A proposal buried inside a confidential review of the Royal Ontario Museum has opened a much larger debate about who controls Ontario’s cultural treasures—and how much the public deserves to know about their future.
Ernst & Young completed the provincially commissioned review in late 2022, when the ROM was still dealing with the financial damage caused by pandemic closures and reduced admissions. The document reportedly concluded that the museum could not become financially sustainable without additional government support and explored drastic possibilities, including selling its Oakville storage facility and certain artifacts. Ontario says those ideas were speculative and were never seriously considered. Yet the government continues to withhold most of the report while fighting an appeal before the province’s information and privacy watchdog, leaving unanswered questions about the museum’s finances, the advice Queen’s Park received and why so much remains hidden.
A Pandemic-Era Review Is Now Under Scrutiny
The controversy began with a financial examination commissioned during one of the most difficult periods in the ROM’s modern history. Ernst & Young completed its work toward the end of 2022 after being asked by the Ontario government to assess the museum’s finances, pandemic recovery plans and capacity to carry out future capital projects. At the time, prolonged closures, weakened admissions and disrupted events had sharply reduced several important sources of museum revenue.
The review did more than examine routine spending. According to provincial submissions disclosed during an access-to-information appeal, it considered the degree of government intervention the ROM might require. The province acknowledged that the museum could not achieve long-term financial sustainability solely through its existing programs and policies without further funding and approvals. That conclusion helps explain why consultants examined options beyond ticket prices or administrative savings. It also raises the central question surrounding the dispute: whether Ontarians should be allowed to see a taxpayer-funded analysis that assessed the future of one of the province’s most recognizable public institutions.
The Most Controversial Ideas Were Apparently Speculative
The proposals attracting the most attention were the possible sale of the ROM’s Oakville storage facility and the potential disposal of what government submissions described as exhibit artifacts. The options were reportedly presented as possible ways to improve cash flow. Neither the full list of objects that might have been considered nor the financial estimates attached to the proposals has been made public.
Both the government and the museum insist that no permanent artifact sale is planned. Ontario has described the recommendations as strategic and, in some cases, speculative rather than concrete instructions for the ROM. That distinction is important: a consultant’s report can test extreme scenarios without recommending that they be implemented. Still, the refusal to release the complete analysis makes it difficult to determine how developed the proposals were, what safeguards were discussed or whether officials examined them before rejecting them. The public currently knows that artifact sales were mentioned, but not how the consultants arrived at the idea or what response it received inside government.
Most of the Financial Analysis Remains Blacked Out
Global News requested the Ernst & Young review under Ontario’s freedom-of-information legislation in late 2024, roughly two years after the work was completed. The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Gaming released a heavily redacted version, removing most of the substantive information about costs, losses, attendance projections, financial forecasts and recommendations. Even parts of the communications planning were reportedly withheld.
The disclosed portions indicated that admissions, events and foundation contributions had been major revenue sources before COVID-19. They also showed that emergency government support was used during the museum’s recovery. Beyond those broad observations, the public was left with little detail about the severity of the problem or the alternatives the consultants evaluated. The requester has appealed the ministry’s decision to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Until that process is resolved, the government’s written submissions—rather than the report itself—provide the clearest available description of its conclusions. That unusual situation has allowed fragments of the document to emerge while its underlying calculations remain inaccessible.
Museum Collections Are Not Ordinary Financial Assets
Selling an object from a museum collection is known as deaccessioning, and it is not automatically improper. Museums sometimes remove duplicate, damaged, inauthentic or irrelevant objects after a formal curatorial and governance process. The ROM’s own collections policy allows deaccessioning in limited circumstances, including when an item no longer supports its collection or research programs, was acquired improperly, cannot be preserved or when removal would strengthen the collection.
