Manitoba Museum campaign gets major gift, but province offers up half of $10M promised by previous government

The Manitoba Museum got a hefty financial boost Thursday in its effort to revitalize the cultural and historic space.

Winnipeg philanthropist and arts patron Gail Asperand herfamily personally kicked in an extra $100,000on top of a $400,000donation from the Asper Foundation for the museum'scapital renewal project.

• Manitoba Museum capital campaign gets $250K from Chipman family

Aspersays she's visited all of Canada's provincial museums.

"I can tell you, having been all across the country, this museum,without a doubt, objectively speaking, is the best," Asper told a crowd of supporters and staff at the Manitoba Museum on Thursday.

The museum is in the midst of a multi-million dollar capital campaign to renew its exhibits. One of those, the replica of the 17th-centurymerchant ship Nonsuch, is already being extensively overhauled.

• Nonsuch visits will be a no-go at Manitoba Museum for several months
• Historical rigger helps with ship renovations at Manitoba Museum

The Progressive Conservative governmentannounced $5 million for the campaignin a combination of a $1.4 million grant and $3.6 million to match funds from private donors.

That number is half ofthe $10 million for the campaignpromised by the previous NDP government in 2015.

• Manitoba Museum gets $10M from province for renewal

"We took a look at the project as a government, as we do with all the different projects we fund, and we look at the return on investment and based on all of that, we determined that the $5 million would be what we are contributing," said Sport, Culture and Heritage Minister Cathy Cox.

"We all need to up our game and make Manitoba the most-improved province," Asper said, noting Alberta has just completed construction of a new provincial museum in Edmonton.

The Royal Alberta Museum cost $375.5 million to complete.

The chair of the capital campaign, Jeoff Chipman, says the original budget for the museum improvements was $19 million, but adjustments have been made to bring the number closer to $17.5 million.

"I don't think the community is going to see any fall-off from what our plans were of the renewal, what we are doing for the galleries, which was the critical component," Chipman said.

The Manitoba Museum sees more than 300,000 visitors annually and 80,000 school-age children go through its exhibits each year.