Ottawa museums get $15-million in one-time funding
The National Gallery of Canada received $2-million.

Museums across the country are still waiting for a new long-term support strategy from Ottawa





The federal government took some of the immediate pressure off Canada’s cash-strapped national museums this week, responding to their financial struggles with major one-time money. But Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore cautioned that museums cannot always expect the taxpayer to cover shortfalls.

The $15-million in one-time funding was earmarked for the capital-region museums’ “accumulated operating pressures” in the 2010 federal budget, but not mentioned, Moore said. Announced on Thursday, it’s intended to stabilize the museums through the rest of this fiscal year.

“Each of them has their own story of financial pressures coming out of the recession,” Moore said. “There are some huge capital and operational expenses that are coming and we're managing them so far. Nobody's in a panic, that's for sure.”

“ Money is always welcome. It’s a good-news announcement. ”— Joanne DiCosimo, Canadian Museum of Nature

Marc Mayer, director of National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, called the funding “a huge relief” and an example of the Conservative government being “responsive to our needs in the short term.”

The National Gallery of Canada will receive $2-million, which will go toward boosting programming and “visitor experience.” Until now, the financial strain on the Gallery had been evident: Mayer recently announced a major restructuring that eliminated 27 positions and laid off 18 employees, and the gallery suspended its five research fellowships, each worth up to $30,000, last week. Mayer said the Gallery had faced a “$3.1-million problem,” and had planned to spend about $1.5-million less that usual on its exhibitions. Combined with the savings from the restructuring, this new funding has closed the gap.

“I’m very pleased because it means that we now have an opportunity to have our exhibition program fully stocked for this year,” Mayer said. “This alleviates lots of the budget pressures that we’d been under with costs rising and our earned income headed south.”

The Canadian Museum of Nature, which is set to fully re-open in May after a lengthy renovation, gets $3-million, while the Canada Science and Technology Museum Corporation, which is also responsible for the Canada Agriculture Museum and the Canada Aviation Museum, receives a total of $3.7-million.

“Money is always welcome. It’s a good-news announcement,” said Joanne DiCosimo, president and CEO of the Canadian Museum of Nature, which has long struggled with the costs of its two buildings and will have $2.2-million in new annual costs to contend with after the reopening.

Moore said that “where there are pressures, we have responded.” But he added that, “they can’t keep coming to taxpayers. They know they have to diversify the way in which they’re going to be drawing in revenue, which means working closer with the schools, selling more tickets, being open at different hours and finding new sources of revenue.”

The Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation will divide the largest share of the funds, $6.3-million, between its namesake museum and the Canadian War Museum, which it also governs. Its management recently fought what proved a lengthy and acrimonious battle with striking workers to try to contain costs. Victor Rabinovitch, the Corporation’s president and CEO, was thrilled with Thursday’s announcement, but cautioned that all of the museum’s pressures won’t be relieved in one year.

“It reflects the increasing pressure on the museums, on their fixed infrastructure costs – things like heating, lighting, municipal taxes – and so we’re applying [these new funds] to those kinds of activities,” Rabinovitch said. “Part of the [long-term] solution lies in our being good managers, able to reduce costs where possible and reallocate internally, and this must continue. But of course there are genuine ongoing funding pressures beyond our control.”

John McAvity, executive director of the Canadian Museums Association, has been pressing the government for a new, long-term support strategy for the country’s many museums.

“We're very pleased for the national museums to see this much-needed increase. The other side, though, is that we are waiting very patiently for the federal government to address the needs of the other museums, which are critical,” he said. “I think it's a systemic problem.”