community museum such as ours finds very difficult. So there is that issue.

On question three, regarding trade liberalization and globalization, for a small community museum those issues seem to be up here, and we're still operating at a community level and buying our products and services locally as much as we can. So that's a very difficult question for us to answer.

On the big question, in terms of the role of the federal government, we have zeroed in on three aspects within that question, the two most important being as a funding partner and as a patron of the arts.

The Cole Harbour Rural Heritage Society strongly believes the federal government should continue to support heritage in a number of ways, playing a number of different roles. Heritage is sometimes considered the poor cousin of industries such as culture and film, and it must be remembered that heritage is the ground upon which much of our present culture was built.

The interaction between all areas of heritage and culture happens every day. Artisans act as guest curators in local community museums. Film crews use our site, for example, for documentaries, sitcoms, feature films, that kind of thing. So there's that interaction that happens every day, and researchers and genealogists mine archival and artifact collections for the connections between generations.

So I think heritage sites play an important part in that interaction, and the federal government needs to continue its support of heritage to ensure the future sustainability of this sector, to make sure those kinds of interactions can continue.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you. We'll move on.

Anita.

Ms. Anita Price: Hello. I'll just give you a quick overview of what the Council of Nova Scotia Archives is. It's an umbrella organization that represents over 80 archival institutions across the province. These include religious, university and municipal archives, as well as community museums with archives components, and the Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management.

In relation to the first question, our primary federal support comes to us through the Canadian Council of Archives, which we usually refer to as the CCA. We consider the CCA to be an extremely effective organization. We find that it very responsibly administers the federal funds that are available to it, and the money gets very much back to the grassroots, back to the archival institutions across the country in effective ways. So we say one up for the CCA.

The CCA also administers the archives component of the Young Canada Works program. Generally we think the Young Canada Works program is a tremendous set-up. We would like to see the grant application and adjudication set-up improved. At the moment it's a bit helter-skelter, and it's difficult for the institutions applying, it's difficult for the individuals doing the adjudication, and I suspect it's difficult for the students who are applying for the jobs that are available, as well.

We'd like to comment on the fact that, like all areas in the cultural sectoral, archives has experienced significant financial cutbacks in recent years. That's not simply on the federal level; that's on all their funding levels.

We've found some creative ways of dealing with that, and I want to draw your attention to one project in particular that we're undertaking at the moment. It involves a new consortium between the Council of Nova Scotia Archives, Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management, and the CBC.

A self-contained storage vault was declared surplus by the National Archives when it opened its new facility in Quebec, and they offered two of these storage vaults to the archives community across Canada. Basically, if you could get your funding together to get it transported and set up and maintained, then they would give you the vaults free of charge. So we entered into a relationship with the Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management and the CBC and applied for one of the vaults and were successful. We will be setting this up over the next year.

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It's exciting for us. It's the first time as a community organization we've developed that kind of partnership with a provincial organization and a federal organization. It also has the advantage of being able to make some money, because we can charge the burgeoning film industry for storage space in the cold vault. It's especially for audiovisual materials.

In relation to the second question, archives in Canada are on the verge of developing a tremendous project, which we're calling the Canadian Archives and Information Network. It will be a national network. The project is being spearheaded by the Canadian Council of Archives, and each province will be developing their own archival database. In Nova Scotia we've named ours ArchWay. In the last year we have begun to put together funding for it. We have employed someone. We have begun gathering our data and entering it into a database. In fact, just this last week we made our demo available to people to access through the Internet. This has involved incredibly creative funding, but we felt it was important to get this project under way.

The clients of archives in Canada are increasingly expecting to be able to access archival information through that sort of technology, and we feel it's only responsible to come up with this sort of database in response to that.

As well, we believe it has tremendous potential for linking with other cultural sector information technology initiatives, such as those undertaken by museums and libraries. It's a great opportunity to create a truly Canadian cultural resource.

In relation to the third question, I think the main area we've identified as a globalization issue and archives again relates to the Internet. There are significant demands that archival records be made available in digitized form. This basically means they are available to anyone to access and to do what they want with the information and the records' integrity. In terms of archival material, that is a very questionable situation to put the material in and it's certainly something about which we would be looking to the federal government for guidance.

In the fourth question area, relating to demographics, for us the significant impact relates to cultural tourism as a component of the tourism industry. Increasingly, archives are being utilized by genealogists. This is a group that's increasing all the time. They're very sophisticated users of the Internet. They travel a great deal, mostly specifically to pursue family information, and they're often retired individuals, which means they have an amount of leisure time that allows them to engage in in-depth research. This has a significant impact on public service levels at archives and the increased demand that these service areas mean on archival resources.

In relation to the fifth area, we feel it's in the process of redefining how we fund our cultural organizations that it be recognized that reduction, redefinition, and reallocation of funding is occurring on all levels of government simultaneously.

The federal government has a critical role to play in ensuring that funding restructuring in Canada is done in a responsible manner. As a nation we stand to lose significant cultural resources because we fall through the cracks of funding authority and availability. The cultural well-being of Canada is not simply a matter of funding, but responses and responsible custodianship of our resources. Partnership with the cultural organizations of Canada will be a vital ingredient in a new cultural policy for Canada.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you.

Suzanne.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I don't know if this is the appropriate time, but I would like to make a brief comment. Perhaps participants could simply hand in their briefs. At this rate, you'll barely have time to read them and we won't have any time to exchange ideas and to get to the crux of the matter.

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Your presentations are very interesting, but we should get to the point quickly so that we can exchange opinions. Therefore, perhaps you could dispense with reading your prepared texts and get to your conclusions, so that we can proceed with our discussion.

There is no need for you to answer each of the questions. Which issue is most important to you? What kind of solutions are you prepared to recommend? What issues would you like us to discuss together?

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): You don't need to respond to each of the three questions. Just consider what is the most important to you in terms of heritage.

I agree with Madame Tremblay that we'd rather have you not read from text. If you have presentations, just give them to the clerk and we'll make sure they are distributed.

Ms. Susan Charles: Just from our standpoint, I'll tell you that we were invited to a round table discussion with eight of our closest friends. We were told it was a chance to have a beer with friends and talk shop and that these comments would go forward. So that was the kind of event I was prepared for.

Yes, we've provided a written brief, which I'll leave behind, that answers each of the questions in depth. If you want the off-the-top, most important things on my mind right now, in the global perspective of life I'm finding it more and more difficult to access federal funds on behalf of a membership of 135 organizations around this province. The accessibility is restricted in Nova Scotia because the criteria seem to be less and less flexible. It seems to be directed towards larger institutions. The requirement is often for at least one full-time staff person, and many museums in Nova Scotia do not even have that. They operate on the backs of volunteers.

