A June 27, 2025 Ingenium, Canada’s museums of science and innovation (comprising the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum) announcement (received via email and available for a limited time here), lists their July 2025 events,
Celebrate Canada Day with Ingenium!
This July 1 [2025], explore, discover, and play at all three Ingenium museums—where admission is FREE all day long!
Take your celebration to new heights at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum , with one of Ottawa’s most exciting Canada Day events featuring hands-on activities and a showcase of Canadian achievements in aviation and space. At the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, savour tasty samples made with strawberries, maple syrup, and honey, meet Canadian livestock, and explore the new Memories Are Made in the Kitchen exhibition. Over at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, dive into hands-on science challenges, dazzling demonstrations, and inspiring exhibitions that highlight the spirit of Canadian innovation.
Parking fees are in effect at all sites—plan to arrive early, as entry is first-come, first-served!
This summer, Ingenium is proud to participate in the Canada Strong Pass—a new Government of Canada initiative offering FREE admission to children and youth aged 17 and under at our three national museums. From June 20 to September 2, 2025, young visitors can explore the wonders of science, technology, and innovation at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and Canada Science and Technology Museum with complimentary admission. Visitors aged 18–24 can also enjoy 50% off discounted admission, making it easier than ever to engage with the stories, artifacts, and experiences that shape our nation’s scientific and technological heritage. To participate, simply purchase your tickets online or in-person at your favourite Ingenium museum!
Plus, score a great deal on unlimited discovery! This summer only, all new members will receive a 14-month membership for the price of a year. Only until September 2, 2025.
Opening to the public on Canada Day, Memories Are Made in the Kitchen is a welcoming and engaging new exhibition at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum. Discover the rich culinary diversity of Canada through personal stories, evocative smells, family recipes, and hands-on experiences. Enjoy imaginative play in the Lil’ Chefs Play Kitchen, created in partnership with Laurysen Kitchens, while the whole family explores how food connects us across generations and traditions.
This summer, all three Ingenium museums offer exciting programming for families and visitors of all ages! At the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, enjoy daily demonstrations and hands-on fun in the Demonstration Kitchen, where you can learn cooking techniques and try tasty recipes inspired by the flavours of summer. The Canada Aviation and Space Museum invites you to explore aviation like never before—from practicing marshalling signals to discovering the vital role of ground crews in keeping flights safe. Young visitors can let their imaginations soar in the Exploration Station, a space-themed play and learning area designed for playful discovery. Meanwhile, the Canada Science and Technology Museum celebrates curiosity with immersive dome films like Wilfred Buck’s Star Stories, vintage train rides, hands-on science in Science in the Sun, lighthouse visits, and guided tours of the Ingenium Centre’s extensive artifact collection. There’s something inspiring for everyone to discover this season!
See Earth like never before in the Earth in Focus Exhibition
Don’t miss Earth in Focus: Insights from Space, on now at the Canada Science and Technology Museum through September 1, 2025. Developed in partnership with the Canadian Space Agency, this visually stunning exhibition explores how images of Earth taken from space help scientists monitor our changing planet. Through striking photos and videos, discover how space-based data is used to tackle global challenges—from protecting the environment to responding to natural disasters—and gain a new appreciation for our shared, fragile world.
Discover Marvels of the museum—and collect to win!
Marvels of the museum is a fun, family-friendly experience offered daily at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., 2 p.m., and 3 p.m. Join a museum guide for a lively spotlight on an iconic artifact—each session features fascinating stories, surprising facts, and a closer look at aviation history. After each demo, guests receive a special collectible trading card. Collect all five by September 1 for a chance to win an unforgettable helicopter ride! One card per family at each artifact spotlight.
Discover Welcome Wednesdays: FREE evenings at the farm!
This summer, enjoy free admission and parking on select Wednesday evenings at the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum with Welcome Wednesdays. From 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on July 23, visitors of all ages can explore the animal barns, exhibitions, and the Demonstration Kitchen—plus enjoy hands-on activities and engaging demonstrations that change each month. This initiative is part of Ingenium’s commitment to making the museum accessible to everyone, with additional supports available for groups upon request. Welcome Wednesdays are made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ingenium Foundationand its donors.
Benjamin Lopez Steven’s June 16, 2025 article for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) news online website highlights the launch for this first time pass,
Canadian Culture and Identity Minister Steven Guilbeault announced on Monday morning [June 16, 2025] that the federal government will launch the Canada Strong Pass later this week — a move to promote domestic tourism that makes Canada’s historic sites and parks free to visit and rail travel less expensive for young people.
“Canadians are proud of their country. Canada is strong and it’s yours to discover,” Guilbeault said at the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa.
The pass, which launches on Friday and ends Sept. 2, doesn’t require registration or a physical card [emphasis mine]. Instead, the benefits will be available upon arrival at parks, national museums and when booking train tickets. Canadians and foreign tourists are eligible [emphasis mine].
