Heritage minister asked to step in amid staff departures from National Gallery
CBC
A parliamentary committee member is calling for transparency from Canada's premier art institution in Ottawa following recent and very public staff turmoil — and he's imploring Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to step in.
"It's important that the minister, because [he] has an overseeing role for our cultural institutions, get the answers to questions that many people are asking," said Peter Julian, the NDP MP for New Westminster-Burnaby and a member of the standing committee on Canadian heritage, in an interview Monday with Radio-Canada.
Earlier this month, the National Gallery of Canada told its employees via a brief internal memo that four senior staffers — including its long-serving senior curator of Indigenous art, Greg A. Hill — were leaving due to "a restructuring within the organization."
In the memo, which surfaced on social media, Angela Cassie, the gallery's interim director and CEO, said the "workforce changes" would help the publicly funded arts institution "better align the gallery's leadership team with the organization's new strategic plans."
News about the four staff exits came less than six months after the departure of Sasha Suda, who left her role as the institution's chief operating officer and director in July.
In addition to Hill, the gallery's chief curator — the first woman to permanently hold the position — its director of conservation and technical research, and its senior manager of communications were also said to be affected by the restructuring.
Hill told CBC he felt he was pushed out for asking questions about the gallery's approach to Indigenous ways and decolonization.
The gallery declined a request last week to provide more information about the staff departures, and stated in the memo that it could not discuss personnel matters for privacy reasons.
Julian called on Rodriguez to become involved after seven former gallery employees expressed their concerns about the recent staff changes. They co-signed a letter to Rodriguez last week that was also sent to the media and the chair of the gallery's board of trustees.
The letter stated that, combined with at least 10 prior "dismissals," mostly under Suda's tenure, the recent departures left a number of key positions vacant and created a "high degree of internal uncertainty and instability" within the gallery.
It also complains about money allegedly spent on consultants, retirement packages for people who took early retirement in 2022, and non-disclosure agreements for dismissed employees, saying the alleged expenditures represent "a significant burden for a Crown corporation."
None of the allegations has been proven.
A spokesperson for the gallery told CBC on Saturday that it was still reviewing the contents of the letter and that an interview would not be immediately available. On Tuesday, a spokesperson said that the gallery was still not able to comment.
The ministry said it, too, was reviewing the letter but that the gallery, like other Crown corporations, operates at arms-length, is responsible for its own day-to-day operations and has its own oversight board.
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