For those people who are employed in this sector, there's a lot of pressure on them to perform in the areas you've identified—for instance, in the area of technology. We're all supposed to have computers that are at the high end. We're supposed to run all of the programs and know how they operate. We're supposed to have a web presence somehow and maintain and operate it ourselves.

So it becomes more pressure to produce, and produce a cultural tourism product now, which is seen to be our saviour. A lot of us don't know how to develop that. We don't have the expertise. We find it awkward to access that.

On behalf of the members of our provincial network of museums and historical societies, over the last 20 years we have been providing a training program with money from the museums assistance program, and that has been a great benefit. We have considered that to be a partnership between our organization—the provincial museums association—and the federal government. We have felt that the partnership has worked quite well in that we invest our energy in finding out the needs, and the immediate needs, of our members. We put together a program in response to those needs. Then we cost-share this program. We deliver the program locally, and it's effective. It works. It has proven a success.

We have found recently, however, that the prime initiative for this program, the focus of it, has changed. I don't get a sense that the program is listening to our needs any more. We're more or less told what we can and cannot have, and I'm not sure it will be of benefit to Nova Scotians. So that's a second concern of ours.

I would like to know that in fact there is good communication and a very strong relationship between community museums, using the provincial museums association, and the federal government. But I think we're finding that programs like the museums assistance program, the former Canadian Heritage Information Network, access to the Canadian Conservation Institute and their services is being cut back because our national museums do cost so much to operate. I understand there's currently a new national museum being proposed, a war museum. Our concern is that in fact the national museums we currently own are more expensive than we can afford to operate. I guess I don't understand why we're continuing to grow and develop more of them when in fact they're underresourced and understaffed as is.

So I'd like to see a more equitable share of the current federal funding actually having some effect in the provinces.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you.

Allison.

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Mr. Allison Bishop: Good afternoon again. In a former role I was director of cultural affairs for the province for some 18 years, but I'm here today as the general manager of Pier 21.

Pier 21 was the main immigration shed for Canada between the years 1928 and 1972 and is located just behind the Westin Hotel. It is presently undergoing a $9.5 million revitalization. On July 1 it will open as a permanent testament to immigration in Canada.

I'll move directly from that to the question of funding, because this project is being funded by $4.5 million in government support and an equal amount in fundraising from the corporate and private sectors. The government support is coming through a cooperation agreement, the Canada-Nova Scotia Cooperation Agreement on Economic Diversification, which is an effective way of funding a large project that requires a significant amount of money.

I'll take a step back to my role as director of cultural affairs, because from 1992 to 1996 I had the privilege of being co-chair of the Canada-Nova Scotia Cooperation Agreement on Cultural Development. It was an innovation in cultural funding in this province, and very effective, but very different from the previous patterns that included the museum assistance program, funding from the Canada Council, and funding from provincial and federal government departments.

The cooperation agreement initiated a different approach from a simple grant program because it required the involvement of the organization of the entrepreneur in putting part of their own money into a business agreement that had very specific goals and targets. During the time that agreement was in force, it made significant contributions to cultural development in Nova Scotia.

Its successor, of course, was the economic diversification agreement. Without that agreement, there would not have been as evident a channel for the funding of the institution I work for as is being developed at the present time.

I will go directly back to the final question, if I may, about the role of the federal government. I'm sure the other items will be picked up as we go along. Then I'll have more comments to make on them.

The role of the federal government is very important, and I'm going to suggest that one of the roles of the federal government in the overall cultural area is to set standards by virtue of its participation through its agencies such as the CBC in broadcasting and Parks Canada in museums, and where it participates directly in cultural industry areas such as film through the National Film Board and Telefilm Canada. These are flagship programs that set a standard of performance for provincial agencies right across the country, and draw a line in terms of saying what professional level of input or expertise is needed before public money will flow into a project, in which we hope there will also be private sector participation.

So I am very concerned that the federal government continue in those roles where it is able to set a standard of performance and quality.

I'll close my remarks there.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you very much.

Barbara.

Ms. Barbara Campbell: I'm Barbara Campbell. I'm with the Multicultural Association of Nova Scotia.

My concern here today is that we make sure we preserve the expressive part of heritage within a federal cultural policy. We talk about architecture, museums, language and the like, but expressive heritage, as in song, dance, and music, is a very important part of our Canadian heritage. It is preserved in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and certainly mentioned in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, and a new policy for culture should definitely make very special mention of that.

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I'm afraid if we don't mention multiculturalism and expressive heritage, recent immigrants to Canada may not feel they are part of such a federal policy. Heritage refers to something that happens in the past, and multiculturalism addresses the current needs of the people who come to Canada.

Our funding has come from the Department of Canadian Heritage, from the multicultural program. The recent restructuring of the funding formula has caused us to be very concerned about long-term planning and sustainability. In fact, funding, from sustained funding to program funding, is what I'm talking about.

We now have to be extremely imaginative and be performers and musicians at times to come up with projects that will find funding or grants we can access. That's not always possible. We are always very concerned with corporate fundraising and staff supervision. Then you have to sit down and all of a sudden be the musician and come up with some very creative programs so we can continue to perform and serve our community.

Our programs are mainly in training and education. We have a little fun when we have our multicultural festival, but the majority of our triumphs are very serious programs that deal with publications and education. I'm hoping that when the federal policy on culture is being drafted, you will not forget the new immigrants and those who have built this country and continue to maintain their traditions throughout the country in so many different ways.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you.

Marion.

Ms. Marion Pape: Thank you.

I want to briefly mention to you the position libraries have within the overall heritage sector here in Nova Scotia. I wonder if you are aware of the Nova Scotia culture strategy we are now doing. It's an important model and the first model in the whole country to actually bring all aspects of the culture sector together. That includes the arts, the heritage, the cultural industries—the whole kit and caboodle. It's a rather wild experiment when you bring all of those people together, but we're making headway.

This is contributing to making us all aware of the importance of working together for the good of the whole larger sector. You can go so much further and do so much more when you work together. So I'm giving you a Nova Scotia model you can use at a federal level, because it's certainly working well here.

Libraries are very much community-based organizations. We have 75 of them across the province and they are fully connected. We are accessing the Web and providing training on the Web because we truly believe that until communities have the ability to access the information highway and start creating or having the facilities to create knowledge products, our economy as a whole will be held back. So I want to put libraries into that economic context in terms of facilitating the development of knowledge from communities.

I would also include community access sites with libraries. There's a whole large movement across Canada to provide connectivity to citizens where they work and operate from. It's a very proactive approach to building that whole knowledge economy in our country.

