McMichael Canadian Art
Collection Amendment Act, 2000, Bill 112, Mrs Johns
/Loi de 2000 modifiant la Loi sur la Collection
McMichael d'art canadien, projet de loi 112,
Mme Johns
Mr Pierre
Berton
Ontario Association of
Art Galleries
Ms Joyce Zemans
Dr Robert
Salter
Kleinburg Business
Improvement Association
Mr Paul Reinhardt
Canadian Museums
Association
Ms Janet Brooke
Mr Paul
Duval
Ms Mary
Mastin
Mr John
MacEachern
Ontario Museum
Association
Ms Marie Lalonde
Mr Barry Lord
Mr George
McLean
Ms Pat
Fairhead
Ms Mary
McArthur
Mr Robert
McMichael
Ms Virginia
MacDonnell
STANDING COMMITTEE ON
GENERAL GOVERNMENT
Chair /
Président
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente
Mrs Julia Munro (York North / -Nord PC)
Mr Toby Barrett (Norfolk PC)
Mrs Marie Bountrogianni (Hamilton Mountain L)
Mr Ted Chudleigh (Halton PC)
Mr Garfield Dunlop (Simcoe North / -Nord PC)
Mr Steve Gilchrist (Scarborough East / -Est PC)
Mr Dave Levac (Brant L)
Mr Rosario Marchese (Trinity-Spadina ND)
Mrs Julia Munro (York North / -Nord PC)
Substitutions / Membres remplaçants
Ms Caroline Di Cocco (Sarnia-Lambton L)
Mrs Brenda Elliott (Guelph-Wellington PC)
Clerk / Greffière
Ms Anne Stokes
Staff /Personnel
Ms Lorraine Luski, research officer,
Research and Information Services
The committee met at 1531 in committee room
1.
SUBCOMMITTEE REPORT
The Chair (Mr Steve
Gilchrist): Good afternoon. I call the committee to
order and welcome the members and guests. Our first item of
business will be to simply put the minutes of the subcommittee
report on the record.
Mr Dave Levac
(Brant): The standing committee on general government
subcommittee on committee business, report of the
subcommittee.
Your subcommittee met on
Wednesday, October 11, 2000, to consider business before the
committee and recommends the following:
(1) That the committee meet
on Monday, October 16, 2000, and Wednesday, October 18, 2000, in
Toronto to hold public hearings into Bill 112, An Act to amend
the McMichael Canadian Art Collection Act.
(2) That the Chair be
authorized to request from the House leaders permission for the
committee to meet until 7:00 pm on October 16 and 18, 2000.
(3) That, if required, a
further one and a half hours of public hearings be held on
Wednesday, October 25, 2000, to accommodate scheduling witnesses
and that clause-by-clause consideration of the bill be undertaken
after scheduled witnesses on October 25, 2000.
(4) That an advertisement be
placed on the Ont.Parl channel and the Legislative Assembly Web
site. The clerk is authorized to place the ads immediately.
(5) That each of the three
caucuses provide a list of witnesses to the clerk by noon on
Thursday, October 12, 2000, to schedule. Once the three lists are
scheduled, the clerk will schedule those interested parties who
have called into the clerk's office until the scheduled time is
full.
(6) That witnesses be given a
deadline of Wednesday, October 18, 2000, at 5:00 pm to make their
request to appear before the committee.
(7) That witnesses be given a
deadline of Wednesday, October 25, 2000, at 5:00 pm for written
submissions.
(8) That witnesses by
allotted 10 minutes for each presentation.
(9) That amendments should be
received by the clerk of the committee by Thursday, October 19,
2000, at 3:00 pm for distribution to the members of the committee
by 5:00 pm that day.
(10) That the clerk of the
committee, in consultation with the Chair, be authorized prior to
the passage of the report of the subcommittee to commence making
any preliminary arrangements necessary to facilitate the
committee's proceedings.
The Chair:
Is there any debate on the subcommittee report? Seeing none, I'll
put the question.
All those in favour of the
adoption of the report? Carried.
MCMICHAEL CANADIAN ART COLLECTION AMENDMENT ACT,
2000 / LOI DE 2000 MODIFIANT LA LOI SUR LA COLLECTION MCMICHAEL
D'ART CANADIEN
Consideration of Bill 112, An
Act to amend the McMichael Canadian Art Collection Act / Projet
de loi 112, Loi modifiant la Loi sur la Collection McMichael
d'art canadien.
PIERRE BERTON
The Chair:
That takes us to the business at hand. Our first presenter has
already joined us: Mr Pierre Berton, no stranger to anyone here.
Thank you very much for kicking off our hearings here today. I
apologize that we have a relatively short period of time for each
presentation. It may limit questions back from the committee, but
hopefully it will give each of our presenters time to express
their views. The floor is yours, sir.
Mr Pierre
Berton: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I'll do my best. I'm
supporting, as you know, the legislation which would maintain the
terms of the original 1965 agreement between the McMichael family
and, at that time, the conservation authority. It's become very
controversial recently, which is interesting because there was a
time when all three major political parties, Conservatives,
Liberals and NDP, supported unanimously the idea of the McMichael
conservation collection in its original form.
As you know, James Renwick of
the NDP as early as 1972 tried to get the legislation passed; he
tried again in 1982. In fact, at that time he had the NDP caucus
and the Liberal caucus on his side unanimously. It was rejected
by Premier Davis, not because he didn't like it. He didn't think
there was any need for it. He was a very strong supporter, as was
John Robarts, of the McMichael agreement and he wrote to one of my neighbours who
complained, "The government does not intend to break the
agreement," and the government didn't at that time.
But in 1989, as you remember,
the agreement was nullified, and I think that was a mistake. We
had then a period of what I would call empire-building at the
McMichael gallery, in which all sorts of ideas were tossed about.
I remember interviewing Barbara Tyler, the then curator of the
gallery, and she told me, somewhat to my astonishment, that they
intended, if they could, to empty the present log building,
reserve it as staff quarters and move all the paintings into a
new glass and steel gallery which would go down the side of the
Humber Valley right to the trees, which would have to be torn
down to maintain it. I thought that was unnecessary and I think I
wrote about it at the time and caused a lot of trouble.
Premier Harris, with whom I
do not always agree, has been vilified by some of the art critics
for what they say is "superimposing his tastes on the art world."
That is just a silly remark, if you ask me. What he is trying to
do is go back to square one, where we began, and rectify what I
think was a major error on the part of the previous government,
the Liberal government.
You see, I see the McMichael
gallery as much more than just another art gallery. It's unique.
It represents to me a memorial, just like a war memorial does, to
a time in our history, a shining period, when we stood on our own
feet as Canadians and decided to be ourselves. We had the memory
of Vimy behind us and the whole of the Great War, where we got
international accolades. We were rejecting British titles, I
think sensibly. We were coming to the end of the imperialist
regime. We were standing on our own feet, insisting on getting a
place of our own in the League of Nations and our own vote in the
League of Nations, to which American opposition was very great.
We went into the Balfour Declaration, which led to the Statute of
Westminster, which insisted that we were the same, not under the
coverlet of the British Empire but equal, and in no way
subordinate one to another with the other Commonwealth
nations.
In the forefront of this
nationalistic revolution were the writers and the artists,
especially the artists, this group of painters who came together
and formed the Group of Seven in 1921 but who knew each other
very well and had worked together before. They decided to show
Canadians something about their country that they did not
understand because they looked at it with different eyes. They
showed them that the time had been passed to copy the brown oaks
of Constable and instead replace them with the scarlet maple
leaves of Ontario, and that's what happened. They were in the
forefront of this nationalistic movement, they and a few of their
contemporaries; people like Emily Carr, David Milne and several
others who are mentioned in this original document.
It's important, I think, that
they have their own gallery and that that gallery not be watered
down by works which have nothing to do with what we are talking
about. I am very fond of modern abstract art, I hang a lot of it
in my house, but I don't think there's a place for that art of
the 1950s and the 1960s and the 1970s in a gallery which is
devoted to, really, the period I'm talking about, which is the
post-war period up to the Depression, when the Group of Seven
were an entity in this country. They should have their own museum
and it should be for them. It's a silly idea that flies in the
face all our knowledge of Europe, where many galleries bear the
name of one group of artists or one artist, such as the Matisse
gallery in southern France, which I have seen and which I very
much like.
The Group of Seven turned
their backs on Europe and became the first national art movement
in this country. They deserve not only to be remembered for that
but they deserve to be there in a place where the students of the
future can see what they did, because it was a remarkable
achievement. This gallery cannot be all things to all people, as
some people would like. It is not just another art gallery-it's
not the AGO, it's not the National Gallery of Canada-it is a
gallery which pays tribute to one group of artists and it should
continue to do so, and we should be proud that it does.
That's all I have to say, Mr
Chairman. I don't represent anybody here but myself, but I know
the gallery well. I've had two daughters who worked there as
guides; one of my daughters was married there. I've seen it grow
over the years to the present time and I hope it continues. Thank
you very much.
1540
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr Berton. I again appreciate your kicking
off our debate. Obviously, someone with your historical
perspective is very appropriate and I appreciate you taking the
time to come and make a presentation before us.
Mr Berton:
No questions?
The Chair:
Well, I don't trust any of my colleagues to do something in a
minute and a half. We have a hard time saying hello in that
amount of time, Mr Berton.
Mr Berton:
Thank you.
ONTARIO ASSOCIATION OF ART GALLERIES
The Chair:
The next presentation will be from the Ontario Association of Art
Galleries. Good afternoon, Professor Zemans. Welcome to the
committee.
Ms Joyce
Zemans: I was interested to hear what Mr Berton said. Is
Mr Berton still here? He seems to have left. I have a somewhat
different take on the subject. I'm an art historian by
profession. I've written about most of the members of the Group
of Seven in one way or another, in books or articles, and I've
spent a long time studying their work. I've distributed to you an
article that appeared in the Globe last week, and a copy of a
longer article, from which that was excerpted, which appeared on
the Globe and Mail Web site as well.
I'm speaking on behalf of the
Ontario Association of Art Galleries, and I know this view is
also shared by the Ontario Museums Association, whom you will be
hearing from later.
It is true that the gallery had, as its original
mandate, a requirement to respect and to present the work of the
Group of Seven and to focus on the work of the Group of Seven,
but I would suggest that any of you who knows the gallery in any
way, shape or form would associate the Group of Seven with the
McMichael collection of Canadian art. Indeed, it is
world-renowned because of its focus on this group, and what it
has done. I know the McMichaels are here, and I would like to pay
tribute to the McMichaels, because as the director of the
gallery, Robert McMichael himself added to the collection. He
collected over 270 different artists, some of them Inuit, some of
them First Nations artists, other artists who were predecessors
of the group; some who were contemporaries of the group; and some
who were, for that period, contemporary artists.
Indeed, in the 1970s Mr
McMichael wrote in the annual report of the McMichael gallery, on
several occasions, about how important it was to exhibit
contemporary art. So in fact if we are looking for an evolution
of the gallery and the way in which it respected the role, or has
and continues to respect the importance of the Group of Seven, I
think all we have to do is look at the gallery today. It reflects
not only the work of the group, the archival material that's
associated with it, but it also reflects the spirit of the
group-because most members of the Group of Seven were adamant
that the Group of Seven could not be frozen in time, could not
only be a landscape school.
If any of you had the
opportunity to see the exhibition called Art for a Nation, which
reproduced the Group of Seven's own exhibitions in their own
lifetime, the ones they mounted and curated, you will know that
the Group of Seven included artists from Quebec, they included an
artist from BC and from Manitoba, they included artists who
painted portraits-Fred Varley was a great portraitist-and they
included artists who painted abstractly. Kathleen Munn, who was a
very difficult artist, was first presented in a very strong way
by the Group of Seven. So was Bertram Brooker. These are the
artists who now we're talking about removing from the context of
the group, when their whole spirit was about the idea of creating
Canadian art, of looking to what was unique about the Canadian
experience, not only in representation of the landscape.
So I'll leave that point, but
I do think that we have a lot to think about when Robert and
Signe McMichael themselves broadened the collection, built on the
work of the group, understood what the focus of a gallery
dedicated to the Group of Seven and Canadian artists could be.
Again, with great foresight, they collected the work of First
Nations and Inuit art. Those collections appear in earlier
incarnations in the bills that reflect the responsibility of the
McMichael gallery. There's no reflection of the work of Inuit or
First Nations artists in the current bill.
Indeed, even the work of the
Group of Seven seems to be mocked in some way by the current
bill, when it says that the McMichaels' goal was to reflect the
beauty of Ontario in the first half of this century, when we know
the Group of Seven made a point of going far beyond Ontario and
of representing the whole of Canada, the north. When you think of
the work of Lawren Harris, when you think of any of these
artists, you don't only think of a scene of Algonquin Park or
northern Ontario, as spectacular as those were. They made a point
of inclusiveness in terms of what Canada was about, what its
country was like, what its people were like and what its artists
were doing.
