Canada: “Library and Archives Boss Chastised by Heritage Minister for Taxpayer-Funded Spanish Lessons”

From the Ottawa Citizen:

Federal Heritage Minister James Moore has taken the country’s chief archivist to the political woodshed for charging taxpayers for private Spanish lessons.
But it’s unclear whether that means Daniel Caron, the head of Library and Archives Canada, is returning the money, nearly $5,000.
“Minister Moore spoke with Mr. Caron and made it clear that spending taxpayer’s money on Spanish lessons was wrong,” Moore’s spokeswoman Jessica Fletcher told the Citizen. “(He) made it clear that funding for Library and Archives should be directed to serving Canadians. Mr. Caron agreed.”
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he institute is coping with a $10-million federal budget cut and has laid off dozens of employees. Caron has reduced funding to scores of tiny archives across Canada and made cuts to a system of inter-library loans through which Canadians could access material from LAC’s vast collections.

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See Also: A Very Sad Story: The Ottawa Citizen Provides In-Depth Look at Current State of Library and Archives Canada (March 4, 2013)

Filed under: Archives and Special Collections, Funding, Libraries, News