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But one of the things that are missing in the whole equation in this country—and this is a federal program that's being sponsored and provided very vibrant leadership by Industry Canada—is the Canadian content and the role of heritage in the development of knowledge products. I'd strongly exhort this panel to find a significant role in that area, because the Industry Canada mandate is economic, and I worry a lot about the initiatives that are now unfolding that don't have the guidance and support of all the cultural organizations coming together. The groups around this table and all of the other institutions that are involved with culture could contribute enormous amounts, and indeed already are contributing enormous amounts.

There are a lot of digitization projects springing out of the small communities. We have a tiny little community here in River John, Nova Scotia, that is doing a digitization project on the history of shipbuilding. The history of the cooperative movement in Canada and Nova Scotia is being developed. Our stories are being told. But there's such little support for these sorts of initiatives, and I would strongly encourage that to be given larger consideration.

The ubiquitous nature of technology is such that unless heritage plays a significant role in it, I feel we're going to lose it. And even in a bigger way—I look at the United States and the funding they are putting into the whole area of research into digitization. They have chosen this as one of their most strategic areas for development. I don't see much funding being put into research around the whole area of digitization of Canadian products.

This comes to our national organizations such as the National Library. They have a digitization effort in which they're trying to bring universities and other libraries across the province together to look at the products we can deliver. There is no funding in place for that. So I would say the National Library certainly has a role to play, as well as other library organizations, in terms of the organization and management of information.

I don't exclude, in any way, the archival organizations. This is something I think needs an effort from all of us to cooperate around.

The other thing I wanted to mention as a recommendation is that libraries do not have any federal funding source. The model that Anita mentioned with the CCA is one I would like to suggest and recommend as a model to look at some kind of funding base for libraries across the country. Through Anita's leadership and that of the other members here in Nova Scotia, I'm seeing some really interesting, innovative projects that are coming out of fairly.... It's not a lot of money, but it is making some progress. And if those community-based funding programs were increased, I really think we would get so much more mileage across this country in terms of cultural development.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you.

Al.

Mr. Al Chaddock: I feel I'm reminding myself of when I was a professional mariner at the age of 19 and 20 going around the world, and I feel I'm being asked to bring out a chart that I think we ought to be following for plotting a course. However, I'm hearing an argument on the bridge between the owner of the ship, the captain, and the navigator. And by their actions, I'm seeing that they all have different agendas, different ideals, and yet I'm supposed to choose the right chart.

So I'm going to speak a little more poetically on this subject, and I think I will get to the heart. I just heard a former Prime Minister of our country declare on national radio—while it was working—that the new law of this land is passed and made in Congress in the United States of America, because of a thing called the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he fought vehemently in opposition and won the majority of votes in support of not passing. But he didn't win the election, and the rest is perhaps Canadian history in capital letters.

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We are a signatory at the United Nations to an agreement on biodiversity. That is in acknowledgement of the fact that life will sustain itself on this imperilled planet only to the degree that it is allowed to be creative and locally adaptable. That is what natural selection is all about and that is how we are here today as life forms.

The behavioural equivalent of that is cultural diversity, and for a while Canada was leading the world in this wonderful experiment of cultural diversity. We called it “multiculturalism”. I am sad to see today that because of the increasing pressures of urbanization, we are losing a lot of our native languages, a lot of our different ways of seeing it viable for a man to live on this planet, in this great diverse country of ours.

I'm looking at the CBC, which was created deliberately with the political mandate to help us fend off American culture imperialism, and I'm seeing it being hobbled, broken, smashed, and now, I think, being led into the slaughterhouse. Without it, I don't think Canada as a mindscape is possible.

My profession is that of a professional artist. I'm a painter first and foremost; that's how I earn my living. I've done an in-depth portrait for 40 years of the culture of Atlantic Canada. I didn't wish it to be an archival journey, but I'm very sad to say that in that short period of time, one hell of a lot of what I've done an in-depth portrait of no longer exists. Most of rural Canada, where the strength of our society has evolved, especially its political strength, its democracy, its economic diversity, is inhabited by people with hair colour like mine. There's a generation missing; they've gone away.

I just saw a lovely Canadian movie called Conquest, starring French Canadian stars. It was placed in Saskatchewan, and it told the story of what is very much Canada. No young people live there any more, my friends; they're in the big cities. They've traded all kinds of values for those of monetarism. They're only following their government. It seems that the owner of the ship of state of Canada is no longer Canadians but a group of people we refer to as “transnational corporations”.

Our former Prime Minister, Mr. Turner, recently pointed out that $69 billion of Canadian assets were sold only last year to foreign buyers. In my industry, the cultural industry, less than 5% of any of the sectors of the cultural engine of the economy is in Canadian hands, and after it's fully implemented, the Americans have informed us from day one that they want all of it. In their country, 10% domination of any sector of their economy by any foreign power is grounds for congressional inquiry. Apparently that doesn't apply to this colony of theirs, and that's a phrase Mr. John Turner used. He said we have willingly become a colony of the United States of America. I can't tell you what it's like to be a teacher and to teach teachers on the issues of culture and heritage and do so in the light of this reality.

One of the last things Mr. Mulroney did as Prime Minister of this country, the look of which he was set to change forever and so seems to have done, was to change the Bank of Canada Act. It was the very last thing he did as Prime Minister.

Formerly, as the regulator of our economy, the Bank of Canada was answerable to the people of Canada through their Parliament. Economic policy was determined by the people of this country. He changed that and made it so that it acted like a crown corporation. We no longer have economic policy in this country; we have monetarism. That is not an ideology of any kind.

Yet we are all supposed to try to figure out how to keep this thing called Canada happening. I suggest to you that what Canada is and what it always has been is the world's dream of living together harmoniously, pursuing humanistic values and not trading them off for simple marketplace transactions. This is what monetarism makes you do. We have trashed our heritage, our legacy. Many argue that the way you really express the way you care about your neighbours and your community is the way you do business.

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Mr. Turner didn't use the words, but I'll use them. Our governing bodies, our power elites, by manipulating partisan politics, have betrayed the people of this country. All of us have no idea what chart to pull out, which course to follow. In our hearts we want to keep alive this great experiment of tolerance, of celebration, of difference, of nurturing—a different way of being. We are all proud whenever the United Nations does its polls of where you want to live in the world. We're all very happy to say, oh yes, it's Canada; Canada is number one.

