Canada Science and Technology Museum: no layoffs, refunds during renovations

Canada Science and Technology Museum officials say there are no plans to lay off staff or reimburse people with memberships while the museum undergoes a multi-year renovation.

The federal government announced Monday the 47-year-old museum building off Saint Laurent Boulevard will be closed until 2017 for $80.5 million worth of work that includes a replacement for the roof, a new façade and upgrades to the exhibit space.

Unsafe levels of mould were found following a leak in the museum's roof in early September, forcing the museum's evacuation and leading to the decision to renovate.

• Canada Science and Technology Museum to be upgraded, reopen in 2017
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Alex Benay, CEO of the corporation that manages that museum, the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum and the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, said on Tuesday that staff will be put to work on other projects at some of its other properties.

“Now we're going to start looking at maybe how we can repatriate [staff] to look at how we can offer school programming in schools or different types of programs that are outside of the box for us,” he said.

Benay had said on Monday that the renovations are a chance to launch a new focus for the museum that will bring more of its collection to Canadians, both digital and in person, and some staff have been assembled into an “outreach” team to help do that.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which is the union representing most museum workers, said it's encouraged by how the corporation handled the sudden closure and it wants to make sure employees aren’t “negatively impacted” in the future.

Memberships good for other museums, future exhibits

Benay said given those outreach programs and the other two museums, people’s memberships will still offer them plenty.

“As opposed to putting [the collection] in storage, I guess consider this a call-out to the community. If there are sites available for us to put as much of the exhibits and the collection and the experience out in an alternative facility or location for a few years, we’re certainly open to the discussion,” he said.

“We want to have that conversation because we want our members to be able to benefit from the collection.”

Monday’s announcement was made inside an exhibit on the Franklin expedition at Library and Archives Canada, a partnership between the library and the science and technology museum that Benay has used as an example of what they can do in the months to come.