So I think, again, it's very
important to reconsider what this bill stands for and the
narrowness of the interpretation-much, much narrower than the
1965 agreement, which left the opportunity for the gallery
itself, for the curatorial staff and the board and the art
acquisitions committee, the art advisory committee, to determine
which artists had made contributions to the Canadian experience,
to Canadian art.
It seems to me that this bill
undermines this whole philosophy entirely and will in fact undo
the great work that has been done at this gallery, not only by
recent boards, but by the McMichaels themselves, if I may say
so.
I'd also like to say that I
think the government should be very much aware of the fact that
in this bill, and in the idea of removing significant portions of
the collection in order to remain true to what is apparently, or
perceived to be, the original mandate, there is a real question
about what will happen in terms of government responsibility for
this gallery. In the 1965 bill, the government agreed to pay 85%
of the costs of this collection. Today the government pays 40% or
less of the costs.
Now, if the collection is
narrowed, if it doesn't have its focus, as it currently does, not
only on the Group of Seven but on Inuit and First Nations
artists, the question will be, once the group of school children
has come, will they continue to come? Will they come back if
there isn't more and growing opportunities to see this work in
context? Will the Europeans who visit, in large measure because
of the Inuit and the First Nations collection, continue to come?
What will be the financial base on which this gallery will
operate in the future? It's not a private gallery, and there's
been a lot of confusion about this. This is a public gallery, and
the question today is how, in the public realm, galleries are
able to maintain themselves. They do it through earned
revenue.
I've read the report that
Deloitte & Touche did that was commissioned by the
government. They don't talk about changing the mandate at all.
What they talk about is the necessity for a clean external image,
an understanding of the purpose of this gallery, of the breadth
of this gallery and the importance of being able to attract new
works to this collection and to have donors, both of money and
works of art.
I have a question for you:
what is going to happen to those donors, who in the past have
given major collections and major works of art to the gallery?
What will happen to their successors? Are they going to be
prepared to give work to the gallery when it's clear that there
is no respect for their work?
The argument has been that the McMichaels'
collection has not been respected, but I would argue that it has
been fully respected. However, the idea of deaccession in work
that has been given by collectors since the gallery was
established and to pay no attention to the responsibility that
public galleries have to those collectors is extremely
problematic.
You've given me a very short
period of time and you've said, would I make specific
recommendations? If I'm asked to do so, I would say this: one, I
think the bill is unnecessary. I think that as it stands now the
original mandate is well respected in the existing legislation.
Secondly, were you to go forward with the bill, I think it must
remove paragraph 3 of section 1.1, the statement about collecting
pre-1950s work that reflects the beauty of Ontario.
1550
There should be a
re-introduction of the role of the gallery in collecting First
Nations and Inuit art. It is an outstanding collection and it is
known for this. It parallels the interest in the Group of Seven;
it is not in any way antithetical to it.
I think we have to make sure
in terms of the art advisory committee, as it's discussed in this
bill, where there's no place for professionals, where it is only
government-appointed members of the board and the McMichaels who
are the art advisory committee-I've served on that art advisory
committee. I've served on the board of the Art Gallery of
Ontario. I've served on the board of the art gallery of York
University. I've served on a number of boards. I have never seen
such a restrictive clause. I don't know how professionals could
operate in the environment that will be created by this bill. I
think someone had better sit down and really figure out how to
manage this collection and this public gallery in a publicly
responsible way, because it will be very difficult to do, given
the terms of the current legislation.
I'm very conscious of my
time. I see Mr Gilchrist looking at me and I'm thinking, oh, I'm
running over. But if you have any questions, I'd be very happy to
answer.
The Chair:
Actually, Professor, you were bang on your 10 minutes. You did a
very good job of following the schedule, and I do appreciate the
perspective you've brought to us here today. That's the whole
point of the hearings, to hear the different points of view.
Thank you for taking the time and thank you for bringing copies
of your articles as well.
ROBERT SALTER
The Chair:
Our next presentation is by Dr Robert Salter. Good afternoon,
Doctor. Welcome to the committee.
Dr Robert
Salter: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I wish to present a
personal brief, and Anne Stokes has very graciously given each of
you a copy of the five-minute presentation. I am an orthopaedic
surgeon, semi-retired from the Hospital for Sick Children.
The main conclusions that
I've come to from studying this subject are, first, that the
incredibly generous gift from Robert and Signe McMichael of an
enormous collection of paintings by Canada's famous Group of
Seven artists to the people of Ontario through the provincial
government in 1965 represents one of the largest such gifts in
the history of Canada. This gift also included the McMichaels'
splendid log residence, Tapawingo-an aboriginal word, by the way,
meaning "a place of joy"-and 14 acres of land in Kleinburg,
Ontario.
The 1965 agreement which was
signed by the Hon John Robarts, the then Premier of Ontario, and
by Robert and Signe McMichael clearly stated that the McMichaels
would be life members of a five-member advisory committee, and as
such would have a major say in advising and assisting the crown
in "establishing, developing and maintaining in perpetuity at
Tapawingo a collection of art reflecting the cultural heritage of
Canada."
In 1972, the collection was
established as a crown corporation. At that time, Bill 216
included the following statement: "8(b) The corporation may
expand, administer, or dispose of any money or property in
furtherance of its object, subject to the terms, if any, upon
which such money or property was given, granted, bequeathed,
leased, or otherwise acquired by the corporation."
In 1982, the Hon William
Davis, the then Premier of Ontario, stated in a letter to Mr
Beevor that, "The government does not intend to break the
agreement with the McMichaels, or to destroy the character of the
collection." A copy of this letter is attached.
In 1988, in a letter to
Robert McMichael, Barbara Tyler, the then director of the
collection, stated that the aforementioned clause 8(b) of the
1972 Bill 216 would be retained in the new legislation. A copy of
that letter is attached. However, the Liberal government
subsequently removed this clause without the permission of Robert
and Signe McMichael.
On September 30, 1999, I
wrote a personal letter to the Hon Michael Harris, the current
Premier of Ontario. I would like to quote from that letter, a
copy of which is attached.
"Dear Premier Harris:
"Re: The McMichael Canadian
Art Collection
"It has been a distinct
privilege for my wife, Robina, and me to know Robert and Signe
McMichael as good friends since 1962, that is, even prior to
their making the most generous gift of their Group of Seven
paintings to the government of Ontario. This was the exciting
beginning of the now world-renowned McMichael Canadian Art
Collection.
"You will be aware that the
terms of the original `1965 agreement' enabled the McMichaels to
have considerable control over the artistic content of the
collection in keeping with their original concept. As you know,
that agreement was later replaced by nefarious legislation that
took the essential decisions out of their hands. Understandably,
they have subsequently struggled steadfastly to have the `1965
agreement' reinstated. In the meantime, the quality and nature of
the acquisitions have changed significantly-and not for the
better.
"I have profound respect and admiration for Robert
and Signe McMichael and I agree completely with what I consider
to be their justifiable rights. Consequently, I implore you and
your colleagues to correct this lamentable and shameful injustice
to the most generous donors to the field of art in the history of
Canada. Indeed, your actions taken now to honour our outstanding
benefactors, the McMichaels, will be carefully observed by
historians for the future." Perhaps I should have added "voters"
as well.
On October 5, 1999, the
Honourable Michael Harris responded to my letter and stated that
he had "taken the liberty of forwarding a copy of your letter to
the Honourable Helen Johns, Minister of Citizenship, Culture and
Recreation, for her consideration." I have attached a copy of
this letter.
In a personal letter to me
dated November 17, 1999, the Honourable Helen Johns stated that,
"Ontarians are very appreciative of the gift from Mr and Mrs
McMichael and other donors whose contributions have created a
wonderful art collection in a unique gallery setting."
In the current year, 2000,
Bill 112 is being proposed as An Act to amend the McMichael
Canadian Art Collection Act. In essence, the amendments involve
revising the act back to the original 1965 agreement with Robert
and Signe McMichael.
Recommendation: The only
decent, just, and honourable action for the current government of
Ontario to take is to enact Bill 112, which in essence returns
the act to the original 1965 agreement of the government with
Robert and Signe McMichael. Consequently, I so recommend with
much enthusiasm.
I might summarize very
briefly what I take of Bill 112 from the explanatory note.
The bill recognizes the gift
of the McMichaels and their vision. It also recognizes that there
have been unwanted changes and that now it is appropriate to
return the collection and to maintain it in the spirit of its
original form in 1965.
The bill ensures that Robert
and Signe McMichael will be life members of the board of
trustees. The bill also ensures that Robert and Signe McMichael
will be members of the five-member art advisory committee that
will make recommendations to the board with respect to the
acquisition and disposal of artworks and also will be empowered
to designate the artists who have made contributions to the
development of Canadian art.
The precise nature of the
collection has been redefined.
The bill states that Robert
and Signe McMichael should continue to have significant roles in
matters related to the collection.
The functions of the art
advisory committee, which includes Robert and Signe McMichael,
have been clearly stated.
Finally, I applaud the
current government of Ontario for creating this legislation that
will return the collection to the original spirit and vision of
its founders, Robert and Signe McMichael. All of which is
respectfully submitted, sir.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Doctor. You've actually left us about three
minutes, and if you wish to take a question or two-
Dr Salter:
I would be pleased to do so.
The Chair:
The rotation starts with the Liberals. We just have time for one
caucus in this go-round.
Ms Caroline Di
Cocco (Sarnia-Lambton): I'd like to ask about the 1982
agreement that was signed. I believe at that time the 1982
agreement, in conjunction with legal opinion, changed the role
and even the management at the McMichael gallery. Do you have any
comments to make about the 1982 agreement? That was when the
McMichaels were moved from their home and they had a home
purchased for them.
Dr Salter:
I was aware of that, yes, but I'm not aware of all the details of
that 1982 agreement. The one comment I made in 1982 was that the
Honourable Mr Davis had been questioned about whether he really
supported the gallery or not. He unequivocally did in that letter
to Mr Beevor that I quoted, a copy of which is with you. I think
it's at the bottom of page 1 of that letter. I don't know all the
details about the arrangement of leaving the house. As a
physician and surgeon, I felt the family could have been treated
with more compassion than they were.
1600
Ms Di
Cocco: But did you realize that in 1982 they did sign
away the advisory capacity-not the advisory capacity but the
whole governance? Their role was reduced in that 1982 agreement
and they became founders emeritus, whereby they were now
advisors. That was stated in the Court of Appeal decision in
1997. That meant that was also an agreement the McMichaels signed
that obviously upheld the position of the government in 1997 when
they went into the Court of Appeal.
Dr Salter:
That is what is being changed now. Being emeritus myself, I
recognize the Latin origin of that term, "e" meaning "out" as in
"exit" or "emission," and "merit" meaning you merit being out.
But the point is that as emeritus or whatever they were called,
these two people, these wonderful Canadians, have been the most
generous of all donors of art in this country. They may have
signed a document. I don't know. I'm not aware of that and I'm
not a lawyer. But I think they deserve to be treated with great
kindness and compassion and with generosity of spirit.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Doctor. I appreciate your taking the time to
come and make a presentation here today.
Dr Salter:
You're welcome.
KLEINBURG BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Our next presenter will be Mr Paul Reinhardt from the business
improvement association of Kleinburg. Welcome to the
committee.
Mr Paul Reinhardt: Thank you very
much for inviting our views. I'd like to address myself strictly
to the economics of Bill 112. The business community is extremely
concerned that we will be badly hurt by this bill. The reason is
that, as business people, we know that if you restrict choice to
the public it will make an offering much less attractive.
This bill will restrict the
gallery again to the original mandate. We look to the Art Gallery
of Ontario and the ROM, and we see that these two institutions
have had enormous success in tailoring their offerings to the
marketplace. They have long strayed from their original mandates,
and that's why they have been so successful. They're offering
from Chinese vase-making to witchcraft and things of this sort.
We're stunned that this market principle is not allowed to
prevail in the case of the McMichael. We predict that the
revenues to the McMichael will go down as a result. Also the
revenues to the business improvement association will go down
substantially.
We also want to point out
to you that although there would be initial savings to the
government in terms of cuts to the McMichael budget, on a
per-visitor basis the subsidy that will be paid to the McMichael
will definitely increase.
The reason I'm here is to
point out to you that the damage that will be done by this bill
is not restricted to a smaller art offering at the McMichael, but
there is a spillover of the McMichael into the Kleinburg business
community. Let me elaborate.
The village of Kleinburg
has an authentic 19th-century streetscape. It is still in
marvellous shape. We are a drawing card for the city of Toronto's
tourism industry, the wedding business and the movie business. We
have them all out there because apparently we are so attractive
to them.
It is a country escape.
Every big city has a country escape. Kleinburg is to Toronto what
Seven Oaks is to London, if you like. It is also an asset to
Toronto to have Kleinburg in its current state for the 2008
Olympic bid.
I will stay within my 10
minutes, but I just want to get to this important point. The
village is splendidly preserved, while historical buildings
elsewhere are going under. The reason is that we have the
McMichael pursuing very successful market strategies. They have
drawn the critical number of visitors to Kleinburg that we need
in order to generate sufficient revenues to operate profitably
from very expensively maintained historical houses. This
spillover into heritage preservation is not something that will
show up explicitly in any books in an accounting sense. It is
just something that happens. It is a so-called externality. But
we're very much a beneficiary, and everybody who comes to
Kleinburg benefits from it. So you hit a very large number of
people if you hurt the McMichael, but unfortunately they cannot
show these dollar figures.
