Canadian Museum For Human Rights - Funding

Funding

Funding for the capital costs of the CMHR is coming from three jurisdictions of government— the federal Crown, the provincial Crown, and the City of Winnipeg— as well as private donations. The total budget for the building of the exterior of the CMHR and its contents was initially $310 million as of February 2011.

To date, the Government of Canada has allocated $100 million, the Government of Manitoba has donated $40 million, and the City of Winnipeg has donated $20 million. The Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, led by Gail Asper, have succeeded in raising more than $130 million in private donations from across Canada toward a final goal of $150 million. These "private sector" pledges include $4.5 million from provincial crown corporations in Manitoba and $5 million from the government of Ontario. The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has requested an additional $35 million in Capital funding from the federal government to cover shortfalls. In April 2011 the CMHR also received an additional $3.6 million from the City of Winnipeg, which was actually taken from a federal grant to the city in lieu of taxes for the museum.

Once the CMHR is open, the operating budget will be provided by the government of Canada, as the CMHR is a national museum. The estimated operating costs to the federal government are $22 million annually. In December 2011, the CMHR announced that due to rising costs for the interior exhibits of the museum, the total construction cost had increased by an additional $41 million to a new total of $351 million. In July 2012, the federal and provincial governments agreed to further increase the capital funding to the CMHR by up to $70 million, through a combination of a federal loan and a provincial loan guarantee. This newest funding was essential for the completion of the interior exhibits, so that the museum could officially open by the spring of 2014, already two years behind schedule.