In a news release, Canadian Heritage said the pass includes free admission for all visitors to national historic sites, national parks and national marine conservation areas administered by Parks Canada and a 25 per cent discount on camping fees.
The pass also gives children aged 17 and under free admission to national museums and the Plains of Abraham Museum. For young adults aged 18 to 24, they get a 50 per cent discount.
Children aged 17 and under can also travel for free on Via Rail when accompanied by an adult. Young adults aged 18 to 24 get a 25 per cent discount on tickets.
Finally, children get free admission to select provincial and territorial museums and galleries, while young adults aged 18 to 24 get a 50 per cent discount.
…
Guilbeault said the pass is “about discovering and reconnecting with nature, history and culture of this remarkable country we all share and are proud to call our own.”
Rebecca Bollwitt’s June 18, 2025 posting on her miss604.com blog highlights sites in BC after covering some of the same ground as the CBC article,
…
You can use this map to find a National Historic Site or National Park in BC. Around Southwest BC, there’s the Fort Rodd Hill and Fisgard Lighthouse in Victoria, the Gulf of Georgia Cannery in Steveston, and Fort Langley National Historic Site. There are no National Parks in the Lower Mainland, but the closest would be Pacific Rim National Park (Tofino/Ucluelet on Vancouver Island) or Gulf Islands National Park Reserve.
Yoho National Park – Miss604 Photo
British Columbia Locations
Fisgard Lighthouse National Historic Site
Fort Langley National Historic Site
Fort Rodd Hill National Historic Site
Fort St. James National Historic Site
Gitwangak Battle Hill National Historic Site
Glacier National Park
Gulf Islands National Park Reserve
Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site
Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area Reserve, and Haida Heritage Site Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve, National Marine Conservation Area Reserve, and Haida Heritage Site
They’ve been going hot and heavy at Canada’s national museums in Ottawa this last few months. First, there was a brouhaha over corporate patronage and energy in January 2012 and, again, in April 2012 and now, it’s all about sex. While I’m dying to get started on the sex, this piece is going to follow the chronology.
The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) website has a Jan. 23, 2012 posting which notes the active role Imperial Oil played in a November 2011 energy exhibit (part of a multi-year, interactive national initiative, Let’s Talk Energy) at the Canada Science and Technology Museum (from the CBC Jan. 23, 2012 posting),
Imperial Oil, a sponsor of the Museum of Science and Technology’s exhibition “Energy: Power to Choose,” was actively involved in the message presented to the public, according to emails obtained by CBC News.
The Ottawa museum unveiled the exhibition last year despite criticism from environmental groups like the Sierra Club, which questioned why it was partly funded by the Imperial Oil Foundation, which contributed $600,000 over six years.
Apparently, CBC reporters got their hands on some emails where the Imperial Oil Foundation president, Susan Swan, made a number of suggestions,
In an Oct. 3 [2011] interview on CBC Ottawa’s All in a Day, host Alan Neal asked exhibit curator Anna Adamek whose idea it was to include in the exhibit a reference that says oilsands account for one-tenth of one percent of global emissions.
“This fact comes from research reports that are available at the museum, that were commissioned by the museum,” Adamek told Neal.
…
But earlier emails from Imperial Oil Foundation president Susan Swan obtained by Radio-Canada through an Access to Information request show she had recommended that information be included back in May [2011?].
Swan, who also served as chair of the advisory committee to the project, also asked that information be included that the oilsands are expected to add $1.7 trillion to the Canadian economy over the next 25 years.
Not all of Swan’s requests made it into the final exhibit: in one point, she asked that an illustration for Polar Oil and Gas Reserves be changed from red to blue, arguing red “has a negative connotation” bringing to mind “blood oil.” The change was not made.
Personally, I love Swan’s semiotic analysis of the colour ‘red’. I wonder how many graphic designers have been driven mad by someone who sat through a lecture or part of a television programme on colour and/or semiotics and is now an expert.
If you’re curious, you can see the emails from the Imperial Oil Foundation in the CBC Jan. 23, 2012 posting.
A few months later, Barrick Gold (a mining corporation) donated $1M to have a room at the Canadian Museum of Nature renamed, from the April 24, 2012 posting on the CBC website,
Environmental groups are upset over a decision to rename a room at the Canadian Museum of Nature after corporate mining giant Barrick Gold.
Barrick Gold Corp., based out of Toronto, purchased the room’s naming rights for about $1 million. The new “Barrick Salon” is the museum’s premier rental space featuring a circular room with glass windows from floor to ceiling.
The decision had activists protest at the museum Tuesday, a few hours before the official naming reception that includes Barrick Gold executives.
…
“It’s definitely not a partnership, it’s a sponsorship,” said Elizabeth McCrea, the museum’s director of communications. “We’re always looking at increasing self-generated revenue and this is one way that we’re doing it.” [emphasis mine]
Monarchs and wealthy people have been funding and attempting to influence cultural institutions for millenia. These days, we get to include corporations on that list but it’s nothing new. People or institutions with power and money always want history or facts * presented in ways that further or flatter their interests (“history is written by the victors”). They aren’t always successful but they will keep trying.