The tragedy is if we don't know what Canada is because we can't experience Canadian movies and Canadian books and Canadian textbooks, if we can't experience Canada through cultural properties, what are the people of the rest of the world thinking of as Canada? It's obviously something higher than simply cultural artifacts. It's a dream, the dream that their forefathers came here pursuing. This is the precious thing we have to keep alive. This is our obligation to the whole planet, because if we can't make it work, the world won't make it work.

We're on the brink right now of the largest die-off of life and culture in the history of mankind, and most of it is because of our own stupidity and arrogance.

We have a tremendous obligation to resurrect this dream, this thing called Canada, as a way of being. That's what we as artists are trying to keep alive in our work in all of its forms, and yet everyday, more and more, we're being undermined by the business community, which is not even mostly a Canadian business community, telling us, oh no, no, that won't sell in the United States.

The movies we make must pretend to be in American cities, be American stories, and have childish American plots. By the way, in the American film industry, which happens to be in our country, they refer to Canadians as Mexicans with sweaters. I've been on the set and heard myself referred to in that way. They're here for the cheap labour and all the tax things we give them, and then they try to make Toronto look like New York.

The Canadian vision isn't coming through in the Canadian popular movies, but it's in the smaller alternative theatres, of which we have very few, where you can see glimpses of the thing called Canada.

I'm awfully sad when I hear my friends in Quebec going on about how English culture doesn't have much relevance to them. I remind them that the first soap opera I ever watched as a child was The Plouffe Family. We loved it in my community, which was an English community. We just treasured it. We were sad to see it go, as many in Quebec were sad to see Don Messer disappear, I'm sure.

What are we trying to do here? What do you want to hear from us?

The first step we have to do out of self-respect as a people, out of moral obligation to the people of this world, is to abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement. That's the first thing we have to do. That's the heritage we're all suffering now, a foreign imperial order being imposed upon us.

Canadian philosopher Eric Kierans lives here in my town. I know him. He's a great Canadian. He describes what we're suffering now as the rise of global corporate—cosmo-corporate—feudalism, which is an end-run by business around the laws of the nation states and the groups of nation states, like the United Nations, to lower us all to the lowest common denominators of labour standards, environmental standards, and human rights.

Yesterday the big story in Canada was that Levi Strauss has decided to close down the Canadian mills. These factories clothed my generation. Very few journalists tracked them to ground and had them admit that the reason they've done it is because they're taking advantage of cheap Mexican slave labour. That's where the jobs have gone.

What should we say to the people who used to work in those factories about their heritage? I don't know what we are going to say to those people. What do we say to the people who have lost the offshore fishery in this part of the world? What do we say to the people who are losing the forestry? We're losing 70 farms a year in this province alone—70 farms a year in Nova Scotia.

This means big business is getting control of all the natural resource base industry in this country, and it isn't Canadian businesses—it isn't.

I don't know what chart to pull out of the drawer for you fellows. I've been looking at the drawer for a long time. What chart? I think most Canadians are now at the stage where we're realizing that perhaps mutiny is in order—mutiny—because the people on the bridge of this ship of state are heading us towards rocks, dissolution, destruction.

• 1410

If as a painter I paint a vision of what I see, I'll own it for a long time. Nobody will want to see it. The truth isn't very nice.

My fellow artist here, Wendy, has tried to put the truth of what I'm talking about in her plays. They're all noble efforts and they succeed.

I hear it all across this country. Artists isolated, starving to death, needing assistance to get their work known by their own neighbours and their own communities.... No wonder Wendy went into politics. She grabbed the bull by the horns, and I respect her very much for doing it. I've always wrestled with it too, but I haven't made that step yet, although today it might not sound like that.

Anyway, on with the debate. It's only the debate to decide what Canada really is, and I don't think it's an American trade agreement.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you very much for your moving words.

We will move on to Martine.

[Translation]

Ms. Martine Jacquot: The Conseil culturel represents artists, educators, cultural workers and all those involved in the development of culture and the arts.

The relatively small number of members we do have are scattered across the province. We are in urgent need of regional infrastructures and of links with other francophones outside the province and around the world.

We do have a few cultural centres, notably La Picasse in Isle Madame and the Centre Carrefour du Grand Havre in Dartmouth. These are nerve centres for our members. However, do these centres adequately serve our needs? We need arts administrators and people willing to teach in this field. We need to encourage creativity at all levels.

People must become accustomed to living and breathing their Francophone culture here at home. Right now, they're not. We need to have events regularly staged in French.

Since I began observing Nova Scotia's francophone community, there's something that has dismayed and bothered me a great deal, and that is the amount of money that is wasted on strategic studies. Consultants are paid handsomely to draw up marvellous strategic plans. However, these plans never come to fruition because there is never any money. When it comes to giving artists work, there is never any money. Artists are starving while wonderful reports are gathering dust on the shelf.

Action is needed to address this situation, otherwise who knows what will happen? Young people will become discouraged and leave the province or be assimilated. Nova Scotia's Francophone culture will weaken and fade away.

Technology is clearly important to us and we are mindful of its impact. Without technology, we would not have been able to put out our first newsletter. How did we manage? Well, my only employee was snowed under with work and called me at home on a Sunday. I produced our newsletter at home on my computer, on my own time. I was happy to do it, but can things continue this way? I write novels and I have to earn a living. It's all well and good to help out and to volunteer my services, but at some point, things have to change.

Another important consideration for our small community is the export and sale of cultural products. Do we receive assistance targeted specifically for this purpose? Not enough. Do we have points of sale for our cultural products? Not really. Do young people get any encouragement? Not enough.

Recently, we met with the consultation committee and put forward a number of recommendations. To ensure a healthier standard of living for our community, we would need more effective involvement in the educational milieu, a regular schedule of cultural events, sales points from which to market our products and better media coverage. People don't even know that we exist. Our own newspapers don't even write about us.

• 1415

Are there any questions?

Mr. Yvon Aucoin: May I add something to that? I've also worked as an artist and therefore I can relate what Al Chaddock said earlier to working for artists.

As a coordinator, my interest lies in working for artists. However, the Conseil culturel represents different sectors, not just artists. It speaks out on behalf of educational institutions, cultural and historic societies and festivals. We came to realize that having one employee organize and administer everyone's project made absolutely no sense whatsoever. It was ridiculous.

Heritage Canada should make some provision in its operating budget for our yearly program scheduling because we spend our time wondering if we are going to get any funding. Then, when the time comes to organize these activities, we have to manage things ourselves, because time is short.

We need more staff. Consider other cultural or arts association that exist at the provincial level. The Anglophone community has DANS, a dance association, as well as film, theatre and visual arts associations.

