CMA – Advocacy Update

Press Release

April 10, 2025

Click here to read the March 26 advocacy update.

In this time of uncertainty, the CMA is actively advocating for and supporting museums on multiple critical fronts. Please read on for updates on the CMA’s recent advocacy work related to government relations, the election, impacts related to tariffs and more.

Federal Election 2025 updates

Now is the time to find your riding’s candidate on the Elections Canada website and prepare for voting day. We encourage members to review their local candidates’ interest in museums as well as encourage for museums to be considered in any local political debates.

The CMA is closely monitoring the platforms of all five major federal parties including the Liberal Party, Conservative Party, New Democratic Party, Bloc Québécois, and Green Party of Canada. Debates are scheduled for mid-April in both official languages.

To date, only the Green Party of Canada and the Bloc Québécois have released their platforms. We have analyzed both for relevance to museums:

Green Party of Canada – The Green Party platform contains no specific references to museums, heritage institutions, or cultural infrastructure. While the plan addresses related themes, including climate resilience, public service funding, and sustainable infrastructure, which may indirectly affect our sector, there are no direct policy proposals for museums at this time.
Bloc Québécois – The Bloc platform includes several heritage and culture-related commitments with implications for museums, particularly those in Quebec including a call to modernize the federal Museums Act and associated funding models to better reflect contemporary institutional needs.

The plan also addresses the transfer of all federal cultural powers to the Government of Quebec, including funding mechanisms, and a commitment to reform Canada’s copyright laws, especially in response to AI and digital content—areas increasingly relevant to museum collections and access policies.

Trade Measures and Uncertain Implications for Museums

As economic impacts become realized, museums are not immune. Some considerations:

Supply pressures are growing, especially for exhibition and archival materials, as tariff uncertainty impacts pricing and availability. There continues to be no direct tariff implications related to the tariffs on museum supplies but there is likely to be an impact on pricing. The CMA will be meeting again with museum supply businesses in mid-April to discuss this.
Layoffs are underway across the North American auto corridor — a key economic driver in many museum-hosting communities. Museums are encouraged to consider ways they can serve as venues to support mental health and social cohesion for affected Canadians.
What will become of consumer spending and tourism is uncertain. The CMA is monitoring available data from Statistics Canada, tourism bodies and other relevant organizations to provide an ongoing and hopefully fulsome picture in the coming months.

A focus for the CMA is to advocate for supportive funding programs both generally, as in our ongoing push for a new National Museum Policy and funding practice, but also that museums are considered in any special funding opportunities to support Canadians through the trade war.

We are keeping communication open and would welcome hearing how you are navigating these challenges. If you have examples, policies, or obstacles you’re encountering, please share them with us at advocacy@museums.ca – this will help strengthen our sector-wide advocacy.

Monitoring International Museum Policy Developments

The CMA continues to track policy developments affecting museum sectors internationally. We are attentive to recent shifts in policy in the United States, including proposals regarding the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and changes at the Smithsonian Institution.

There is some concern that international loans, for example, may become riskier and we are following this situation closely in the absence of formal guidance on international loans and political instability. We are also connecting with members of the CMA Indigenous Council to better understand whether the proposed defunding IMLS in the United States may have any implications for repatriation efforts under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA).

We would encourage members to revisit the CMA published study, Government Support for Museums , that benchmarked how countries at varying levels of economic development and under different political models support their museum sectors for more context on the importance of IMLS and to learn more about museum funding models across the world.

If your institution is experiencing direct or indirect impacts from these foreign policy changes, we encourage you to share this information with us. Understanding these effects helps strengthen our advocacy efforts and supports our members through policy transitions.

What’s Next

In the coming weeks, CMA will:

Continue to monitor the release of party platforms and the upcoming leader’s debates on April 16 and 19th, monitoring for museum-related content.
Liaise with the CMA Advocacy Subcommittee.
Continue monitoring for tariff related impacts, and;
Prepare a post-election advocacy campaign for members as part of May is Museum Month, more to come.

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