Let me try to further
substantiate the claim that there's big money involved that the
McMichael spills over into the cultural community. We point to
the horrendous subsidies that are paid by governments everywhere
to maintain the dwindling stock of historical houses in their
care. We point to the huge sum of money that was required to
restore the Grange, for example, at the Art Gallery of Ontario.
These are large sums of money that the McMichael did not have to
pay to create a heritage component. The McMichael gallery is part
and parcel of a living historical community, and we are very much
appreciative of their presence.
One final point: I find it
puzzling that this government does not respect the contribution
the McMichael makes through the market. The McMichael gallery is
harnessing the market to channel funds into historical
houses.
We respectfully ask that
this bill be withdrawn.
I have 25 copies. I don't
know who gets them.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr Reinhardt. If you would like, we've got time for
questions from one caucus. This time it will be the NDP.
Mr Rosario Marchese
(Trinity-Spadina): Mr Reinhardt, I've got to tell you
that I'm sure your business case has moved the Conservative
members. As you know, they're very concerned about business,
generally speaking, most of them being businesspeople. I'm happy
that you came to bring this case to them, because I know it will
be part of their consideration. But obviously your case is not
purely business.
This bill says they should
go back to the original mandate, where, "The board shall ensure
that the collection reflects the cultural heritage of Canada and
is comprised of artworks and objects and related documentary
materials created by or about," and it lists the people. Then it
says, "other artists who have been designated by the art advisory
committee," under a certain clause, "for their contributions to
the development of Canadian art," will be determined by the
committee of five.
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Frankly, I'm concerned
about what happens to those artworks, as Professor Zemans made
the case, and I'm assuming that you respect the fact that the
McMichaels are a central key component of the gallery. I'm also
assuming that the progress that it has made in terms of the other
artworks it has acquired is a good thing too, for the gallery,
for the community and for Canadian art in general.
Mr
Reinhardt: That's precisely what I tried to say.
Mr
Marchese: You're worried that if we shift back to that
narrow focus, we will lose some of the people who might otherwise
come. We might even lose some donors to the gallery; the
financial contributions might be diminished. Is that the
case?
Mr
Reinhardt: Yes, very much so. I've lived in Kleinburg
for 30 years. We in the business community in Kleinburg have been
able to tell, year after year over the last 20 years, that
business and the amount of traffic we're getting in the village
core has been increasing constantly. I run a bookstore in
Kleinburg. I know in talking to people that we get a lot of their
overflow. I just worry. It's a very classy type of person who
comes, and we have a wonderful relationship with the McMichael.
It is a kind of
symbiotic relationship. We advertise each other.
I could not see that the
government really would want to scuttle this efficient kind of
arrangement that has benefited historical preservation in the
arts community.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr Reinhardt. We appreciate your taking the
time to come before us here today.
Our next presentation will
be from Mr Dave Bernstein. Is Mr Bernstein in attendance?
Mr Robert
McMichael: We've just learned today, as a matter of
fact, that Mr Bernstein has been admitted to the Toronto General
Hospital in serious condition. I don't have any more details
about it.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr McMichael. That will put us back on
schedule. I'm sorry to hear the circumstances, though, around
that.
CANADIAN MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from the Canadian Museums
Association. Is Janet Brooke in attendance?
Ms Brooke, good afternoon.
Your timing is perfect. I'll give you a second to collect your
thoughts and your notes. Welcome to the committee.
Ms Janet
Brooke: Thank you for the opportunity to express our
views regarding Bill 112.
The Canadian Museums
Association is a national organization dedicated to promoting the
interests of museums and museum professionals at a national
level. We represent some 2,000 individuals and institutions
across Canada. Our membership includes all of Canada's prominent
arts institutions. We are closely aligned with other national
organizations seized with this issue, including the Canadian Art
Museum Directors' Association.
We believe that Bill l12 is
unnecessary, inappropriate and potentially hazardous to the
health of the cultural community in Ontario and beyond.
Why unnecessary? The
government argues that it has been prompted to act in light of
certain financial difficulties at the institution. We understand
the government's view that it is obliged to act in the interests
of Ontario taxpayers, but we believe that this is not the way to
go. We believe that the institution itself, and the government of
Ontario as the principal shareholder, have the administrative and
regulatory tools already in place to resolve those difficulties,
without resorting to legislation.
The implied assumption here
is that, somehow, the institution's curatorial direction is to
blame for the difficulties and that those problems will go away
by retrenching the mandate. Where is the evidence of this link
between mandate and the problems that the bill purports to
resolve? We have found none; the government has certainly offered
none to this point. In the absence of such evidence, we challenge
the premise of this extraordinary measure.
Why inappropriate? Because
it represents a serious breach of the long-accepted principle in
Canada that cultural institutions should operate at arm's length
from government. It is highly inappropriate that the state should
step in to substantially alter the curatorial direction of any
cultural institution. Where does such intervention stop? Are we
to believe that this or any future government will not step in to
alter the course of another institution through the same means,
should it not be pleased with its curatorial policy?
The government states that
this is not a precedent and that it is responding to a unique and
special set of circumstances. What does this mean? One can find
something unique and special about many cultural institutions in
Ontario, and throughout Canada for that matter. They are all
special in their own way. What does it matter to claim that this
is not a precedent? In six months, who will remember those
comforting words?
Furthermore, the bill
raises the prospect of a massive deaccessioning of thousands of
works currently in the collection, with attendant impact on the
gallery's relationship with the donors, not to mention the
potentially disastrous impact on the art market.
Decisions regarding the
acquisition and deaccessioning of artworks entail important
aesthetic, ethical and legal considerations that require
considerable knowledge and expertise on the part of those
responsible for running the institution. We believe that such
decisions should rest with the board of trustees of such
institutions, acting on the advice of the professionals who are
daily seized with the practical issues.
The creation of an arts
advisory committee with wide discretion in regard to the
acquisition and disposal of works of art, with no provision for
participation by experienced professionals, is alarming. Can
anyone seriously believe that this advisory committee will not
profoundly influence the thinking of the board of trustees when
its chairman is a member? We believe that it undermines the
fiduciary responsibility of the board of trustees, who are
accountable first-hand for keeping and developing the institution
in the public trust.
The government contends
that it is not dictating what is art and that it is merely
restoring the collection to its original course. We regard this
as sophistic. The net effect is that the government is striking
directly at curatorial practices. Has the institution varied from
its original course? The courts have recently confirmed that the
original terms of the agreement remain valid; in other words,
they have been respected. There is no objective evidence that the
institution has blindly and willfully ignored its mandate. Many
would in fact argue that the collection has evolved in its
original spirit into a highly respected, indeed admired, voice
for Canadian art.
Finally, why is this bill
hazardous to the health of the cultural community? The bill would
place inordinate influence on the running of an institution in
the hands of one donor. No one questions the important
contribution the McMichaels have made. Nevertheless, this bill
will stir considerable uncertainty, even anxiety, among other
patrons and donors to
the institution, who will justifiably wonder if their original
covenants with it can or will be respected. It represents a
breach of trust with the many supporters of the collection since
the McMichaels' notable contribution. It sends a strong signal as
well to present and future patrons, who might equally like to
have such long strings attached to their contributions, and to
other institutions that must daily negotiate agreements for
donations that are the backbone of their collections. In other
words, it raises both ethical and legal considerations that
should be investigated carefully before this bill moves
forward.
In fact, the Canadian
Museums Association strongly recommends that the government
undertake an independent review of the entire matter before
proceeding. There are too many unanswered questions: questions
concerning the link between the institution's mandate and its
financial situation; questions concerning the role of the arts
advisory committee in relation to the board of trustees;
questions concerning the legal implications of deaccessioning;
questions concerning a clear definition of roles between donors
and professional staff; and fundamental questions concerning the
relationship between government and cultural institutions.
The CMA would be pleased to
participate in such a review, which we believe would enable a
full and objective airing of all views on an important question
whose impact extends far beyond the walls of the McMichael
collection.
Thank you for your
attention.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. That leaves us time, again, for questioning
by one caucus. This time it will be the government.
Mrs
Elliott: I can't disagree more with a number of the
comments you've made. There are a number of things that I think
need to be addressed in your points.
First of all, I think it's
very important to understand right at the outset that this is a
very unique institution. This is a gallery that is owned by the
government of Ontario in a very specific arrangement for the
people of Ontario, to be managed by the people of Ontario.
You mentioned a massive
decommissioning. The new chair of the board has stated very
clearly that this would be inappropriate, given the ramifications
for not only the gallery itself but for the art community as a
whole. Surely you must understand that the ongoing controversy
over the role of the board, over the nature of the collection
itself, has resulted in a number of court challenges which are
threatening the viability of the gallery.
You mentioned the issue of
art professionals and you mentioned undue influence in the hands
of one donor. I think it's important to recognize that, under
this proposed legislation, the art advisory committee is to have
five members, two obviously the McMichaels and others appointed.
Surely you're not suggesting that committee of five would make
decisions, would make recommendations to the board on
acquisitions, on various pieces of art for the gallery, without
consulting professionals in the field. This legislation simply
says-
Mr
Marchese: Give her a chance to answer, Brenda.
Mrs
Elliott: Yes. This legislation simply says that
professionals in fact would be non-voting members.
Ms Brooke:
What is your question?
Mrs
Elliott: Do you not think there is an opportunity here
for professional advice from staff to be given to this art
advisory committee?
Ms Brooke:
Certainly in any of the documentation that was sent to the CMA,
that is not mentioned in any way. There is no rule spelled out
for professional staff in the provisions as I see them. If it's
at the discretion of the art advisory board to seek expert advice
from its staff, I would have to say that in normal museum
practice-at least museum practice that I'm aware of as a museum
professional, as a professional curator myself-usually things
work a little bit in the other direction. That is to say, it is
the professional staff that brings appropriate acquisitions to
the attention of the board for their approval, or not.
Mrs
Elliott: Or in this case an art advisory committee.
Ms Brooke:
Or in this case an art advisory committee, the relation to the
board being, to our mind, somewhat vaguely defined in the
documentation we have on hand.
The Chair:
Time for a very brief question, about a minute and a quarter.
Mrs
Elliott: The financial situation at the McMichael is of
serious concern to the government and spurred us to take action
to try and find ways to solve this problem once and for all. Are
you aware that since January an anticipated deficit of $300,000
has increased to well over $1.6 million in less than 10
months?
Ms Brooke:
I am not specifically aware of that. But I would also say, sadly,
in the larger context of museum work in this country, that's
hardly an unusual situation. I'm sorry, but I can't think of many
major institutions in this country that haven't had serious
deficit problems at one stage of the game or another in their
history, in their recent history, particularly during and
immediately following our recent recession.
Whereas I don't in any way
dismiss the importance of such news, I don't quite get the link
between practices in programming and acquisitions and deficits. I
don't see the direct link, the cause and effect that seem to be
spelled out here.
The Chair:
Thank you very much for taking the time to come and make a
presentation before us here today.
PAUL DUVAL
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from Mr Paul Duval. Good afternoon,
sir. Welcome to the committee. The floor is yours.
Mr Paul
Duval: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I should
like first of all to let you know where I'm coming from. I first
knew the Group of Seven in 1930, when as a boy I studied under
Arthur Lismer at the Art Gallery of Toronto, in the Saturday
morning classes which were so significant for people of my
generation. Among the people who attended there was the future
head of the Art Gallery of Ontario, William Withrow. We were permitted to paint on the
marble floor of the Fuller gallery in the institution, freely to
paint with our poster paints as we wished, not directed by Arthur
Lismer but inspired by him.
As an eight-year-old, this
was my first opportunity to enter such a palatial institution. It
was a magical place, partly because when we raised our heads from
our painting, we could see Tom Thomson's masterpiece, J.E.H.
MacDonald's masterpiece, Lawren Harris's masterpiece. For someone
who lived in a house without electricity and no running water-we
had an outhouse-and with a number of children, namely eight, this
was a miraculous discovery for me. In subject, they might just as
well have been space objects, but they were wonderful and for me
they still are.
The contribution made by
the group is equal, I think, to that when Lord Strathcona made
the last spike into the railroad that bound this country in a
physical way. The Group of Seven bound this country in an
emotional and spiritual way that can hardly be rivalled by
anything else. It's difficult to go to Georgian Bay or Algonquin
Park and not think of Tom Thomson, an associate of the group, who
unfortunately died too soon to be one of them. It's difficult to
go to Lake Superior or the Rocky Mountains or the Arctic without
thinking of Lawren Harris or to be in the upper reaches of the St
Lawrence or the upper reaches of the Mackenzie River without
thinking of A.Y. Jackson. They are part and parcel of ourselves
in a way that we all learn from childhood.