However, professional standards place strict limits on what happens next. The ROM states that the public-relations impact must be assessed, records must be retained and objects should remain in the public domain whenever possible. Its policy prohibits direct sales to private individuals or corporations and says proceeds must be used to improve the collections and their care. International museum standards similarly warn that collections are held in public trust and should not be treated simply as assets that can be liquidated to cover regular operating pressures. A proposal to sell artifacts primarily for cash flow would therefore require far more than a favourable auction estimate; it would demand careful legal, ethical and curatorial justification.
Ontario Is Relying on Several Secrecy Provisions
The Ford government argues that disclosing the withheld material could reveal confidential advice, cabinet deliberations and information capable of harming Ontario’s economic or financial interests. Those arguments correspond with several exemptions in the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The law protects qualifying cabinet records, advice provided by public servants or consultants and information whose release could prejudice an institution’s economic position.
Not every exemption works in the same way. The cabinet-record provision is mandatory when disclosure would reveal the substance of cabinet deliberations, while exemptions involving advice and economic interests generally give the institution discretion to release information. Ontario’s law also contains a compelling-public-interest override for several exemptions, including advice and economic interests, but cabinet records are not included in that override. The Information and Privacy Commissioner must determine whether the withheld portions actually meet the legal tests claimed by the ministry. Past commissioner decisions have sometimes upheld cabinet secrecy while ordering the release of portions that did not reveal protected deliberations.
The ROM’s Current Finances Look Stronger Than They Did in 2022
The confidential review reflected conditions during the pandemic recovery period, not necessarily the museum’s present position. The ROM’s audited statements for the year ending March 31, 2025, reported approximately $103.7 million in total revenue and $98.7 million in expenses, producing an excess of revenue over expenses of about $4.9 million. The operating fund accounted for roughly $4.1 million of that total.
The statements also show how dependent a major museum can be on several different sources at once. Provincial grants totalled approximately $41.5 million, while admissions generated about $15.3 million, events and concessions brought in nearly $10 million and the ROM Foundation contributed roughly $12.6 million. In 2026, Ontario announced another $21 million in combined annual operating support for the ROM and the Art Gallery of Ontario. Those figures suggest the immediate crisis described in the 2022 review has eased, but they do not make the report irrelevant. Instead, they could help explain what funding was considered necessary, what vulnerabilities remained and whether later government decisions were influenced by the consultants’ findings.
The Dispute Is Also About Public Ownership and Trust
The ROM is not a private collection operating independently of government. It is an Ontario agency governed by a board of trustees under provincial legislation and an agreement with the responsible minister. Its publicly stated collection now includes approximately 18 million artworks, cultural objects and natural-history specimens. The museum’s financial statements do not assign those objects a conventional balance-sheet value, reflecting the fact that their cultural, scientific and historical importance cannot be measured like ordinary inventory.
Ontario law requires the museum’s property and income to be used solely to advance its institutional purposes. Its board oversees collection policies, while annual business plans and audited statements are made public as part of the agency’s accountability obligations. A legislative committee that previously examined the ROM emphasized both its international significance and the importance of public access for Ontarians from different regions and income levels. Against that background, secrecy surrounding a proposal to monetize assets carries reputational risks even when no sale occurs. Donors, Indigenous communities, researchers and the public may reasonably want to know how such an option entered the discussion.
The Unanswered Questions Matter More Than the Headline
The available evidence does not show that Premier Doug Ford or his cabinet ordered the ROM to sell artifacts. It shows that a government-commissioned consultant examined artifact sales and the sale of a storage property as speculative financial options, and that both the province and the museum now say those possibilities are not being pursued. Treating the proposal as an approved plan would go beyond what the disclosed records establish.
Several legitimate questions nevertheless remain. It is unclear which artifacts were contemplated, whether the proposal followed the ROM’s collections policy, how much money consultants believed could be raised and whether officials formally rejected the idea. It is also unclear why attendance forecasts, financial calculations and other potentially separable information must remain hidden years after the review was completed. The privacy commissioner’s eventual decision may uphold some confidentiality while requiring additional disclosure elsewhere. Until then, the government’s refusal to provide a fuller picture will continue to make the secrecy itself almost as significant as the controversial options contained in the report.