We are one lone cultural association with a duty to represent all of these sectors. It's not that we want to favour one sector over another, although we do want to continue working for artists. When we consider the meaning of heritage, we need to understand that everything is linked, the arts, museums, educational institutions. All of this comes under the heritage banner.

If we want to increase our visibility and become more representative of the community we serve, then we still have much work to do, and the same goes for Heritage Canada.

I discussed this the other day with the Heritage Committee. We realize that in terms of educating the public, there is still a lot of work to do, even in so far as defining culture goes. Many people don't know what culture is, or they define it differently. Many equate culture with music or poutine. But it's much more than that.

As I was saying, we still need to work on enhancing public awareness of all facets of culture to ensure its visibility. Culture must also be disseminated.

That's pretty much all I wanted to say. If I am to continue my association with the Conseil culturel for some time to come, then I need your help and support.

Obviously, the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse, or FANE, also supports our efforts. Some members of FANE are here today, notably Director Jim Aucoin, and Julie Oliver who works for the Association des acadiennes de la Nouvelle-Écosse, which is affiliated with FANE.

Summing up, we need support at all levels. Thank you.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you very much.

Now I'd like to hear from our members of Parliament. We'll start with Wendy, and then we'll go to Joe, and Suzanne will be back.

Ms. Wendy Lill: Thank you.

This is really interesting, going around the table. I appreciated everyone's comments.

I guess I have to respond first to Al Chaddock's comments, because I think it's like the big picture. He has raised it for us, so let's get it out there on the table. I guess one of the big questions is, what is our culture in the environment we're living in today? We spoke with somebody in St. John's yesterday who eloquently said that culture is a country's self-esteem.

• 1420

I think about the Levi Strauss workers, and I think about all of the workers we know who are in fact seeing their jobs going south to Mexico. I think about the people who are just dying from various kinds of pollutants that they are fighting against, that they're trying to get rid of. I think of our children.

When I think of my son, I get very angry that I have an 11-year-old son who spent the last year just mired in Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton. I think that's sickening. I didn't want that to be the legacy of my son at 11. Joe Jordan was talking about going to Hungary for three years and being astounded that every kid he saw had a violin instead of a Walkman. I guess we shouldn't romanticize Hungary, but what is this culture that we're hanging onto now?

Sheldon Currie wrote a wonderful story called The Glace Bay Miner's Museum. He railed against the fact that the mine was everything in the lives of the Cape Bretoners. He said we were farmers, we were sailors, we were fiddlers, and that we had dreams and language, that we had all of these things, that these things are our culture. I think that's a very modern story. He was talking about the mine, but when I rewrote Sheldon's story for the stage, I had in my mind some very modern images. What about the technology that is rolling over us? That is certainly causing our culture to change drastically, so it's part of our culture.

The concept of culture as self-esteem is a tremendous grounding point for me. When I think about heritage issues and multicultural issues, they're all affected by that as well. We're hanging on for dear life to artifacts, but we are also creating our own artifacts. What are the ones we're creating right now in the nineties, as we're having this panel? That's really a central question to ask, so I'm really glad to be part of this conversation.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you.

Joe.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I just want to talk a little bit about some of the specifics, but I want to thank the presenters first.

In terms of your particular sectors, I guess what we're hearing is that there are programs in place. In some cases they are working well, but the pipeline is too narrow. In other cases, such as with the Young Canada Works, it's almost as if the application process is supposed to eliminate applications before they start, so that the numbers look better. I don't know, but that's good feedback.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the things Al said. Al, you asked us rather rhetorically what it is that we want to hear. I would answer you that I wanted to hear exactly what you said. I'm also on the environment committee, and there are amazing similarities and synergies. If you look even at the way we structure our government, its structured along the lines of silos. As one gentleman said, it's all connected.

One of the threats—and you alluded to it—from the MAI or with the free trade agreement is that we're in a situation in which multinational corporations are larger than governments. By reducing the arguments to economics, we lose. We always do lose and we're always going to lose. I like to use the analogy that we seem to be operating our societies off an income statement. I have a business background, so I think that's fine. But there's also a balance sheet. We're using things up. There are expenses associated with generating revenues, but we seem to have either forgotten that or we don't want to admit it. We need to get back to that.

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I think one of the challenges for Canadians is that it's all or nothing. I think we have to draw a line in the sand. You can see what's happening with the magazine policy. We take a stand there and the sabres rattle in the steel industry or in the softwood lumber industry. So I don't know how we get at that collective will.

• 1425

Wendy made reference to the same analogy that I wrote down yesterday. As a politician who is sort of a late-comer to the value of culture, “societal self-esteem” is a very quick way of giving it a definition that people can relate to. Knowing ourselves, understanding ourselves, is part of our survival skills in a global world that is requiring us to develop and make those skills keener.

It's going to require a tremendous amount of courage for a nation to say, enough, let's develop self-sufficiencies, let's ensure that our economy is healthy, that our society is healthy, that our environment is healthy, let's trade our surpluses and not rely on trade for our food. In that regard, you can see what happened with the pork industry. The supply-managed commodities in this country were fine.

I guess I'm arriving at the same point you are at in terms of the political machinery that would make it happen. That's where my real fears lie. I think one of the things that interested me about the PC race was the support that David Orchard got. I think there is a latent view out there that something has to be done.

I come from a town that has lost 1,800 manufacturing jobs because American companies have just picked up and gone. The free trade agreement? Where's the benefit, and who's getting it? If it was finding its way to the street, then we could use those revenues to aggressively intervene and protect culture. But we seem to be losing all the battles simultaneously here.

I guess the question I'm leading to is whether or not Canadians value this thing called culture enough. On a very superficial level—and I'm playing devil's advocate, because I don't even my own words when I say it—when people say time and again that they need more money, are Canadians not stepping up to the plate? Do they not recognize the individual needs in their own lives that these products and cultural services fulfil? Is that something we need to address? Or are we at the point at which government needs to absolutely intervene—you know, build it and they will come back?

In terms of policy, I think we unfortunately still have to make those economic arguments, but I think they can be made if people have an expanded view of what the costs are that we recognize. If somebody wants to talk about the economics of culture, then I want to make sure they're including all the benefits and all the costs that would happen throughout society, not just in the narrow silos where they're very comfortable making arguments against.

It's a tremendous crossroads that we're at, if in fact we haven't already passed the turn. I don't know. Is it a case that Canadians have, for whatever reason, lost their sense that this has value? In that case, does it have to be reintroduced very aggressively? Or is it there and is it something that could be nurtured to try to create audiences for these things?

I know I've thrown a tremendous amount out on the table.

Mr. Al Chaddock: May I respond?

Mr. Joe Jordan: Sure.