Now it's been said that the
McMichael collection-and I must confess I have known it since its
beginnings; I wrote the early catalogues-is a mausoleum. This has
been mentioned many times. The reason for this is, it was, and I
think should be, an unchanging collection devoted to this
magnificent group of painters. If indeed the McMichael collection
is thus a mausoleum, then so is the National Gallery of England,
the Courtauld collection in London, and so many other
institutions including the Louvre itself. In Paris there are the
various museums devoted to individual artists: to Rodin for one,
the Muséum Romantique, which is devoted to Ary Scheffer, the
court painter to Napoleon III. These institutions have a
particular value because when you go there, you get a total
concentration of that particular artist or movement. These are
common places in the United States as well as in Europe. You go
to see the Chagall museum in Nice or the Matisse Museum in Nice
or the Renoir museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer or the Picasso Museum in
Paris. Any of these places could be called mausoleums.
There is a significant
place for institutions which show, unchanging, a collection of
paintings where people can go and know they will find them there.
One would be very unhappy to go to the Louvre and not see the
Mona Lisa. It may be an overrated picture but it's a significant
item in most people's lives. You would not go to the Uffizi and
not see Botticelli's Rise of Venus or Primavera. There is a place
for museums that are steady and staying as they have been for all
time. They can make significant changes in the collection only by
adding to it as the Frick has, for instance. But among the
museums which are most revered, believe it or not, by major
curators of the world are those such as the Frick. The Frick is
usually considered number one, the National Museum of
Anthropology in Mexico City number two, but of the museums that
are considered the most significant, they are the ones that have
a permanent and unchanging collection where you can go and be
sure of what you are going to see.
When I was very young, as I
say, I lived in a house without water and so on; my father was a
great admirer of the fledgling CCF and Dr Wordsworth. I myself
had the privilege, having left home at 16, of being given refuge
by the Canadian Forum magazine which had a small office on
Wellington Street, Toronto, and they allowed me to sleep on their
floor while I looked for a job. Those two weeks were very
important to me and the socialists were practising what they
preached. I do not bring to this any capitalist or other
prejudice, I hope, but I do want to see this particular treasure
saved as it is.
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I know that things have
been added to it more recently. Where should they go? I think the
people who have been attacking-and it's been rather vicious. It's
rather sad, that a place that was originally called and is still
referred to as Tapawingo, a native name for happiness, should
have brought forward so much bitterness, so much spleen, so much
unhappiness, some of it inexplicable, that people who have been
so attacking the mausoleum, for what it was and what it was
intended to remain and still should be, should do this.
I am speaking as someone
who in 1946 wrote articles about Bourgeois, Riopelle and the
Automatists that the Ontario establishment wanted me fired for. I
was the art editor of Saturday Night and my explanation of the
value of these new artists was not accepted. Only in Montreal, in
recent years, in all of the catalogues is it referred to as the
young man in Toronto who first, including Montreal critics,
supported and saw the future for Bourgeois, Riopelle, Pellan and
the rest. I say that to have the balance of the picture with the
Group of Seven here.
Then in the late 1950s,
when the break came in Toronto for modern art, through Painters
Eleven, I helped hang those shows. I wrote the forewords for the
Toronto and New York exhibitions. I do not apologize for any
disaffection with modern art but I do suggest very strongly that
those who have been so bitterly opposed to the existence of a
museum which has its counterparts all over the world should do
this: work as I did for some time-unsuccessfully at the time-for
the establishment of a museum of contemporary art in Toronto.
Montreal has had a museum of contemporary art for almost 40
years. Its establishment today is one of the most admired
buildings for art anywhere in the world. Critics from all over
have said so and it has received a number of awards for its
design. It has been able to show its contemporary art regularly
with marvellous one-man shows of the major painters like
Bourgeois and Riopelle. Regrettably, none of those shows, not
one, was ever accepted for exhibition in Toronto. Toronto has never seen a
one-man show of Pellan, a one-man show of Bourgeois, a one-man
show of Riopelle, a one-man show of Dallaire, and this the museum
directors in Ontario should have their arms up about because
these are among the finest painters we have ever, ever
produced.
I suggest that they go
forward, as I say, and try to get support for a museum of modern
art. The reason I say this in part is even if I was totally
sympathetic with shoehorning contemporary painting into the Group
of Seven building, the building itself is not fit for it.
Contemporary painting has a lot to do with giantism: 10-by-12
foot paintings are not uncommon, they are very common. They
cannot be shown there. Number two, the building itself is not
fitted for major works of contemporary art. The Art Gallery of
Ontario does its bit, but it is a multi-faceted place and does
not show Morrices beside Riopelles-not within 50 feet, not within
100 feet, not within two galleries.
The idea of juxtaposing a
work by a contemporary painter and some of the works in the
McMichael is a mistake. I regret to say that. I would like to say
the McMichael gallery is large enough and designed well enough to
accommodate both. But I do believe that Toronto has reneged in
not supporting the development of a gallery which can truly show
contemporary painters. God knows, there are thousands of them
across this country at this very moment, producing works that
reflect their ideas and their impressions of the world today. We
should get to know that as soon as we can from their hands. This
can only happen with a contemporary museum, and I would so much
like to see this happen some time soon so I can enjoy it.
The Chair:
With that, Mr Duval, actually we've gone a little bit over our 10
minutes.
Mr Duval:
I'm sorry about that.
The Chair:
No, I appreciated your perspective and the submissions you have
made to the committee-thank you very much-as someone who's
actually met some of the people whose works of art we're talking
about.
MARY MASTIN
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from Ms Mary Mastin. Good
afternoon. Welcome to the committee.
Ms Mary
Mastin: To begin with, my comments will be brief. I am
the daughter of Franklin Carmichael. As you know, he is very well
represented at the McMichael gallery. My focus is donor
legislation that will protect the donors.
From a personal
perspective, my husband and I have donated a great number of
paintings to the McMichael gallery. In fact, we have been major
donors. Over the years we have donated several hundred paintings,
oil sketches, water colours, the Antwerp drawings that my father
did in his student years, various memorabilia-for example,
exhibition catalogues, pamphlets, magazines, magazine articles,
wood blocks for various books that he illustrated, wood-engraving
tools, and his palette. We recognized that the foregoing were
part of the Group of Seven history and as a result are part of
the history of Canada.
From a broader perspective,
other Group of Seven estates also have made contributions to the
gallery's collection of paintings and memorabilia. Just to
mention a few: the Tom Thomson estate, the Lismer estate, the
Harris estate, the Casson estate and the Johnston estate. Among
the legion of donors who did not belong to the Group of Seven,
Colonel R.S. McLaughlin's gift to the gallery of the entire
collection of Clarence Gagnon's 54 mixed-media illustrations for
Maria Chapdelaine-the novel was written by Louis Hémon-makes
a high point in the McMichael acquisitions. It took Gagnon seven
years to produce these gems of Quebec pioneer life, and although
they are derived from French-Canadian farm life, they have a
universality in which, in general, Canadian history is
represented and they also represent the pioneer tenacity which
built Canada. At least one half of the present acquisitions at
the McMichael gallery have been acquired by or through donations,
donations which were made in good faith that they would remain in
their present setting in perpetuity.
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I believe that the Ontario
government has the responsibility to respect and protect the
generosity of the donors who have helped to build one of the most
unique art collections in Canada.
I will conclude my remarks
with a quotation from the 1979 McMichael catalogue: "The wealth
of Canadian art treasures that form the McMichael Canadian
collection is due largely to those who have generously given
their cherished works of art. They were willing to share these
with all Canadians and, in so doing, have placed this wider
interest above their own personal pride and pleasure of
ownership."
Finally, in closing, let me
leave you with a question: Is it ethical to sell, auction or give
away artifacts for which people have received tax benefits in the
expectation that they would remain at the McMichael gallery
forever?
The Chair:
You've actually left us about six minutes, so we have time for
three two-minute segments, starting with the Liberals.
Ms Di
Cocco: Ms Mastin, thank you for your presentation. I
have two questions for you. One is, do you believe that this bill
is in keeping-in my submission, I have stated that I believe this
bill is a breach of trust to the donors in Ontario. That's been
my position. I am just asking you, do you think that it is
ethical to go back and say "Well, the collection was of 150 plus
38 pieces"-to return and kind of discount this whole issue of the
donors who have been contributing to that gallery over the last
35 years?
Ms Mastin:
No, I don't think it is ethical to return or to sell to auction
paintings that have been given to the gallery. I think it is
absolutely necessary that the donors should be consulted as to
whether or not they are agreeable to that process.
Ms Di Cocco: For the record, there
were 327 individual donors and 15 organizational donors that have
donated over $13.5 million over the last 35 years, just as a
point of reference.
I have a letter from a
donor who wrote to me and she has said that, because of this
bill, she is not going to renew her membership and she is going
to change her will, in which she was going to donate to the
gallery. Again, this whole issue of trust is, I think, what this
bill is about. I believe it's eroding the trust of the art donors
in this province-and the Gardiner legacy, a private legacy that
was left to this government of Ontario. He provided a $16-million
gift plus endowments, millions of dollars of endowments, and it
was turned over to the province of Ontario.
I guess what I am asking
you is, should the McMichael Canadian art collection, in your
estimation, remain in the public domain as is? Is that your view?
Or should it be returned, or change the whole process of
governance, the way this bill is doing?
Ms Mastin:
That's a very difficult question to answer on the spur of the
moment. I think that the collection is absolutely and positively
unique. I think that the original gift to the province which the
McMichaels made set a ball rolling, you might say, that would
perpetuate that generosity of spirit.
I also think that you have
to consider a gallery's objectives and also the attendance, which
is part of a gallery's process. You just cannot say-certainly I
can't say off the top of my head-whether it should remain or it
shouldn't remain intact. But I do think there are two sides to
the story. I can certainly see the the McMichaels' position. I
think the whole process has strayed from the intent of the
original bill, but I also think that the province-I mean we have
this responsibility to the donors. You have to put yourself in
the position of the donors. How would you feel if you had donated
literally thousands of dollars worth of paintings to the gallery?
I cannot answer your question.
The Chair:
In your attempt to answer, we have unfortunately used up all of
the time. So to the other parties, we'll have to make it up in
the next go-round. Thank you very much for taking the time to
come down and make a presentation. We appreciate it very
much.
JOHN MACEACHERN
The Chair:
The next presentation will be from Mr John MacEachern. Good
afternoon and welcome to the committee.
Mr John A.
MacEachern: Good afternoon, Mr Chairman, honourable
members. I have known Robert and Signe McMichael since I was a
young boy, as my parents and the McMichaels were friends. I was
raised in Kleinburg when it was a farming community and attended
the village's two-room school. My parents occasionally socialized
with the McMichaels and, as I tagged along, I would wander about
their home and look at all the paintings. I was thrilled, as I
recognized so many of the scenes since I went to summer camp on
Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park.
My mother and Janet Berton
started a tearoom called the Doctor's House in 1967 to serve the
increasing number of visitors to Kleinburg and the McMichael
Canadian Art Collection. I took it over in 1973, expanded it into
a full-service restaurant and operated it until I sold it in
1992. I talked to literally tens of thousands of guests from
Austria, Australia, Russia, Japan and from all over the world.
For some reason, it seemed to me the Dutch came in more numbers
than any other country. We were just inundated with people from
the Netherlands. Premiers, Prime Ministers and dignitaries from
all walks of life, whether it was the entertainment field,
politics or sports, and even royalty, crossed my doorstep. I
would have loved to have thought they came to the restaurant for
our great cuisine, but let's face it, as good as our food was,
the McMichael was the big draw to Kleinburg.
We were on the spouses'
program for almost every convention that came to Toronto: a visit
to the McMichael collection and lunch at the Doctor's House, or
vice versa. Our record was nine bus tours in one day, and it was
not uncommon to have four or five a day. The comments re the
McMichaels flowed daily about the magnificent grounds, the
beautiful log buildings and how they were situated, the views
from the massive windows and how they rivalled the paintings.
People got a true picture of Canada and what a magnificent
country we have through the eyes of a handful of artists known as
the Group of Seven and their contemporaries.
These were collected by a
man and woman who had a dream to preserve these paintings for
generations to come as part of Canada's heritage as they gave
their land and beloved Tapawingo and their prize collection to
the province. I kid you not when I tell you that people from all
over the world were in awe of this couple. I would have people
come into the restaurant and say, "We actually met Mr McMichael.
He was out picking up some paper off the grounds. What a
wonderful man he is." They were just in awe.
I myself was so totally
impressed by what the McMichaels created and so believed in their
dream that I persuaded my mother-in-law, the late Mrs Patricia
Sims, to donate an original Lawren Harris which she had just
inherited from her recently deceased sister, Helen O'Reilly. By
the way, since the renovations in l982, this painting, to my
knowledge, has never been shown publicly. I've asked many times
and have had answers like, "We have too many of the Group of
Seven here. It's in the vault."
1650
Then it was announced in
1980 or so that the gallery would be closed for two years for
renovations and the McMichaels would have to leave. Staff at the
McMichael started taking sides and most were hedging their bets
that the government would win. Innuendoes, lies and slurs on the
McMichaels' characters were whispered about the village and used
by government bureaucrats in the press as excuses for their
actions.
