National treasures need permanent home, museum CEO says
Canada’s national historic treasures need a permanent home where they can be displayed for all to see, says Mark O’Neill, the president and CEO of the newly minted Canadian Museum of History.
If O’Neill has his way, the British North America Act and other documents such as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, would have pride of place in his institution.
“I’d love to have it (the BNA Act) here,” on July 1, 2017, he said at the opening of an exhibition that showcases the 30-year period leading up Confederation in 1867.
“I believe that Canadians have national treasures and foundational documents that are critical to their distinctiveness and I believe that these objects should be on display and available to them in their national public institutions, and that’s my objective,” O’Neill said Thursday morning after introducing the new exhibition to the media. “And we want to work with a whole series of like-minded institutions (to make that happen).”
To that end, he said, the museum has created a network across the country that is working together to help ensure that Canadians see these important pieces of their history.
“We want to provide a place where Canadians can come and see the important objects of Canadian history and to understand them in a historical process.”
To that end the museum is working with Library and Archives Canada on the new History Hall, which will be situated in the museum.
“We are working with Parks Canada, we are working with history museums across the country. We are also devoting a space in this museum for artifacts and exhibitions coming from other museums.”
The current Confederation exhibition, for example, features about 250 objects from 50 different institutions.
“It’s amazing when you begin to dig and find out what’s available across the country,” O’Neill said.
And that points put a major gap in our awareness of Canadian history.
“We haven’t made a concerted effort nationally to find the artifacts, objects and documents that tell the story of Canada (and to) bring them together so that people can experience them ... and educate themselves more. That’s what we want to do.”
O’Neill says a consensus has built up around the importance of understanding history that is crossing political boundaries. “I don’t think anybody can legitimately argue that we shouldn’t create a space where Canadians can come face to face with their history.”
At least one researcher has suggested that Canadians are functionally illiterate about their history, O’Neill says. And he notes that more research shows that when it comes to history Canadians trust museums more than any other source of information including educators.
“So for museums it’s a responsibility and opportunity. I think the occasion for this new museum with its new mandate is to redouble our efforts to educate museum visitors about their history. Canadians don’t have a lot of exposure to our history in school. We were led to believe that it was not interesting or important.”
O’Neill believes that Canadians have reached a point where they are now interested in their history.
“It’s not only OK to talk about it, it’s important. It isn’t somehow unCanadian to want to know where are our foundational documents.
“You go to the Mall in Washington and you see all the foundational documents. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this country is on display for a short period of time at the human rights museum in Winnipeg but it’s essentially at the Library and Archives. It’s not displayed anywhere. I think Canadians are coming to terms with their sense of distinctiveness, they have a proud history and they have an important role in the world. It’s time for us to be able to understand that history a little more and engage it as citizens.”
Another aspect of this push for history is the purchase of important objects, O’Neill said. The museum is annually earmarking about $9 million to build up the museum’s inventory. When it was the Museum of Civilization, the artifacts purchased were archeological or ethnographic. Now the museum will pursue more collections like the recent purchase of the E.P. Taylor-Windfields Farm collection, he said.
The exhibition Rebellion and Confederation runs from Nov. 28 to Jan. 4, 2016. A smaller version of the exhibition will then travel across Canada. O’Neill says it is trying to show the battles, the drama and involvement of the ordinary and powerful as they tried to figure out the future of the British colonies. “What we’ve tried to do is let the objects and documents speak for themselves,” he said about the new exhibition, the second under the museum’s new name.