Mr. Al Chaddock: I think the problem, first of all, is that you can't miss what you don't know. The text books children are reading in schools are printed in the United States. The movies they watch are from the United States. The TV shows are from the United States. The art magazines they read are from the United States.

Here in Nova Scotia, after many years of struggle, those of us in the arts community have finally gotten our government to understand the importance of the cultural industries to our economy. It's now the number one engine. I think it's almost the same as tourism in terms of revenue. In bowing to this, the government has made it so that you have to have a high school credit in the fine arts to get your high school diploma. At the same time, however, it's taking all the money and is putting it into computerization and Internet hookups. It's drawing money away from anything that promotes creativity, imagination and individualism amongst the student body.

• 1430

I go into the schools all the time, as an artist, a philosopher, or a musician—whatever hat I'm wearing—and it's always the same story from all the teachers charged with nurturing this very central part of what education should be, which is self-exploration, learning to be confident in expressing yourself, and believing that individual ideas have merit. The story is the same: well, we have no money. No, we had to close that room down. No, we don't have the art room any more.

I was just at the Halifax Grammar School yesterday, which is like an elite school here; it's the rich kids' school. I was talking about the role of art in western civilization. I was shocked as I went through the afternoon to find out that only two of them knew who Joe Howe was. Now, I remind you Joe Howe invented publicly funded education, not Sir Charles Tupper. He won freedom of the press, freedom of expression, which is dear to any artist. He was the key guy in establishing responsible government in the world. This man in any other country would have cities and states named after him. In his home town the kids of the power elite don't even know who he was. Do we have work to do? You bet. We have a tremendous amount of work to do.

Most of us would like at least to feel that our government in Ottawa understood its role is to subordinate all sectors of the economy to higher values than simply those of the market. This is what monetarism is: when the market is the law. Well, you know, there's a sad fact about this country. You can freeze to death outside for almost half of the time. We can't just turn our backs on our neighbours. The further north we go, we discover an African saying that it's a poor village where there is one poor man. Here we are about to enter a new millennium, embarrassed as hell that one in four Canadian children lives in poverty, and the UN, which we have been a main proponent of, is pointing its finger at us accusingly and justifiably. I am terribly embarrassed as a Canadian for this situation. I'm embarrassed about a lot of things my country has been doing lately. I think a lot of Canadians are.

Our cousins to the south have become so disenchanted with the democratic experiment it's hard to get even 30% of them out to vote any more. I remind you that at the height of the Russian empire, 30% of the people worked for the government. We are fast approaching those kind of figures. When the people give up on believing in democracy, the people who simply want to rob the resources from the people, including the cultural resources, have no opposition. There will be no opposition, except the odd silly artist who sticks their neck out long enough to have their head cut off, which is what happens all over this country.

I can get very angry and moved on this—it is my life. I'd like us to think for a moment about what we mean by “to culture”. It's first meaning is to promote the growth of something. I'd like to remind you that all over the world, while these different languages and cultures still exist—as fast as they're disappearing—most people's names for themselves, translated into English or French, mean human being. This is how we describe ourselves to each other—human beings. Canada was evolving a way of being humane, of not just having laissez-faire capitalism be the law of the land. And we've turned our backs on it. And yes, Mr. Mulroney accomplished his aims. He made it so that we don't recognize our own home any more.

I want to see this story on our screens, in our paintings, in our books. This is the noblest experiment in liberal humanism in history. It's happening here; it's called Canada. The U.S. is an old European-style nation state. They haven't got a clue what we're doing up here. Right now they're passing laws banning the use of Spanish. Imagine if we had done this with Quebec. We would have been at war a long time ago. Theirs isn't one of tolerance. By the way, the very first major film ever made in the United States was made in Hollywood and it was made by a Canadian. It was called Intolerance. If an American company made a film on the story of Canada, I wonder what would be the title. Would it be Acquiescence?

• 1435

We are doing nothing less than fighting for life on this planet. If Canada fails, who else is going to work out an experiment like this? Who else has achieved such phenomenal success as we have? The Yanks should be up here right now talking to us about how to establish a multicultural society, or at least a bicultural society, and have it that we don't shoot each other over every argument. We have much to sell them.

A friend of mine is head of the Writers Guild of Canada. Do you know where 30% of Canadian screenwriters reside? They reside in Los Angeles. We have a phenomenal pile of talent within this thing called Canada. If we ever called them all home and said, all right, to hell with the Yanks, let's tell the world our take on life on this planet, let's up the ante, let's get where weapons don't mean anything, and let's get into people's dreams....

When it comes to Céline Dion and many other Canadian artists who step onto the world stage, we're finding that in many cases they are incomparable. They're so strong, so unique, so humane, not that Céline in particular is a good example of that. We're surprised to find out how good Canadians can be in these ventures. They all have the same story when you ask, what was your reaction when you found out you were number one in the world? Do you know what they say? They had to become so strong at home because there was so little help. They had to learn all aspects of the business, and they only stepped forward onto the world stage when they had done all their homework.

There's a lot of strength in this. There's a lot of wisdom in that. We're doing some things right, whether we know it or not. If we actually tried to help this happen, then maybe we could go into Kosovo and have them understand who we are and not shoot at us because we don't have guns.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you very much.

I'll go to Allison, then Suzanne, and then we'll take some comments and questions from the audience.

Mr. Allison Bishop: Thank you.

If I remember correctly, the first film made in Canada was Evangeline, and it was made about 1,500 feet from where we're sitting today. That might have been the start of a great movie industry involving both cultures in Canada.

Al Chaddock has made the point that we need a chart. I think back to many years of attending federal-provincial cultural conferences in which one of the most frustrating aspects was the fact that Canada did not have a cultural policy. It did not have a cultural chart. Some people around the table threw up their hands and said this falls strictly under provincial jurisdiction and so on. But the lack of that chart, the lack of that policy, I believe, has been one of the factors that over the years resulted in a marginalization of the discussion of culture in Canada. I think if you even go back to the parliamentary records at the time the Canada Council was established, you'll see that involved almost a discussion on marginalization. It came about after the fact, in a way.

We've had this problem of bringing culture into the mainstream and into the centre of Canada. We have the problem of not having a culture policy. Perhaps it should be a humanistic policy. Maybe the two, in terms of what Al was saying, are in fact very much intertwined, as so much in culture is interrelated today.

As I look at the questions you have here and listen to what is being said by the participants around the table, it seems to me what it is rolling toward is a need for the acceptance of the concept that Canada must have a cultural policy that speaks to the maintenance of things such as the CBC and Radio-Canada, and to the whole issue of trade publishing and magazine publishing, and that identifies for our cousins to the south what it is we're all about. We're not just trying to hold up Maclean's magazine and two or three other publications. This is something that is meaningful because it's a medium through which Canadians tell stories to each other.