For the past 20 years, senior management at the
collection were never generous nor kind with their praise of the
McMichaels. I recall having numerous discussions with Michael
Bell and Barbara Tyler, both past directors of the collection, as
I personally had to defend the McMichaels and their gift. I have
also written a number of letters to the editor decrying the
direction the collection has taken.
Three days after the
announcement of the closing, I received 26 registered letters
from my bank calling in my loan. Within two weeks, I had over
$160,000 worth of cancellations from bus tours. I cut my staff
from 24 to eight, but we survived. However, the people never
returned to Kleinburg in the same numbers as in previous years. I
have been told that the McMichael Canadian Art Collection was one
of the leading galleries in the country in attendance, with the
lowest operating cost. I doubt this can be said today.
I say to my friends Paul
Reinhardt and Mr Marchese, if you restore that gallery back to
what it was, hordes and hordes of people will come back to
Kleinburg. I understand it's losing a lot of money now and its
attendance is down, and that's because of the direction it's
taking now. The collection has changed. It has allowed pieces
which are not at all representative of the gift, the terms and
conditions of the gift or the spirit of the gift which Robert and
Signe McMichael gave to the province and the people of
Ontario.
What does a rusted piece of
sculpture spelling out the word "Babylon," with a hyena standing
on top of one of those letters, greeting people at the entrance
have to do with Canoe Lake, Algoma, Lake Superior or Emily Carr's
haunting collection of northwest Indian totem poles? Nor do I
know how three bases from a Cleveland Indians' baseball game and
a New York Yankees' hat fit in with the magnificent scenes from
Quebec's North Shore or Harris's Mount Lefroy.
The insidious innuendoes
are starting all over again. Before you, there is a letter sent
out by the McMichael volunteer committee to all of the art sale
participants which accompanied a copy of Bill 112. You will see
the demeaning little handwritten comments trying to degrade the
value of the McMichaels' original gift: "197 paintings," "less
than 200 paintings," "only 14 acres" etc. They have stated
falsehoods in their letter by saying, "The amended legislation
does not include the First Nations, Inuit or any living artist."
In fact, Bill 112 clearly states in section 4.1 that the advisory
committee may make recommendations for acquisitions and does not
restrict them from choosing First Nations, Inuit or any living
artist. In fact, section 4.1(2)(e) of the bill states that the
function of the art advisory committee is "to designate artists
who have made contributions to the development of Canadian art
for the purpose of including their artworks and objects and
related documentary material in the collection."
These volunteers were
originally named Friends of McMichael, but as they say, with
friends like these, who needs enemies? And how is one of Canada's
most philanthropic couples supposed to fight such small-minded
people? Will they never stop until they have totally destroyed
the McMichaels? I will never understand the mean-spiritedness of
some people and what these volunteers hope to gain by their
actions. I don't know.
I should mention here that
I am also an artist; not a great artist, but I have sold work at
the McMichael autumn art sale, so I know a little bit of what I
speak.
Almost every city around
the world has a gallery showing the art of today, modern art:
Jello in the bathtub, rotting steaks on a dress form, dirty
underwear on a bedpost, paintings by monkeys etc. Canada is well
served by many galleries in this area, such as the National
Gallery in Ottawa or the AGO, but no one has the McMichael. The
experience, the feel, the art of our magnificent country is
totally captured in this collection.
I respectfully request that
you pass this bill, which will bring the McMichaels and their
vision and the people back to Kleinburg to share and rejoice in
our art and our land. Thank you for allowing me to appear before
you.
The Chair:
That leaves us about two minutes. This time, Mr Marchese.
Mr
Marchese: Mr MacEachern, thanks for your presentation. I
have two quick questions, at least one quicker than the other. Do
you really believe that by introducing Bill 112 we will solve the
deficit problems the McMichael has? That's the claim the
government makes.
Mr
MacEachern: It will certainly go a long, long way toward
that, because the visitors who come to Toronto want to see
something Canadian.
Mr
Marchese: I understand that.
Mr
MacEachern: They will come out to Kleinburg. The people
themselves coming there will increase the attendance.
Mr
Marchese: Well, I'm doubtful. But I want to raise
another point with you. I looked at the mandate from 1965 on. The
mandate in 1965 is limited to the Group of Seven and three other
named artists plus others designated by the advisory committee
"who have made a contribution to the development of Canadian
art."
In 1972, Mr McMichael
becomes a trustee for life and is also named the director and is
on salary, and the mandate is changed while he's there to specify
that all artworks must not be inconsistent with the general
character of the collection when the gallery was created in
1965.
In 1982, the mandate
changes again but Mr McMichael is still here. It says "and work
by other artists who have made a contribution to the development
of Canadian art and whose work and objects will be consistent
with the general character of the collection."
The point I'm making with
all of these mandate changes is that the McMichaels have always
been there, agreeing with these changes, and I am assuming that
much of what we have there since the beginning has evolved and
they have agreed to that, and so we have now the McMichael
gallery, which represents a whole lot of other people, which I
think has been good for the gallery.
Mr MacEachern: I disagree with
you. I think the McMichaels were moved out of their home. They
were fighting. They had directors there that were putting their
own views forward and not the views of the McMichaels. What was
your other point?
Mr
Marchese: That the mandate has, yes, changed but-
Mr
MacEachern: Totally changed.
Mr
Marchese: Right. But the McMichaels have been on that
board from the beginning.
Mr
MacEachern: Sure they've been on the board, but how can
you fight eight other members or whoever is on there, when
there's only two of them?
The Chair:
With that, Mr MacEachern-
Mr
MacEachern: There's a lot of politicking going on there,
sir, and a lot of empire-building. Now you know where your money
is going. It's the empire-building that has happened in that
gallery. I remember the days when if a receptionist had to take a
lunch break, Mrs McMichael would fill in and take over the
telephones. I know that security in that gallery was two Labrador
retrievers with the intercom system on at night, and nothing was
stolen. The dogs would bark and wake up the McMichaels.
The Chair:
Mr MacEachern, thank you very much for coming down and bringing
that local perspective.
Mr
MacEachern: Thank you for having me.
ONTARIO MUSEUM ASSOCIATION
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from the Ontario Museum
Association. Good afternoon. Welcome to the committee. Perhaps
you could introduce yourselves for the purpose of Hansard.
Ms Marie
Lalonde: Yes, thank you, Mr Chairman. Our thanks to the
committee for allowing us to appear before the committee this
afternoon and express our concerns. I'm Marie Lalonde. I'm the
executive director of the Ontario Museum Association,
l'Association des musées de l'Ontario, and with me is Barry
Lord, a corporate member of the OMA, an internationally
recognized authority on museum standards and professional
practice.
The Ontario Museum
Association has more than 1,000 members that span across the
province in communities large and small. Collectively, Ontario
museums spend about $376 million contributing significantly to
community life and tourism in this province. Our success is due
in large part to the constructive relationships that we have had
with governments at all levels.
Upon the introduction of
Bill 112, the OMA made its concerns known to the Ontario
government and requested an open dialogue with the Minister of
Citizenship, Culture and Recreation. I am pleased to report that
our president, Marilynn Havelka, and I did meet with Minister
Johns earlier this month to engage in an open dialogue on Bill
112. At this time, I would like to table the OMA's follow-up
letter to Minister Johns. As we stated at that meeting, the
health and well-being of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection is
our common goal. Our concerns with Bill 112 stem from our goal of
ensuring that internationally recognized museum standards, which
Ontario has played a key role in advancing, are followed for this
nationally treasured art collection.
1700
Because the OMA believes
that this legislation needs to be considered in the light of
international museum standards of governance and collections
policy, we have asked one of our corporate members, Barry Lord,
who is vice-president of Lord Cultural Resources Planning and
Management, to speak briefly to you today. Lord Cultural
Resources Planning and Management is the world's leading museum
planning company, which is also the world's largest, with its
international headquarters in Toronto and offices in London,
England, Washington, DC, San Francisco and Hong Kong.
With about 40 museum
professionals, mostly here in Ontario, Lord has completed over
900 museum planning projects in 15 countries on four continents.
Much of their work is also done and carried out in Ontario, I'd
like to add. Their clients include such major museums worldwide
as the National Gallery in London, England, the Victoria and
Albert Museum, the Tate Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago,
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Asian Art Museum of San
Francisco, the Cleveland Museum of Art-and I can go on but I
won't. Barry and his wife, Gail, who is the president of the
company, are also well-known for their books such as the Manual
of Museum Management and the Manual of Museum Planning, which are
published by the Stationery Office in London, England, and by
Altamira Press in California and are used in museum studies
programs in graduate schools at universities around the
world.
We have asked Barry, who
brings 50 years of experience in the museum field-
Mr Barry
Lord: Forty.
Ms
Lalonde: Forty?-to join us here today on a pro bono
basis to contribute the viewpoint of an internationally
established Canadian private sector firm that is familiar with
museum standards and best practice in governance and policies
around the world.
Mr Lord:
That's a marvellous introduction, except it's 40 years, not 50. I
hasten to say that I started as an undergraduate, so I got
started early. I have a written presentation here if the clerk
wants to distribute it, perhaps; sorry to bother you.
Good afternoon, Mr
Chairman, Madam Vice-Chair, members of the standing committee and
Minister. In these few minutes, I thought it would be useful to
review Bill 112 in terms of its ability to realize the
government's aims in introducing it. Briefly, I appreciate the
government's objectives, but I do not think that Bill 112 is
going to be either efficient or particularly effective in
achieving them.
The first objective is the
government's concern with a cumulative $1.6-million deficit. This
is certainly a concern that we can all appreciate and share.
However, from our international experience as a company dealing
with that kind of
problem, we would have to say that this legislation will not
help, and is likely to be counterproductive. Our firm has been
involved in successful resolutions of comparable problems, for
example, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where our
recommendations several years ago projected the level of
government support at about halfway between the level that was
proposed by the city of Philadelphia and the level that the
museum felt it needed, but only because we put the emphasis on
enabling the museum to strengthen its revenue-generating methods.
Unfortunately, Bill 112 does not free up the McMichael collection
to be more entrepreneurial but binds it tighter to government
oversight of its operations. So the legislation appears to be
heading in the wrong direction, based on our experience.
In particular, I would
suggest that there is no evidence that returning the mandate to
the original focus on the Group of Seven and their contemporaries
will help the McMichael to overcome its deficit. On the contrary,
the whole direction of international museum practice at present
is to develop exhibitions that relate art history to the present
day. Even London's National Gallery, for instance, which has been
a client of ours, whose collecting mandate ends in the 19th
century, has recently had great success in commissioning
contemporary British artists to create contemporary works of art
inspired by its Old Masters collection. The Tate Gallery in
London has now become two separate museums, Tate Britain and Tate
Modern-both have been our clients-precisely in order to be able
to mix and match the contemporary with the historical in thematic
displays that are based on the content of the works of art. This
is in fact the contemporary international direction, to focus on
the content of works of art rather than their art historical
period. So there is plenty of opportunity for that.
The government's other
objective, to honour previous commitments to the original donor,
is also understandable, but again based on our experience I would
suggest that Bill 112 is likely to prove problematic, for several
good reasons.
First, it sets a precedent
of placing donors on the boards of institutions and gives them
direct control of the cultural content of the institution. I know
the minister has said that this is an exceptional case, and I
appreciate that, but the precedent is one that other donors may
wish to emulate at other institutions, so the government may be
inviting future difficulties of that kind. Needless to say, this
role for donors does not accord with international practice,
where "no strings attached" is the standing rule that most donors
accept, and problems in this area might not be confined to
individuals but might also be involved with sponsoring
corporations as well.
Second, in making the board
subject to ministerial approval for either three years or until
the collection is rationalized, another precedent is established
which violates the arm's-length relationship and replaces it with
direct government supervision. Again, I appreciate that this is
seen to be temporary and specific to this case only, but it is
contrary to international museum practice and in our experience
is likely to discourage private donors, who will have the
impression that this is an entirely government-funded institution
and therefore does not need their support.
Third, the legislation
establishes a non-professional committee, called the art advisory
committee, that would actually have direct responsibility for
acquisitions, deaccessioning, exhibitions and display-not only
collections but also exhibitions-and it's direct responsibility.
It's not advisory but it's governing, as we would make the
distinction. This of course is completely opposed to professional
practice elsewhere.
One of its most serious
disadvantages would be the very great difficulty it would present
for the McMichael to be able to recruit or keep good professional
staff. Museum directors and curators of the stature that the
McMichael requires will not be attracted to an institution in
which collection development and exhibitions are in the hands of
non-professionals. Nor will other museums be attracted to lend
individual works or exhibitions to such an institution. It is a
vicious world, the world of lending exhibitions and lending works
of art. Curators, directors and so on will look for any reason
not to give, and this will be a very good one. They will expect
decision-making to be done by professionals of equivalent stature
to themselves.
This is especially serious
for the McMichael deficit, since it means that the institution
will have greater difficulty in participating in the national and
international world of exhibitions, which depend on close
co-operation among professionals. It's through such exhibitions
that some kind of progress on the deficit could be made.
Fourth, we have to observe
that the proposed disposal of collections, or deaccessioning as
it's called in the museum field, is a highly challenging process.
