Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates — 2012–2013 Budget — Libraries and Archives

Bud­get Effects on Library and Archive Jobs

May 28th, 2012

Answers by Daniel Jean and René Bouchard

Hon. John McCal­lum (Markham—Unionville, Lib.):

I’d like to focus a bit on the Library and Archives. There’s a CBC story sug­gest­ing that I think 400 peo­ple have received notice that they will be los­ing their jobs—that 20% of the work­force is to be let go. Archival col­lec­tions in var­i­ous depart­ments are going to be closed down altogether.

I won­der if you could con­firm whether this is cor­rect. What is the state of the cuts, in both dol­lar terms and jobs?

Mr. Daniel Jean:

In the con­text of the deficit reduc­tion action plan, the Library and Archives is affected, like many orga­ni­za­tions. The head archivist is try­ing to both meet the need for all orga­ni­za­tions to con­tribute to the deficit reduc­tion action plan and at the same time mod­ern­ize the way archives are done.

Library and Archives, like most of our port­fo­lio orga­ni­za­tions, is an inde­pen­dent orga­ni­za­tion. It would be very dif­fi­cult for me to go into more details on the plans of the orga­ni­za­tion. I think it would be eas­ier if you were to invite them.

Hon. John McCal­lum:

I’d like to know, first of all, what are the dol­lar cuts and the job cuts?

Mr. René Bouchard (Exec­u­tive Direc­tor, Port­fo­lio Affairs, Depart­ment of Cana­dian Heritage):

With respect to the dol­lar cuts in the con­text of the deficit reduc­tion action plan DRAP) after three years it’s a reduc­tion of $9.6 mil­lion for the organization.

So there are some changes within the orga­ni­za­tion that are not nec­es­sar­ily related to DRAP. The orga­ni­za­tion is mak­ing some changes that will affect about 435 posi­tions, and 200 posi­tions will be abol­ished, but that includes DRAP plus mod­ern­iza­tion. When we’re look­ing at DRAP only, it’s 83 posi­tions that will be abolished.

Hon. John McCal­lum:

What’s the ini­tial bud­get? What per­cent­age cut is that?

Mr. René Bouchard:

The ini­tial bud­get of the orga­ni­za­tion in 2012–13 is $114.2 million.

Hon. John McCal­lum:

And the jobs?

Mr. René Bouchard:

 The num­ber of jobs is 1,150, if I recall prop­erly, and I can pro­vide you with more pre­ci­sion on that.

 

Mr. René Bouchard:

I’m say­ing that of 1,150, there will be a total of 200 posi­tions cut, and 83 of these posi­tions are related to DRAP.