Al also made the point about Canadian films having to look like they took place in New York, Indianapolis, or some other American city. That's not what we should be doing. I don't believe that's the kind of story other markets outside of the United States want to see for Canadian films.

• 1440

So what I would plead with you as a committee to do is to look at the evolution of a Canadian cultural policy. Hopefully this would not involve the kind of long-term negotiation with the provinces we're familiar with in the constitutional negotiations. This should be something where provinces and ministers who represent the cultural jurisdictions can come together and, working with CCA and other elements of the Canadian cultural community, find a way to put something on the table so that there is essentially a line drawn in the sand—if I can use those words—that says this is what Canadian culture is all about. This helps to define what Canadians are and what they do.

It involves a lot more than simply the arts or heritage. It is about the Canadian way of life. Al put it very eloquently. In many ways it's different from other forms of life on the North American continent, and we really need to have that policy as a central factor to combat the monetarism that prevails.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you.

Suzanne.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I was a little concerned earlier when Mr. Allison Bishop said that Canada needed to set some standards. Just now, he stated that Canada's needs a cultural policy. Clearly, such a policy is critical because culture defines a people.

However, if the provinces were to sit down with the federal government in an attempt to define a cultural policy, setting aside the fact that Quebec is a nation with its own culture to be preserved, than the dawn of the fourth millennium would be upon us and we still would not have come to any kind of agreement.

What's striking is that non-Francophone Canadians have, for the most part, either identified with American culture, or have not given much thought to the whole cultural question. Quebec's saving grace has been the French language which has kept the province somewhat isolated. It has protected the province from encroaching American culture. What Canada needs is to find a way to rediscover its own vibrant culture.

I recall the first battle I waged in Ottawa as a rookie MP in 1993. I opposed the sale of Ginn Publishing Canada. We lost the battle. The Mulroney government left its mark. When we asked Mr. Dupuy for evidence to support this decision, he responded in the House that enough had already been said about the issue. You can consult Hansard if you like. No one had ever said anything like this before.

No justification was in fact ever given, but the Mulroney government went ahead anyway and sold this publishing house to the Americans, who subsequently sold it off to someone else. As a result, as we predicted in 1993, 98 per cent of all textbooks used in English schools in Canada are published by American firms.

When school children learn to do math and read from grade one onward using American textbooks, they learn American terminology and acquire an American mentality. How can we expect them to develop a Canadian identity overnight?

In my view, and I'm not trying to be pretentious, Canada has an opportunity to adopt and defend its own unique culture. Perhaps we could sit down together and discuss ways of defending this Canadian culture. That is a mission that I would like to undertake.

Reporters often ask why a separatist like myself defends Canadian culture. My response to them is that when Quebec finally does become a sovereign nation, Canada will need to be strong and to have a vibrant culture, one with which its people can identify. Culture defines a people.

If we can sit down together and address this issue, then so much the better. However, let me tell you here and now that we won't let our culture be swallowed up by Canadian culture, as the Americans have tried to do to yours.

• 1445

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Go ahead.

[Translation]

Ms. Martine Jacquot: I'd just like to add something to that. I agree with everything you said, but I do believe that artists should have a greater say in deciding the cultural fate of the province and indeed the entire country.

I often visit schools. In fact, I'm currently an artist in residence. I talk to students about multiculturalism. They are good listeners and it's easy to convince them. The teachers are the ones who need to be educated. They don't know a great deal about this subject.

Secondly, on the issue of restructuring and decision-making, who is giving the orders? Public servants, business leaders, people who have the mind set of accountants, not people with vision. Again, I think artists must be consulted.

[English]

By the way, Charles Tupper was the one who closed the French schools. Thanks to him, Acadians had no French schools for years and years.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I'd just like to add, Mr. Chairman, that I think our guest is quite right about this extremely important issue.

Consider what's happened in Quebec. The gentleman also mentioned this. When La Famille Plouffe was on television, the streets were deserted. Artists such as Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault, Daniel Lavoie, a transplanted Manitoban, Carmen Campagne from Saskatchewan, Antonine Maillet who has lived in Montreal for 40 years - all of these people have helped to shape us. Their language has protected them. In Quebec, we watch television programs produced especially for Quebeckers.

When four million people, out of a total population of seven million, tune in Monday evenings to watch La petite vie or Omerta, it's because they identify with these programs which reflect their way of life.

I was surprised to hear broadcasting industry people report how disappointed they were that Céline Dion didn't count for much when it came to French-language quotas. I didn't talk about this yesterday because there wasn't enough time. It's a good thing she doesn't count, because Céline Dion has become an American or universal performer. In her soul she is neither a Quebecker nor a Canadian. Her songs reflect nothing of what Quebeckers experience. As a performer, she earns US dollars. Therefore, it's a good thing she doesn't count when it comes to Canadian quotas. We mustn't let ourselves be fooled by the fact that she has strong ties to Montreal. That doesn't make a person a Canadian or Quebecker. We need to be careful and resist this way of thinking.

In my opinion, we need to look to our artists. They need to be given the tools with which to produce films and publish books. The government already helps them, but more must be done. Since the government set up the cable broadcasting fund, more programs are being produced. Companies are required to produce these programs. The CBC's ratings have not plummeted because now, Canadian programs are being produced for prime time viewing. English Canadians enjoy watching programs that are a reflection of them just as much as we do.

Of course, when there was nothing interesting to watch on television, viewers preferred to tune in to ABC rather than the CBC. However, I do think that we are on the right track here.

Mr. Yvon Aucoin: If I could just add something, I think artists can initiate changes just as much as politicians can, at least I would hope so. However, politicians and artists are often on different wavelengths. These two groups must be willing to communicate if we hope to make any sense of all of this.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you very much.

I must get to our audience. As I indicated, the audience should participate, so I invite audience participation. There are two microphones. We are at our close. We've been here almost two hours. We have about 10 minutes. Please step up in front of the microphone and identify yourself.

[Translation]

Mr. Jim Aucoin (individual witness): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Jim Aucoin and I'm the Director General of the Fédération acadienne de la Nouvelle-Écosse. I'm very pleased that you have come here to discuss the problems we have in Nova Scotia when it comes to the federal government and Heritage Canada.