We have been involved in advising professional museums on the
deaccessioning process. It is very difficult, not merely in terms
of professional museum standards but also legally and even
ethically. The museums associations of Great Britain, the United
States, Canada and Ontario all have policies cautioning against
it and require that if it is done at all, it must be done by
professionals following a highly explicit code of conduct. One of
the very serious reasons for this, quite aside from those of the
museum profession, is the concern with the legal ramifications of
both federal and provincial tax forgiveness that has been
extended to donors in the past. This tax forgiveness was at a
value established at the time of the donation. Legally, giving or
trading it away can only be done within the public sector since
sales will necessarily be at a higher or lower value, in either
case creating legal and financial problems.
The safest procedure with
all donated works of art is simply to transfer them to other
institutions. I speak as somebody who tried to work out a
deaccessioning policy for an institution and it was extremely
difficult. However, I caution that the operating costs associated
with their upkeep will go with them, so that there is no net
saving if they are transferred to other institutions that are
recipients of provincial support. Even then there is a risk of
violating the original
donors' intentions, since they or their heirs may not wish their
gifts to go to other institutions.
One of the most serious
results of deaccessions in our experience is their effect on
donor confidence. Donors have given works of art to the McMichael
as a public institution on the understanding they would remain
there. Some are bequests or given in honour of persons no longer
living. If donors lose confidence in such arrangements, they are
likely to be unwilling to entrust future donations to the
institution. So it's a Catch-22: the government's wish to honour
one set of commitments to a donor in the past will result in
dishonouring many others.
In practice, the only
deaccessioned items that could be sold, in our experience, having
gone through deaccessioning policies with institutions, are those
that were purchased by the McMichael collection. But here we
encounter the very serious implications for living Canadian
artists and/or their dealers, whose prices will be devalued when
it is learned that a major public institution is selling off
their works as if they were unworthy. This would expose the
institution, and the government, since the board and its
deaccessioning is to be approved by the minister, to possible
legal action by the affected artists and their dealers for
devaluation of their works.
This is, I would say, an
almost unavoidable result, even if the works are sold slowly and
in small numbers. If they're sold in large numbers at once, the
result would be even more catastrophic. Therefore, the government
would be at risk of that kind of legal action. I don't know how
it work out legally, but it would be a problem.
1710
Finally, I should point
out, as our book The Manual of Museum Management does, that
museum boards should be concerned with policy, not the actual
selection or disposal of works of art or the choice of
exhibitions. One of the things we have learned again and again
throughout the world in this kind of institution is that when
boards are not doing policy, because they're doing something
else, because they're actually operating, nobody is doing policy.
Where boards violate this principle, policy is neglected, and the
result is that without policy to steer by, the institution
becomes more and more dependent, not less, on its governing
authority, which in this case will be the provincial
government.
Our experience would
therefore suggest that Bill 112 will result in making the
McMichael collection more and more dependent on government, not
more independent. This is contrary to the direction of the
present government, as I understand it, and it's also contrary to
the entire international trend of museum management.
For all these reasons I
would urge that the government reconsider Bill 112, since it
appears to us, by our experience, to be very likely to be
counterproductive in achieving the government's own aims. Thank
you for your attention.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, both of you. We've been a little indulgent,
recognizing, with the typed presentation, the end was coming. But
we've gone over time. I want to thank you very much for making
your presentation before us here today. We appreciate it.
GEORGE MCLEAN
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from Mr George McLean. Good
afternoon, Mr McLean. Welcome to the committee.
Mr George
McLean: Thank you for having me. I'm a member of the
McMichael board and have been for over three years now. I'm a
professional artist, a freelancer. I have never made my living
from government grants. The fact is, I've made more money than I
ever thought was in this whole wide world as a freelancer.
The reason I agreed to sit
on the board of the McMichael was because I always thought that
the McMichael was the one public visual art institution that
featured representational art. I would never have agreed to sit
on the board at the AGO, because I think a lot of the stuff they
buy isn't worth the time of day.
The public galleries tend
to buy works as if they were putting these collections together
for themselves and not for the public. A great number of the
well-known contemporary artists not only never receive grants,
are not eligible for them, could never get a grant; they can't
even get a show at the big galleries in the country. Bob
Bateman-I've used this before-is the most famous artist that
Canada has ever produced. There's not one single major
institution in this country that has any of his work. Artists
tend to become well-known in their lifetimes, not after they're
dead. Van Gogh was maybe an exception to the rule, but it's a
rare exception.
Before I came on the board
I knew no one on the board. I didn't even know the McMichaels,
never met them. I sat on the art acquisitions committee, often
abstaining from a vote because I thought the stuff was so
inappropriate, and yet I felt somewhat intimidated because I'd
never sat on a board before. I didn't know what the right
protocol was. But all the while I noticed that the McMichaels
were treated like pariahs. "They're old folks now." It just ain't
polite. Not only that, but the other consideration I've had is
that if it weren't for the McMichaels, there wouldn't be a
McMichael gallery. It's that elementary. If you want to know what
the focus of that gallery was intended to be, just ask them. It's
that easy. I can't understand-well, I can, sort of, and I'll get
into that. It looks to me like all the public institutions want
to look the same. We have a contemporary wing at the Art Gallery
of Ontario. You could fire a cannon through that thing and never
hit a work of art or a visitor either, this space that has been
put together by the Canadian arts council or whatever they call
themselves. Without those councils, none of these artists could
survive-and at the McMichael.
I heard the gentleman who
ran the restaurant in Kleinburg. I totally agree with him that if
you bring shows to the McMichael that people want to see, people
will come to that gallery. I absolutely believe it and I can
prove it by some of the
galleries I show in myself. I could name a bunch, but we just
don't have time. It seems to me that this McMichael dispute is
really not about art or artists. It's about who is going to
control the money that the government spends; that's what it is
all about. These people from these museum associations have
enormous clout, because they're a group. They are far stronger
than the likes of me, because I'm just one guy and, frankly, I'm
a freelancer and couldn't care less what they think. I don't need
them to make a living. I don't care if I'm in the museum.
Posterity is for dead people. All I want to do is keep making my
paintings.
I can tell you that on
several occasions I finally spoke up. First of all, someone just
said that you shouldn't have people on the board who are donors.
That was commonplace at the McMichael gallery, including the
ex-CEO. She received a tax credit for a piece she donated. They
were buying pieces from someone who sat on the art acquisitions
committee. Is that what they mean by, "You shouldn't have these
people on the board"? I agree with that totally. If somebody had
asked me if they could buy one of my paintings, I would have
said, "Sure, if I'm not on the board. I'd be glad to resign, by
the way, so you can buy a piece."
We heard time and time
again the projections for the future, and time and time again
those projections were way off the money, and the deficit started
to grow. I keep hearing about this deficit of $1.6 million; it's
$2.3 million.
They talk about government
intervention in the museums. Governments do intervene in the
visual arts museums. They give public grants to individual
artists. I don't know of any representational painter who
receives grants. There may be some, but I don't know them. The
direction that those grants have taken is that they fund only
non-objective art, and in that way the government is absolutely
determining which way the art is going to go. If they're not
supposed to interfere, then they should remove the sales tax,
say, from fine art, and give every artist the same opportunity.
They should stop giving these outrageous grants to individuals
who are not really professionals at all.
I could go on with some of
the shows that the gallery had proposed. One was Hockey and the
Art of being Canadian, a whole lot of hockey artifacts. I said,
"There's a Hockey Hall of Fame. Why would we have hockey
artifacts in an art gallery?" Then there was a hell of a hue and
cry about that. They bought an installation of three wolves. It
cost over $50,000. There was a bus stop that went with it with a
picture of a raven in it. By the way, I paint animals; that's my
specialty. That's what I do for my livelihood. This wolf
installation: they didn't look like wolves. It was badly done. I
said that. Again, I could never make a point.
What I'm saying is, these
people who say they know how to run the gallery-this gallery has
been run by the very people who are now putting up all the fuss.
This gallery has been run for 11 years by those same people. The
McMichaels have had very little hand in that, let me tell you
that, because I've been on the board. They've always been shut
up, just brushed aside. But they took 11 years to get themselves
into $2.3 million worth of debt. Talk about government
interference-I think there wasn't enough of it. Thank you.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr McLean. That gives us about two minutes. This time
the questioning would be the government.
1720
Mrs
Elliott: Thank you, Mr McLean. You've raised some very
interesting points, particularly that the deficit is now $2.3
million.
In the proposed bill we
say, "The board shall ensure that the collection reflects the
cultural heritage of Canada and is comprised of artworks and
objects and related documentary materials created by or about"
the Group of Seven "and other artists who have been designated by
the art advisory committee ... for their contributions to the
development of Canada art."
We have heard from the
previous speaker that a specific collection mandate in fact would
not work and we would see revenues fall at the McMichael. We
heard from an earlier speaker who said exactly the opposite: that
returning, as you're suggesting, the McMichael to the spirit of
its original intent and focus on the Group of Seven would cause
it to thrive.
Do you think, if the bill
passes as we are proposing, where its focus will be again on the
Group of Seven and the Canadian art heritage, that this gallery
would thrive?
Mr McLean:
Let me put it this way: I've been to two shows this summer. One
was in Wausau, Wisconsin, and another one was out in Jackson
Hole, Wyoming. Both of these galleries specialize in the sort of
work I do. They pack those places. In Teton county, the richest
county in the United States, believe me, they pack that place.
People fly in there from far and wide, pay huge high prices for
the hotels and all the facilities around there. They have huge
donations, because people like to give their money to
organizations that they relate to.
The other thing is, we just
had the annual ball, the Woodchoppers' Ball. A lot of the people
who used to come to it weren't at it this time. So what? There
are other people around who have other ideas about how galleries
should be run, and they've got money too. My clients all have a
lot of money. I don't think it would hurt the gallery in the
slightest.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Mr McLean. We appreciate the perspective
that you brought here today.
PAT FAIRHEAD
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from Pat Fairhead. Good afternoon,
Ms Fairhead. Welcome to the committee. The floor is yours.
Ms Pat
Fairhead: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As you don't
know me and I don't see any of my work in this room, I'd better
introduce myself. I'm a full-time painter. I've been making my
living from the sale of my work for something like 30 years, at
least.
My education is at the Ontario College of Art. I
have a master's degree in education and in the arts. I am a
member of the Royal Canadian Academy, the Ontario Society of
Artists, the Canadian Society of Painters in Watercolour, and the
renowned Arts and Letters Club-the original eighters and the time
that the group spent there.
The passion for my work
stemmed in part from the Group of Seven. I too have paddled,
kayaked, and climbed this country and the Arctic many times. My
work is very large and is inspired by the Canadian
wilderness.
I went to Tapawingo years
ago, on the very first AGO tour of Canadian art in country
houses, and there I met the McMichaels before they started to
build. I was thrilled. The dining room was full of David Milne
and some enormous pieces of Inuit sculpture. I enjoyed myself and
their very gracious hospitality. I went often, and as Bob and
Signe enlarged and expanded the gallery space over the years, the
collection has grown to show the work of contemporary Canadians.
It is vital for the collection to keep up with and show what is
being done by Canadian painters. It is so exciting to go in and
see where we have been, where we are now, and where we're
going.
The McMichael collection of
Canadian art is the only public gallery dedicated exclusively to
Canadian art in all this country. It must be kept up to date for
all of us who gain inspiration and education, and to show the
world our Canadian art. It is absolutely unique.
I remember Carmichael, a
member of the Group of Seven; his daughter just spoke. He was my
teacher at the Ontario College of Art. Again and again he said to
us, "Above all, be original." He inspired us to think, to
analyze, and to invent new ways of making art, and all the group
did that. They showed us our country for the first time through
their eyes: strong, vibrant and alive-and we were shocked. The
critics and everyone absolutely said it was trash, it was junk
and no one would look at it, and the public screamed blue bloody
murder.
So, here we are. Bob and
Signe, years ago, saw the significance of the group and started
to buy when they themselves were just struggling along. They were
truly inspired and built the nucleus of this extremely important
place, then gave it to the Ontario people and were handsomely
rewarded.
Now we are experiencing the
same damned shock of the new art of contemporary work, and the
very same response as to the Group of Seven 70 years ago. It
happens every time. We learn by seeing, we learn by familiarity
and also the educational component the gallery provides. Without
this gallery moving with and ahead of its time, it will become a
morgue and a museum. It will be dead.
The group is and always
will be the hot core that still vibrates. It is our
responsibility-all of us-to continue their heritage. We must keep
this showplace of Canadian art in the hands of professional
administrators and curators. To return it to the helm of the
McMichaels, pursuant to draft Bill 112, it becomes a personal
collection and will, in fact, not reflect what has happened and
is now happening in exciting and contemporary painting.
Ladies and gentlemen, I
feel betrayed by what this draft act imposes on what has been a
magnificent and highly regarded Ontario gallery. We are all
famous for it.
The Chair:
Thank you very much. That affords us time for questioning. This
time it will be the Liberals.
