Fewer people are paying to visit the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, yet the annual cost to taxpayers to keep the facility running continues to climb. According to new statistics obtained by the Winnipeg Sun, paid admission fell 8.8% in the 2016-17 fiscal year compared to the previous year.

There were 171,061 paid ticket admissions to the museum’s galleries in 2016-17, down over 16,000 visitors compared to the previous year. Last year was the museum’s second full year of operation. The CMHR opened in September 2014 and handed out thousands of free admissions in the first few months to help celebrate the opening. Museum brass tend to pad their admission numbers by including not only paying customers, but also free admissions, visits to the facility’s gift shop and restaurant – even by those who don’t visit the galleries – and people who rent one of the many conference or meeting rooms who also don’t visit the galleries. When all those numbers are included, the museum boasts that it attracts well above the 250,000 visitors a year it had originally projected.

However, when just the paid admissions are counted – which includes individual tickets, school groups, members, group tours and special event tours – the numbers are well below 250,000. And they’re falling. Which means own-source revenue is in decline, too, while museum costs continue to rise.

And that’s where taxpayers come in. The museum received an extra $11.9 million from the federal government last year to pay current and previous payments in lieu of property taxes to the city of Winnipeg. The museum was in a dispute with city hall over the assessed value of the property. That was finally worked out. But the museum had to go cap-in-hand to Ottawa for yet another bail-out to help pay back taxes. That’s on top of the $21.7 million operating grant the CMHR gets from the federal government. All told, taxpayers are expected to shell out close to $34 million to the museum last year for operating costs.

That’s a lot of money for a facility that appears to be struggling with waning public interest.

Naturally, museum officials don’t see it that way.

“We are pleased with the number of visitors the CMHR has been attracting since we’ve been open,” museum spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry said in an email. “A slight decline in visit numbers was expected after the first full year of operations.”

The CMHR says “museum professionals” estimate that new museums see a drop of between 15% and 22% after their first year of operation.

“Feedback from visitors about their experience has been overwhelmingly positive as indicated by surveys, online reviews like Trip Advisor, and anecdotes,” said Fitzhenry.

Maybe. But the honeymoon has been over for awhile now and the numbers keep falling.

Meanwhile, it’s only a matter of time before taxpayers will be asked to increase their $21.7-million annual operating grant. Now that payments in lieu of property taxes have to be paid every year and because museum costs are also rising, it won’t be long before taxpayers are shelling out over $30 million a year on an annual basis to subsidize this place. And if paid visitors continue to decline, there will be even more financial pressure on Ottawa to keep the place afloat.

The truth is, this place isn’t the big draw its supporters promised it would be when it was first sold to the public. A 2015 Winnipeg Sun analysis showed that the Manitoba Museum draws 40% more paid visitors than the human rights museum and only gets a fraction of the tax dollars the CMHR does. The CMHR barely draws more than the Children’s Museum, which operates on a very small budget. And the Assiniboine Park Zoo draws well over double what the CMHR does in paid attendance. These places are draws, facilities people like to visit often.

The CMHR, not so much.

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Paid admission

*2014-15 (September to March 31) – 81,226

2015-16 (April 1 – March 31) – 187,611

2016-17 (April 1 – March 31) – 171,061

Free admission

2014-15 (September to March 31) – 48,877

2015-16 (April 1 – March 31) – 29,636

2016-17 (April 1 – March 31) – 29,262

*Partial year. Museum opened in September, 2014

- Canadian Museum for Human Rights