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Nova Scotia, the cradle of Acadia, is grappling with an enormous problem right now. You mentioned culture. To me, language is the genuine reflection of culture. It's very important that [Editor's Note: Inaudible]

Today, Acadians are being assimilated by the province's Anglophones. We are losing our language and English is winning out. We are also losing out to Quebec and Quebeckers because one million Acadians now live in that provinces. While that's not threatening in itself, losing our own language here in Nova Scotia is a serious concern.

Acadians are survivors. I could give you a brief lesson, but I think you're familiar with the history of our people. We still have a vibrant community right here in Nova Scotia. However, over the past decade, with the closure of the fishery—as you know, Acadian regions were largely dependent on the fishery for their livelihood—and federal government cuts to official language and heritage programs, we are facing a serious problem.

I don't want to take up too much time, but I would like to try and convince Ms. Copps to earmark more money sometime during the next two or three weeks for Canada-community agreements.

We truly depend on volunteers here in Nova Scotia when it comes to our culture. That fact has been emphasized here today. I enjoyed listening to people's presentations because the truth was spoken. We mustn't ever forget those who volunteer their services because they have worked very hard.

However, since the funding was cut, our volunteers are suffering from burnout. They are exhausted from trying day after day to find the money to carry out cultural initiatives.

If the assimilation process isn't halted, we will no longer be able to talk about a bilingual Canada, because there will no longer be any Acadians who speak French. We will no longer be able to speak of a francophone community in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland or Prince Edward Island. It may well survive in New Brunswick, but not in Saskatchewan, Alberta or British Columbia. Manitoba and Ontario may still have francophone communities, but Canada will no longer be a bilingual country. All we'll be left with is Quebec, and the rest of Canada.

If the federal government is sincere in saying that it wants our country to remain bilingual, with two official cultures and two official languages, then it must allocate the necessary funding for cultural programming in this province, for language services and everything else we've talked about today, so that Acadian culture can remain a vibrant, going concern.

Thank you very much.

[English]

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you for your comments.

I'll entertain one more intervention from the audience before we close.

Mr. Irvine Carvery (Individual Presentation): I thank you very much. My name is Irvine Carvery. I'm president of the Africville Genealogical Society, and I've been quite interested in the comments around the table today.

I empathize with my friends from Quebec. There were some interesting comments about the French people living in isolation and that being a blessing in terms of their being able to maintain their separate culture away from that of the Americans.

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We indigenous African Canadians here in Nova Scotia have suffered the same type of discrimination, if not to the same extent, but in isolating us through racism and prejudice it has allowed us to develop our own particular brand of culture here in Nova Scotia, rich and vibrant. The problem gets to be that many of the programs and many of the discussions that take place tend to focus on the very larger groups. Our heritage, in terms of our existence here in this country, is that we've been a people here for as long as everyone else other than the first nations, the Micmac people.

The other issue I want to raise is about what my friend, the Acadian, spoke about in terms of the danger of the loss of their language here in Nova Scotia. We unfortunately lost our language. We were brought here not willingly but unwillingly, and we were never allowed to practise our languages from our mother country, Africa.

It's appropriate that you're here this month, it being African Canadian History Month, and I thought it appropriate that I stand before you and make the federal government once more aware that we are here. We do have a very vibrant history and culture. We would like to see it reflected in our cultural institutions. The problem is, because of the racism that I spoke about, we African Canadians do not have the economic ability to be able to promote an infrastructure to let the rest of Canada and the rest of the world know about our history and our culture. We need the assistance of all levels of government in achieving this so that we can partner in it.

There are the linkages between here and—we heard it talked about—south of the border, the Americans. We have a distinct problem in that our young people today are watching television. The images projected through that television screen are those of Americans, and our young people think, because we've had such a lack of positive image for African Canadians, that this is the image in which we should project ourselves. That's not true. We African Canadians are different from African Americans in our culture, in our values and in our value systems. We come from a culture of a very small community in which community values are esteemed and held true. Our cultural institutions in our communities have been our churches, and the halls and things that go along with our churches. I don't see that reflected in the discussions or papers when we start to talk about heritage. It seems to be outside this circle of where the talk is going.

Most importantly, the point I wanted to bring to this committee is that in all areas of arts—in the area of music, in the area of heritage, in the area of culture—we do have something to offer the country of Canada. If you look at the background for African Nova Scotians, you'll find it very similar to that of African Ontarians in the Windsor area and Amherstburg area who came over escaping slavery in the United States. You will find that a lot of the values that are shared here in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are also shared in the southern part of Ontario.

So our history, our presence here in Canada, is unique from that of those who have come later. We've had immigration into Canada of Africans descended from the West Indies, from Africa and from England. One of the things we tend to do here in Canada is lump everyone into a group, but our experience is a truly Canadian experience. We are reflective of that Canadian experience, which is different from the immigrant coming in from the West Indies, from the islands or from England. We have something to share with all our fellow Canadians, and I don't believe we can truly move ahead as a country in terms of protecting and describing our culture unless we are part of that mosaic.

I want to thank you for your time.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): Thank you very much for your comments, as we bring to a close the first of three sessions this afternoon and this evening. Many of you have contributed an immense amount of information that will certainly help this committee do its work. I'd like to thank you on behalf of the heritage committee.

The last word goes to you, Wendy.

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Ms. Wendy Lill: I want to thank everyone for coming today. It was a very different day from yesterday.

I listen to Irvine Carvery and I hear someone who is actually talking about culture as he's living and experiencing it in his community. And I hear Al Chaddock also doing it. He's expressing the concerns about the culture that he's seeing. I think many of the people here are the gatekeepers, in a way. Because they care about culture, they are out there doing the collection and the preservation of culture, and it's a very important job they're doing.

I'm thinking back on the multicultural festival I was at six months ago, and I'm looking at Barbara Campbell, because I remember thinking everybody on this stage is young, they're all young, and they were full of huge excitement about the culture that they were presenting for a brief moment on that stage. We have to think about this idea of culture and nurturing. It's like making things grow. How are we going to make culture grow in this country? How are we going to continue to give our culture nutrients and self-esteem?

We can't just deny the fact that there are many problems that are really hurting our self-esteem at this point, in terms of our control of our own resources, and our own communications, and our political levers of power. So all of these things have to be part of our culture, and it's really exciting that this is taking place at this table. So I hope everybody felt they had their needs partially met here.

But it's like an ongoing conversation. It's really a great conversation that should be happening a whole lot more in our classrooms and in our media, and in our living rooms and kitchens, and I'm all for it. Let's go for it.

Thank you very much for coming.

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. Inky Mark): We will certainly do that, continue the conversation and discussions. I would invite our table guests and our audience to stay, if they have the time.

I will declare a 10-minute recess and we then will resume our discussion.