Mr Levac:
As a young student going to high school I visited the McMichael,
and probably one of the most important things our art teacher
instilled in us was the concept of the Canadian identity. Even
then, when I was looking at some of the pieces, I couldn't see
the relationship between what Harris did in some of his latter
works and the landscape. Having said that, I've visited other art
galleries since that time, in my continued studies in art, and
I've always found your statement about the shock or the comment
of artworks.
In your opinion would this
bill, in effect, take us backwards in terms of we as a people
understanding art and its challenge to us to think outside the
box?
Ms
Fairhead: Absolutely true. I agree with you
entirely.
Mr Levac:
Thank you.
The Chair:
Ms Di Cocco.
Ms Di
Cocco: My biggest concern is that this is a public
gallery. We seem to be forgetting this. We seem to forget that
this is a crown corporation, and I thank you for your
insight.
What would you suggest to
this committee that we should do with regard to this gallery?
Ms
Fairhead: Thank you; I'm flattered. I would absolutely
like to see it continue and also keep showing contemporary art. I
think it's absolutely a necessity. This is the only Canadian art
gallery.
As far as the deficit is
concerned, art galleries have never made money. They've usually
been free. People will pay $150 for a hockey ticket. If you
charge them $10 for a gallery-art is part of our education; we
learned some in school, although it is going now, unfortunately.
When we to go to a gallery, we don't expect to pay anything.
Galleries, mostly on the initiative of Europe, are supported
mostly by government and by private donations. This is our
culture. We expect to have them there and we don't expect to pay
very much for them.
Ms Di
Cocco: I see this bill as very aggressive, so you're
talking to the converted here. When it comes to the background,
the court case and the struggles, do you think that if we just
stabilized-we went through a court action in 1997, I think, and
there's always been conflict on the board. Do you think the cause
of the financial problems-I agree with you that it's sort of
innate in art galleries, etc. Do you think that if we could stop
that struggle of who is controlling what and move forward in the
governance model that's been set out by international standards
and keep it that way, maybe that might help to solve the
crisis?
Ms Fairhead: Apparently the
infighting has been extremely damaging. But boards have to learn
how to operate. They have to have a clear mandate and they have
to have support, otherwise they don't work.
The Chair:
Thank you very much for bringing your professional perspective
before us here today.
1730
MARY MCARTHUR
The Chair:
Our next presentation will be from Ms Mary McArthur. Welcome to
the committee.
Ms Mary
McArthur: My name is Mary McArthur. I am 34 years old,
and although I am probably the youngest person in this room, I
have lived my entire life in Ontario.
I became aware of the
situation at the McMichael collection, and of Bill 112, through
discussions with the McMicheals, who had been our neighbours in
Belfountain until recently when my husband and I moved to
Toronto.
The goal of my presentation
today is to present my feelings, which I believe are
representative of regular Ontarians. Like most people living in
this province, I am neither an art critic nor an avid collector.
Like most Ontarians, I have visited and enjoyed the McMichael
collection on numerous occasions.
Quite frankly, I support
Bill 112 for three reasons. First, the province should respect
the terms and conditions of the deal it made with the McMichaels
in 1965. We need to remember the McMichaels gave
as a gift this extremely valuable collection of Canadian art,
their home and 14 acres of land to the province of Ontario. In
return, the province made an agreement with the McMichaels.
I believe, very simply,
that a deal is a deal. Can any of you put yourselves in their
shoes for a moment and imagine giving your entire life's work to
the province? Can you then imagine having the agreement that
underpinned that gift disregarded in years to come? It is only
right and logical that the original agreement be respected.
If this original agreement
is not respected, then every Ontarian should rightly question the
integrity of the province in any other agreement it strikes with
its residents.
The second reason I support
Bill 112 is that the province must restore the confidence of
future benefactors, thus ensuring that future gifts will be
given. What will inspire me and other Ontarians to be as generous
with our assets in future years as the McMichaels have been? The
province must be willing to respect the agreements it makes with
its benefactors, or why will anyone give anything to the province
in the future? In this state of affairs, the residents of the
province will be the losers.
The third reason I support
Bill 112 is that it will allow the collection to be returned to
its original focus. When I visit the McMichael gallery, I see a
gallery that lacks focus. When I read about the financial affairs
of the gallery, I see a gallery that isn't effectively marketing
or administering itself.
Bill 112 is a wonderful
opportunity for the gallery to rededicate itself to a clear,
focused mission and for the gallery to excel in that mission. It
is time for the gallery to put its lacklustre and unfocused
recent past behind it.
The original agreement in
1965, which created the McMichael collection, promised that the
collection would be made up of works by Canada's Group of Seven
artists and their contemporaries. Seven years later, in 1972,
Bill 216 came into effect. It included a very important section,
that being section 8(b), which stated the following:
"The corporation may
expend, administer or dispose of any such money or property in
furtherance of its objects subject to the terms, if any, upon
which such money or property was given, granted, bequeathed,
leased or otherwise acquired by the corporation."
In 1989, the then Liberal
government threw out this entire section. It was the removal of
this section which led the gallery to become unfocused. It is
time for the gallery to become focused again. The gallery must be
managed with a clear focus and a clear mandate, and Bill l12 will
allow this to happen.
If appropriately mandated
and led, the McMichael gallery can be a world leader and a major
asset for the people of Ontario. My challenge to this committee
is that it ensure that this opportunity is seized and a focused,
energized McMichael gallery returns to what it does well:
exhibiting the work of the Group of Seven and associated artists,
and other art that is relevant to that mission, which was
envisaged in the 1965 agreement between the province and the
McMichaels.
The Chair:
That leaves us time for questioning. In this rotation, we'll
start with Mr Marchese.
Mr
Marchese: Thank you for your presentation. A couple of
questions. Did you have the chance to listen to the presentation
made by the Ontario Museum Association, including Ms Fairhead and
possibly Professor Joyce Zemans?
Ms
McArthur: Yes, I did.
Mr
Marchese: Do you have any reaction to what they
said?
Ms
McArthur: In terms of what? Can you be more specific
with your question?
Mr
Marchese: There are so many questions they've all
raised. Pick one.
Ms
McArthur: Let me make a couple points that I tried to
make in my presentation.
Mr
Marchese: In terms of your sense of what they said and
your reaction to them. If not, I'll go to other questions,
because I have a few others.
Ms
McArthur: I have a couple of reactions. I'm not sure if
it was stated by them or the lady that came after them, but
they're basically saying that Canadian art must continue to be
displayed. My comment to that is: why at the McMichael? Modern
contemporary art isn't best shown in a log cabin in the woods;
the Group of Seven is best shown there. Modern contemporary art can
easily be shown at the AGO.
Mr
Marchese: I understand that, too. They said a lot more
than that.
Ms
McArthur: Sorry. There's too much.
Mr
Marchese: I don't want to encapsulate what they said
because I've only got two minutes.
A lot has happened since
1965, and as much as you want to return to the original focus,
I'm not sure how we deal with a lot of the questions that have
been raised about decommissioning and whether such a committee
should be able to do that. It's an advisory committee, but they
have the power to be able to sell, to decide what gets disposed
of and so on. That presents a whole lot of problems in terms of
the other people who have donated since 1965. As much as you
might have a problem about the original deal as you understand it
versus what all the others have done, are you not worried about
the other donors and their contribution and what it means or its
implications?
Ms
McArthur: No, I'm not worried, quite honestly. It might
be difficult to do, to dispose of some of the recent gifts that
have been given. Fine, it might be a logistical hassle, but you
know what? The thing is off focus, plain and simple. If I were an
operator of a store that was focused on selling clothing, for
example, and I started to sell hardware, do you think I'd be in
business for long? Do you think I'd be profitable? I don't think
so.
Mr
Marchese: I hear where you're going. The 1965 mandate is
limited to the Group of Seven and three other named artists plus
others designated by the advisory committee who have made
contributions to the development of Canadian art. That was the
deal they had in 1965, which clearly suggests to me that in
addition to the Group of Seven, it includes others who have made
contributions to the development of Canadian art. That's part of
the original deal. What do we do about that?
Ms
McArthur: As I told you in the beginning, I am not an
art historian or an art critic. I'm just a regular Ontarian and I
know that thing is off focus. My whole point is, let's get the
thing back in focus and deal with the hassle of disposing the
things that don't fit the mandate.
The Chair:
Thank you very much, Ms McArthur. I appreciate your coming before
us here this afternoon.
Mrs
Elliott: Don't we get a chance to ask a question?
The Chair:
You're the next round.
ROBERT MCMICHAEL
The Chair:
Speaking of the next round, up next we have Mr McMichael himself.
Mr McMichael, feel free to join us at the witness table. Good
afternoon. Welcome to the committee. Much has been said about you
and now you have an opportunity to put the straight goods on the
record.
1740
Mr Robert
McMichael: After listening to these good words of
several friends of the McMichael collection, there is little left
for me to say except possibly to counter some of the questions
that have been raised by Mr Marchese that are simply off base.
They're just not correct and I would challenge them on any
point.
One of the last points you
made, and you attempted to embarrass Ms McArthur, was the fact
that all these works were promised by the people to stay in the
collection and all that kind of thing. Every gift ever given to
the McMichael collection through its 35 years has had the clause
that works can be disposed of as seen fit by the board of
trustees. If you don't know this, then you'd better read the act
and you'd better read the gift agreements that apply in that
act.
Anyway, I didn't come to
debate this; I want to discuss our position on it. In earlier
years, most of the great artists in the collection could barely
make a living. With the passage of time, their works have become
nothing less than national icons. During the past year or so,
paintings by Lawren Harris and Emily Carr have been sold at
auction for more than $1 million each. No contemporary artist
before them or since them has ever reached this point. It is an
example of the quality of the work of the Group of Seven and
their contemporaries, and I stress "their contemporaries."
The advisory committee
selected, in addition to 10 artists originally named, seven other
artists, for a grand total of 17. Through the years, the
collection has stayed within that mandate. Our chairman, Mr J.
Allyn Taylor, and the board agreed completely that this was the
right direction it should be going.
I want to point out here,
too, that in those years, we had the highest attendance by far-in
fact, double the present attendance-at Kleinburg. One year, in
the last year of my reign, as they say, we had 286,000 people
come to the gallery. It is about half that amount now. I'm afraid
a good part of that has gone because the works that people came
to see, the great works-and I mention they were not all
$1-million works, but all of the Group of Seven works have gone
into the hundreds of thousands of dollars now. They're not cheap
things, but they've stood the test of time. That's what the whole
story is about.
They've been the greatest
artists that Canada has ever produced and, as such, we wanted to
create a collection dedicated to them, along with their friends,
Albert Robinson, J.W. Morrice, Clarence Gagnon, Thoreau
MacDonald-seven people beyond those actually named. That was
allowed for in the agreement, that the advisory committee would
select other artists who have made major contributions to
Canadian art.
The advisory committee,
through those years up to 1982 when I stepped down, selected the
works, and everything that is in that collection by those artists
has skyrocketed in value, where a great number of the things that
were accepted were largely given because people wanted tax
receipts for them. I hate to be blunt about it, but that's
exactly what it amounted to.
When we gave the
collection-and I don't mind being very frank about this-Mr
Robarts said to us, "Bob, is there a tax deal in here? I wanted
to tell you about it. I know of no way that you could possibly
get any benefit by
giving this collection, this gallery and these lands to the
province of Ontario." I said, "Thank you very much, Mr Robarts,
but we'll go ahead anyway. We don't expect any tax relief." We
never did.
Three years later, the
government of Canada changed the rules and started giving
donations to collectors as a deduction from their income tax. In
our case, and I was just recently reviewing the thing, we
received a grand total of approximately $85,000 in tax relief for
a gift by that time-and I must stress again, the number keeps
coming up as $195,000 or some such odd number. We kept on giving
pictures through almost every year, certainly a majority of the
years, from 1965 right through to the present, and we still gave
this year. Those gifts have been valued at well over the
$1-million mark, but we didn't do this for taxes, believe me, in
the first case or in the later cases. I just wanted to stress
this. I've broken away completely from what I had planned to say,
but I simply had to express this.
I must also say that the
deficit that has occurred in the gallery is a terrible
embarrassment, simply because it was created by a management, and
particularly a director, who just knew no end to the amount of
expenditures. In fact, I must say, and I hate doing this but I
must put it on the record, she drove her own salary up to a point
higher than a cabinet minister. I can't make it any clearer than
that. Is it any wonder we've got a deficit with that kind of
management?
Fortunately, the present
staff are starting to trim it back and cut back on costs, but it
has been a terrible embarrassment to know that we could be so
overspent by one or two people who called the shots, and even
when they first gave us the estimates, they never broke it down
by who exactly was getting what. They broke it down by
departments, for example, the collections department, or the
director's office, and so on. We never knew precisely what any of
the salaries were, and I had asked for that many times at board,
as had Mr McLean, but we never received that. To this date, we
still haven't received a list of what the salaries are; we don't
care about names, just the specific positions. I'm just pointing
out that it has been a very sad embarrassment to us that this
kind of money could be spent. In the years that we directed the
collection, we never had a deficit of 10 cents. It was absolutely
within the bounds of exactly what was allocated by the government
and we lived within those bounds, and the collection, in spite of
that, drew the highest attendance it has ever had.
