Canada, Quebec abolishes free Sundays at museums

Stop free Sundays at museums in the Canadian province of Quebec, the second most populous in the country. On Monday, the French-speaking province’s center-right government, led by François Legault, sent a note to all museums notifying them of the new policy, which will take effect March 2, as reported by La Presse news agency, and Québec’s Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe, confirmed the news. “Free admission to museums on the first Sunday of the month,” Lacombe wrote in a note sent to the agency, “has been a great success since 2018. We want to continue offering this measure, so we have chosen to make it available to those under the age of 20. We therefore continue to work with our young people to encourage them to develop and diversify their cultural habits.”

Free Sundays at the museum had been introduced in Quebec seven years ago, along the lines of the free Sundays first introduced to the world in Italy in 2014 under the Franceschini reform. The operation was identical to ours: free admission to all museums in the province on the first Sunday of the month. However, the abolition of free Sundays is already provoking some protests, not to mention the fact that, many note, in Québec museums, in most cases, are already free for audiences under 12 or under 10 (in fact, in the province each museum can choose its own policies on reductions), so the impact of the new rule will only affect teenagers. However, compared to what happens in Italy, in Québec there was a reimbursement mechanism that was unknown in our latitudes: for every free admission that would normally be charged, in fact, the provincial government reimbursed the museum for the price of the ticket. As a result, free Sundays were big economic business for museums: a huge influx of non-paying audiences with the effects of a paying audience. That is why now museums in Montréal, Quebec City and other cities in the province are expressing strong concern. A family, for example, will find it more difficult to visit a museum, and the museum will not be able to count on the revenue from this guaranteed. According to a press release from the ministry last April, in 2023-2024 more than a hundred museums in Quebec signed up for free Sundays, a measure that cost the government 4.3 million Canadian dollars (about 2.85 million euros). About 200,000 visitors took advantage of free admission between March 2023 and February 2024, a 35 percent increase in attendance from 2022-2023. Thus, the cost of this program has increased because, as mentioned, the Ministry reimburses museums based on the number of free tickets distributed.

In the opinion of Gabrielle Bouchard, director of the Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, this is a disengagement of the Ministry of Culture of the province of Quebec, as she told Radio Canada, and she also criticizes the idea of wanting to encourage mainly young people to attend: "Our target audience is the under-20s, but they do not represent the majority of our clientele. Most of the people who come to us are school children, so they are already here. It is not true that they will come back to the museum on Sundays" (in fact, the museum already offers free admission to children under 12).

Criticism also comes from the Société des Musées du Québec, which brings together some 300 museums in the province: the demand is that free Sundays be maintained. “Our members are in shock. For many, the first Sundays of the month account for 10 percent, or even 20 percent, of their annual attendance,” SMQ Director General Stéphane Chagnon told Le Devoir newspaper, who also let it be known that he has requested an emergency meeting with the Ministry of Culture and Communications. “We know that children aged 15 and under do not go to the museum alone,” Chagnon added. “Will parents want to go that often if they have to pay out of pocket for tickets? We highly doubt it.”

Museums, therefore, now anticipate a drop in attendance and related revenues. “Museums that are preparing budget forecasts for the coming year cannot, on 30 days’ notice, find a way to compensate for these revenues,” Chagnon concludes. “It is unacceptable to announce this at the end of January for a change that will go into effect at the beginning of March.”

Canada, Quebec abolishes free Sundays at museums

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