Toronto History Museums to Permanently Provide Free General admission Year-round
Mayor John Tory proclaimed May as Museum Month in Toronto and announced that as of Sunday, May 1, Toronto History Museums will provide free general admission to all its 10 museums permanently to ensure equitable access to museum sites and provide everyone an opportunity to participate in cultural heritage and spaces. Read the official Museum Month proclamation: www.toronto.ca/city-government/awards-tributes/tributes/proclamations-congratulatory-scrolls-and-letters-of-greeting/proclamations/proclamations-2022/.
The City, through Toronto History Museums, owns and operates 10 historic sites across Toronto that collect, research, exhibit and enhance the understanding of the city’s diverse stories through engaging and exciting experiences. The historic sites include Colborne Lodge, Fort York National Historic Site, Gibson House Museum, Mackenzie House, Market Gallery, Montgomery’s Inn, Scarborough Museum, Spadina Museum, Todmorden Mills and Zion Schoolhouse. More information is available at www.toronto.ca/museums.
Museum Month is an opportunity to celebrate the contributions of museums to their communities and to kick off this summer’s tourism season. This year’s International Museum Day (May 18) theme is The Power of Museums, highlighting the many ways that museums can and are bringing positive change to their communities through contributing to achieving sustainability, innovation in digitalization and accessibility, and building communities through education.
Addressing equity and inclusion remains a City priority. Free general admission at Toronto History Museums is one initiative in a series of initiatives designed to improve accessibility to cultural spaces for Toronto residents. Toronto History Museums is also committed to dismantling museums’ ongoing colonial legacies and working towards fostering reconciliation and healing. In 2020, the
Toronto History Museums adopted a bold and transformative mission, vision and narrative. Grounded in equity, anti-racism and anti-oppression, all 10 Toronto History Museums began to re-evaluate the stories they share, and the way they are shared, in order to create space for communities and impart knowledge.
Toronto History Museums is working to highlight stories that advance reconciliation, anti-racism and anti-oppression. It is rethinking historical interpretations and highlighting histories that are lesser discussed such as the deep Indigenous connection to the land and the lives of the st