Coming back to some of my
other points here-sorry, I don't mean to be so carried away-in
the earlier years most of the great artists in our collection
could barely make a living. But with the passage of time, their
works have become nothing less than national icons, as I said.
During the past year or so, paintings by Harris and Carr have
passed the $1-million mark.
I recall one day when A.Y.
Jackson was living with us in our apartment at the McMichael
collection. One of our attractive young lady guides who worked at
the gallery spoke to A.Y. Jackson. She asked him, "How come a
handsome man like you never married?" He responded, "When I had
the inclination, I couldn't earn the money. By the time I had the
money, I had lost the inclination." I think that says a lot about
what the famous Group of Seven is now; but in their early days
they had a very hard time.
Some of the most
interesting family-founded art collections in the world have been
born of a compelling enthusiasm for a particular period or kind
of art. Material for such collections may be the work of one
painter, one nation or one school of artists. The enthusiasm that
founded the McMichael art collection was triggered by the art of
a legendary Canadian, Tom Thomson, and his fellow painters in the
Group of Seven, but there are a host of galleries that have been
founded on this base, and they are enormously successful
throughout the world. All of these galleries place an absolute
limit on exactly what artists, in fact exactly what pictures-not
just the artists, but exactly what pictures-will be in their
collection. The famous Frick Collection in New York is an example
of that, but there are all kinds of collections throughout
America and Europe where this kind of thing prevails.
The McMichael was never
intended to be a general art gallery, some place just to get
people to hang pictures or keep up with the times; it was to
carry the work of a period of Canadian art and a group of great
painters, who I still believe are the greatest we have ever
produced. As a matter of fact, if we were to ask any art dealer
in Canada who would be the most highly ranked artists in
Canada-in other words, with the idea that they would like to have
them to sell to their clientele-I think invariably they would
start with Tom Thomson, Emily Carr and the members of the Group
of Seven-and David Milne of course. They would also add the great
work of Clarence Gagnon, J. W. Morrice and the others our
advisory committee brought into the collection. In other words,
we approved it unanimously and stopped at a certain point, when
we had reached 17 artists, much like these great galleries
throughout the world that have been founded by other
families.
At that point, for 10
years, until I stepped down, until I retired, stepping down as
director, that is exactly where it stayed. We got marvellous
additional pictures because people who had these wonderful things
were willing to come forth and present them to the collection.
There was no thought of a need for more pictures. We had more
than we could hang, but we liked to rotate them. We liked to give
the best works a regular chance to be shown at specific times.
Just like Mr MacEachern-I remember well the picture his mother
gave to the collection. It was a marvellous Lawren Harris. I
don't know why it has never been up, but I know that a lot of
things that are not in the same league as the Group of Seven, not
even to be considered in the same breath as the Group of
Seven-but I have to stress again that the collection wasn't
built-and the word is "collection," not "gallery." Its
incorporated name in the province of Ontario is The McMichael
Collection. That was never intended to be a gallery in the sense
of, "Come one, come all, we'll hang all these different kinds of new work as it
comes along" and so on. It was a memorial to a particular period
of Canadian art, and that's what we wanted to stress. We said
this right from the first. In our 1965 agreement, we mentioned 10
artists because at that time we did not have even all the members
of the Group of Seven yet. We hadn't been able to afford to buy
some of the ones we wanted very badly. So the 10 were just to
lead, but the advisory committee, which was specifically spelled
out in the agreement, was charged with making a selection of the
artists.
As I say again, repeating
myself, we came up with seven other artists, all great Canadian
artists, and that total did it. For as long as I was director, it
stayed that way. But it was only a matter of a short time after
that that unwanted pictures started to come in, simply because
curators and other staff members wanted to see the numbers go up.
They wanted to be heroes and have thousands of pictures in the
collection, which apparently, in their opinion, made them heroes.
But the vast per centage, probably 95% or 98% of the works that
have been received since 1989, which was the time the Liberal
government changed the mandate-I would say that's not a bad
estimate. We've looked through the inventory very carefully and,
on average, I would say most of these pictures are less than
$1,000 in value, and most of them, to be very truthful, were
actually valued by the collection upon receiving them at about
$200 each.
One gift they received-and
I remember so well. I sat at that meeting, even though we were
outnumbered. At that point, they had changed the art committee
and just eliminated Signe. Signe wasn't even allowed to be on the
art committee. It was a wonder they kept me, as a matter of fact.
But I remember examples of cases. One man offered to give over
700 etchings and drawings by an artist we had never heard of, a
man named Mr Wood. No disrespect, I don't know the man, and he's
long since gone. But these etchings and drawings had been saved.
The 700 works were valued at an average of $200 each. That gives
us some kind of picture. Anyone who knows anything about the
value of art these days would know that a Tom Thomson sketch, and
I'm speaking of a little sketch smaller than the size of that
piece of paper, goes for about $200,000. It speaks for itself.
It's not because of the dollars and cents or anything. The group
had its period. They have maintained these prices. Their prices
have gone up, while other artists before them and other artists
since have continued to go down or barely hold their own in many
cases.
Though I've broken entirely
from the theme of my discussion-I'd like to be able to repeat
this sometime so others could read it if they wish-it is our most
profound goal that with the enactment of Bill 112, the McMichael
Canadian Art Collection will be returned to its original focus,
for the benefit of the taxpayers and the citizens of this great
province.
The Chair:
Thank you, Mr McMichael. I've been a little indulgent in terms of
time, but I think it only fitting, in terms of who is making the
presentation. Thank you very much, both for the original gift and
for taking the time to come before us today.
Mr
McMichael: If there are any questions, I'd be prepared
to-
The Chair:
Well, we'll be done in another 10 minutes, and I encourage
members of the committee to approach you then, if you're still
around. Technically speaking, from this point on I have to ignore
the clock to be able to have the next presenter.
Mr
Marchese: I'm not sure you can.
The Chair:
As Chair I have that authority.
Mr
Marchese: Ms Stokes, does he have the ability to do
that?
The Chair:
Considering that debate is still on in the House, Mr Marchese,
you're out of order and being disrespectful. Please let me call
the final presenter.
Mr
Marchese: On a point of order: When the bell rings, do
you have the authority to keep this committee going?
The Chair:
Yes. The Chair, in his sole discretion, has the right to decide
whether he sees the clock.
Mr
Marchese: Ms Stokes, can you comment on that, please?
What's your comment on that, Ms Stokes?
The Chair:
If you wish to point out afterwards-if you want to interrupt a
presenter, you have the right. Any committee member has that
right.
Mr
Marchese: Was that your comment, Ms Stokes?
VIRGINIA MACDONNELL
The Chair:
Seeing that the debate is still on, we'll call forward the V.
MacDonnell Gallery, if Virginia MacDonnell is here, rather than
take any more time away from her presentation. Welcome to the
committee.
Ms Virginia
MacDonnell: Thank you. No one denies the magnitude of
the gift that Robert and Signe McMichael made in giving the
Canadian people the works which became the foundation of the
McMichael collection of Canadian art, and for that we thank them.
However, this gift has been paid for many times over, and the
McMichaels have been abundantly compensated.
The McMichael collection of
Canadian art has grown into a large and comprehensive collection
of diverse and exceptional pieces of Canadian artwork. It
represents the development of Canadian artwork within the 20th
century and should be allowed to continue to grow and expand its
collection into the 21st century. In doing so, the works of the
Group of Seven are not being ignored or forgotten, but rather are
being expanded upon. They can be seen in the full context of the
development of Canadian art rather than merely appearing as a
simple, isolated episode. This is something which should be
encouraged and which hopefully the McMichaels should support.
Robert McMichael wrote in
his autobiography that in 1968 "...we were forced to admit that
although the collection and its setting were very appealing, they
were not extensive or impressive enough to command the national,
and possibly even international, attention that we sought." He goes
on to state that with additions to the original collection and
with the expansion of the collection's premises, "growth and
ever-increasing public attendance went hand in hand," and it
makes sense that it would.
Many public galleries and
museums in Canada have fine works of art by members of the Group
of Seven and their peers. It isn't necessary for people to go to
the McMichael Canadian Collection in Kleinburg to see a Tom
Thomson or an A.J. Casson. The Art Gallery of Ontario, for
example, has a number of wonderful works by these artists, and
one can also see works by Claes Oldenberg, Pietr Breughel and
Joanne Tod. The gallery in Kleinburg must continue with the
curatorial and directorial mandate to build and expand upon its
collection by continuing to add work by contemporary Canadian
artists. That will be its strength and what will separate it from
the myriad of other public and private galleries which are out
there.
1800
Mr McMichael has also
likened his case for returning the McMichael collection to its
original works through comparisons to the Barnes and Frick
collections in the United States. These comparisons aren't really
appropriate. Both the Barnes and Frick collections are private
foundations and remain so. They are not public institutions. They
maintain themselves through what they've been able to generate
privately. They are self-sustaining.
A more accurate comparison
for the McMichael gift might be the Whitney Museum of American
Art in New York City. Here, a family created the initial
endowment, which has since been expanded upon and is regularly
added to. The Whitney also hosts a Biennial of American Art to
celebrate the achievements of contemporary American artists. It
is building upon its strengths and, in doing so, expanding its
audience.
The McMichael collection of
Canadian art could do the same here in Canada. The lack of pride
in and knowledge of our visual artists is appalling. The
McMichael collection of Canadian art has the opportunity to do
something brave and wonderful which would celebrate contemporary
Canadian art without doing any kind of disservice to the artists
from Canada's past.
In consideration of the
enormous changes which have taken place since the McMichael
collection of Canadian art was first formed, one suggestion might
be to change the name of the gallery to the Museum of Canadian
Art, and to have a special gallery set up within it called the
McMichael Gallery to house the original collection, much the same
as was done with the Henry Moore Gallery collection at the Art
Gallery of Ontario.
Whatever the decisions are
regarding the programming and collecting mandate of the McMichael
collection of Canadian art, they must be made by the professional
curators, director and gallery staff and not by the Ontario
government. To deaccession and sell off thousands of artworks
would be catastrophic to the current Canadian art market and will
create a myriad of problems regarding past and future donations
of artworks to museums and galleries. Government funding for the
arts is decreasing yearly, yet simultaneously initiatives which
would increase private support for our public museums and
galleries are being frustrated by the government as well. This
dichotomy must be recognized.
Private commercial
galleries will also be affected by the deaccessioning of works of
art from the collection. For example, my small gallery employs
two full-time staff and four part-time staff. We represent 12
artists from Ontario and Quebec, and exhibit the work of 16
others from Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Spain and England. We
regularly contract work to other small businesses such as
printers, designers and technicians, as well as patronize larger
businesses such as Future Shop and Business Depot. We receive no
government funding or grants, and we sustain ourselves through
sales of contemporary art. Should there be a loss of confidence
in the art market, or if the market is deluged with many
contemporary works being sold at bargain basement prices, our
business and the many others like it will close. The effect from
this would be immediate and damaging to many.
The government should not
pass Bill 112. Repeatedly in his autobiography, Robert McMichael
refers to the McMichael collection as a promising youngster and
of himself and Signe as proud parents. Yet every parent must step
back at some point and realize that their child is an adult,
capable of making his or her own decisions, and that whatever
vision that parent might have had for their child's future, the
destiny of that child is his or her own to make. The McMichaels
and the Ontario government must realize that the McMichael
collection of Canadian art is no longer a child. It has grown,
developed, matured and is capable of and ready to fulfill a
unique and thrilling destiny of its own.
I would like to close with
the following quote: "Too often, the creative figures who
timelessly reflect and shape the true character of the nation are
ignored in public places." This statement was made by Paul Duval
in the introduction to Robert McMichael's autobiography. I
couldn't agree with it more. The McMichael collection should be
one of those public places, and it must be allowed to continue to
exhibit and collect work without interference or limitations of
those figures who reflect the shape and character of our nation
from the past, the present and in the future. Undoubtedly, those
figures include Tom Thomson, J.E.H. MacDonald and Emily Carr, but
they also include General Idea, Joanne Todd, Tom Dean, Carl Beam
and John McEwan.
This collection of Canadian
art can be a source of infinite pride and a true treasure for
ourselves and for generations of Canadians to come, and the
Canadian people deserve no less.
The Chair:
Thank you, Ms MacDonnell. We appreciate your sticking with us to
the bitter end and ending our first day of hearings here
today.
Mr
Marchese: For the record, and on a point of order, Mr
Chair: You do not have the authority to sit beyond 6 o'clock.
The Chair: Mr Marchese, with
the greatest of respect-
Mr
Marchese: Out of respect, I stayed here to listen to the
deputant.
The Chair:
-you are wrong.
Mr
Marchese: Listen to the point. You do not have the
authority to do that on your own. Second, out of respect, I sat
here through the presentation because I think that was the right
thing to do.
The Chair:
I'll let you score your points, but you're wrong.
Mr
Marchese: If you want to change the rules next time,
consult us; otherwise it will be difficult.
The Chair:
Mr Marchese, you're treading thin ice now.
The committee stands
adjourned till Wednesday at 3:30.
