[MSN] Canada: The federal government is cancelling a service that carries art and artifacts to public museums and galleries across the country, leaving some curators worried they won't be able to display non-local pieces anymore.

[Museum Security Network Mailing list]

Service cut will curb tours for art, museum exhibits: curators
Last Updated: Monday, December 3, 2007 | 11:00 AM ET 
CBC News 
The federal government is cancelling a service that carries art and artifacts 
to public museums and galleries across the country, leaving some curators 
worried they won't be able to display non-local pieces anymore.

"It's a catastrophe," said Diana Nemiroff, who runs the Carleton University 
Art Gallery in Ottawa.

She said the decision by the Department of Canadian Heritage to cut the 
exhibit transportation service next March could result in a lot fewer 
travelling exhibitions.

"That means getting less Canadian art to fewer Canadians," she said.

The non-profit transportation service has been moving items such as van-sized 
sculptures, tree-sized totem poles and fragile paintings on loan from one 
museum to another since 1976, as most museums don't have their own trucks.

The government decided to cut it after an audit discovered that its four truck 
drivers aren't allowed to work on contract because they drive government-owned 
trucks.

The government decided not to make the art handlers federal employees because 
there is no public servant category that covers them, and creating a new one 
would be expensive.

Instead, the federal Canadian Conservation Institute is asking museums and art 
galleries to use private carriers and is offering them training to deal with 
the transition.

Under the federal service, museums paid only the direct costs of the service.

Canadian Heritage Charles spokesman Charles Drouin estimated the current 
program costs $891,000 a year to run and that museums using it pay back 
$878,000 of that money. 

Gallery owners say private carriers charge two to three times more.

Costs to double or triple
Josephine Mills, who is in charge of Alberta's University of Lethbridge Art 
Gallery, said that for her, shipping costs to Newfoundland could jump from 
$4,000 to $12,000 using private carriers.

"It could mean that especially from, say, Newfoundland or somewhere that's 
very expensive you just say, 'OK, I'm sorry, we can't show artists from 
Newfoundland anymore,' " she said. "I mean, that's just ridiculous. That's un-
Canadian."

Nemiroff said private carriers specializing in art are expensive, but museums 
prefer them to regular carriers because they use trucks with climate controls 
that are essential for preserving the condition of exhibits.

"But also because their drivers and assistants are used to handling works of 
art," she said. "They are unique objects — they're not mass produced 
commodities that are replaceable.
 

"You insure them, and if they're damaged, hopefully they can be repaired, but 
they can't be replaced."

The Heritage Department said money is still available for travelling 
exhibitions under the Museums Assistance Program, which was cut by 25 per cent 
last year.