Solving the Problem of Canada's National Museums

They serve an important function, but fewer Canadians notice.

Broadly speaking, museums come in two flavors. Some have a mandate to preserve, display, and provide context for a nation’s historical artifacts and treasures. And others exist to educate on a more abstract level.

When it comes to our physical historical collections, I don’t think anyone would question our natural instinct to preserve. Would you prefer that we just throw coats worn by Sir Isaac Brock and Louis Riel or Nuvumiutaq's Bow Drill into landfill? And as long as we’re keeping those objects, why shouldn’t Canadians be able to view them in person?

The function of the abstract concept museum in a world dominated by the internet is more complicated. To justify their existence, they’ll not only need sufficient consumer demand, but they’ll also have to provide an affordable service that can’t be easily delivered through other means.

There are nine federally-funded national museums in Canada. Three of those exist as part of a legal entity called Ingenium:

• Canadian Agriculture and Food Museum

• Canadian Aviation and Space Museum

• Canada Science and Technology Museum

Another three are incorporated as part of a Crown corporation called the Canadian Museum of History:

• Canadian Museum of History

• Canadian War Museum

• Virtual Museum of New France

And these three seem to be more or less independent:

• Canadian Museum for Human Rights

• Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21

• Canadian Museum of Nature

I would categorize just the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum, the Canadian Museum of History, and the Canadian War Museum as collections of historical heritage objects. The rest are abstract concept museums.

The Virtual Museum of New France is really just a website. It looks interesting enough, although perhaps not as complete or compelling as Professor Greg Koabel’s Nations of Canada articles on Quillette.

Between them, those nine institutions received more than $190 million from the Heritage Ministry for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. Since 2014 - when the total payout was $160 million - appropriations have actually not kept up with inflation (but then, which of us has?).

The problem is that, with the exception of the War Museum, visits having been uniformly declining. The declines ranged between 12 and 55 percent. Here’s how it looks (note that there is no pre-2022 data available for the Human Rights and Immigration museums):