We almost always have politicians at events and they usually speak. Indeed, at
a recent opening of an outdoor exhibition on detection of land mines, we had
three federal cabinet ministers (four were supposed to attend) and two of them
spoke. This was quite a small affair, but we'll still have the Minister of
National Defence here next Thursday evening for a book launch of one of his
historians' new efforts.

They don't make "political" speeches (camaign speeches and the like). We try to
hold them down to a few minutes of good stuff on the subject of the occasion,
but we have had the odd occasion (the de-mining opening was one) where the
Government chose to make a policy announcement in the course of the event - in
this case, a decision to drastically reduce Canada's holdings of land mines.

We don't have a formal policy but we've never had a problem.

Harry Needham
Canadian War Museum