It’s time now to add sex to the mix. Canada’s Science and Technology Museum is currently hosting SEX: A Tell-all Exhibition, which has caused some consternation in our country’s capital (Ottawa), from the May 16, 2012 article by Althia Raj for the *Huffington Post (Canada),
Canada’s Science and Technology Museum has abruptly raised the age limit for a controversial sex exhibit after Heritage Minister James Moore’s office raised concerns and more than 50 individuals complained.
Moore’s office called museum president Denise Amyot to complain that Sex: A Tell-All Exhibition [sic] is completely inappropriate.
“The purpose of the Museum of Science and Technology is to foster scientific and technological literacy throughout Canada,” said Moore’s spokesperson James Maunder.
“It is clear this exhibit does not fit within that mandate. This content cannot be defended, and is insulting to taxpayers,” he said.
This show had already been run in Montréal (where it was developed by the Montréal Science Centre for children 12 years and older) and in Regina (Saskatachewan), without significant distress or insult.
Since the show opened in Ottawa, the National Post has run a couple of opinion pieces (against [Barbara Kay] and for [Sarah Elton]). Here’s Barbara Kay in her June 12, 2012 piece decrying the ‘porn exhibit’,
In On Liberty, the Ur-text for many free speech libertarians, John Stuart Mill argues that the demands of liberty and authority will always struggle, because the one cannot exist without the other. And so “some rules of conduct, therefore, must be imposed — by law in the first place, and by opinion on many things which are not fit subjects for the operation of law.”
Many of Mill’s devotees would be surprised to learn how much weight he gave to social opprobrium in matters that cause “offence” to the public. By “good manners,” Mill was clearly thinking, at least in part, about community standards of decency. Which brings us to the recent controversy over “Sex: a Tell-All Exhibition” at Ottawa’s Museum of Science and Technology.
…
But in truth my deeper concern is the exhibition’s indecency, and the harm it will likely do by titillating children’s imaginations in a way that runs counter to a natural sense of personal modesty.
I gather Kay is accustomed to being thought a ‘libertarian’. The problem with labels of these kinds is that you will find yourself in a corner because, at some point, the philosophy goes too far in a direction you’re not willing to follow. I’ve never met anyone who isn’t inconsistent on occasion and this is where Kay is inconsistent in her libertarian philosophy. She references a 19th century philosopher to justify her discomfort and her desire to censor information about sex.
Elton in her June 12, 2012 piece frames the discussion quite differently, almost as if she were the libertarian,
When a publicly funded museum censors an exhibit after the minister who funds museums in Canada questions its content, it is an attack on our democracy. What we talk about in our museums — the stories we tell each other in these public forums — helps to determine who we are as a country.
The Canada Museum of Science and Technology receives most of its funding from the government, as do most other museums in Canada. It is not a stretch to believe that this could be the dawn of a content chill here, as curators in the months ahead question their decisions about which exhibits to mount and what to put in them.
Given the issues with corporate and other patronage that museums and other cultural institutions routinely encounter, Elton’s comments seem a little naïve to me. However, both she and Kay raise points that bear examination and I think the National Post should be recognized for the decision to present these viewpoints. Thank you.
As for James Moore, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, he’s from my neck of the woods, (Conservative Member of Parliament representing Port Moody – Westwood – Port Coquitlam, British Columbia). While I’m not in his constituency, I would like to note publicly that neither he nor his spokesperson, James Maunder, represent my view. I’m neither insulted nor do I believe that the SEX: A Tell-all Exhibition is outside the museum’s mandate.
The Museum’s mandate, to study the “Transformation of Canada,” can be broken into sub-themes:
Canadian Context:
Context shapes the evolution of science and technology. Canadian achievements reflect the challenges overcome and the choices made in developing the nation in light of vast geographical distances, a harsh physical environment and limited resources in terms of skilled workers and available capital.
Finding New Ways:
The search for new knowledge and new ways of doing things is basic to human nature. Science and technology have played key roles in efforts to find new ways of living, learning and working.
How “Things” Work:
Developing an understanding of how “things” work can make people more aware of factors that have contributed to the transformation of Canada, such as scientific principles and physical properties. At the most basic level, taking apart an object, process or system (both physically and conceptually) provides important insight into the world we live in.
People, Science and Technology:
People have a dynamic relationship with science and technology. Domestic and work lives are shaped and influenced by scientific and technological change. At the same time, people shape the evolution of science and technology individually and collectively through their decisions and actions. However, our ability to direct and control scientific and technological advancements is not absolute; choices and trade-offs often have to be made with the consequences in mind.
That seems like a very broad mandate to me and one where sex would fit into at least three of the categories, Canadian Context, Finding New Ways, and People, Science, and Technology with technology that has affected sex greatly, birth control. Actually, I can make an argument for the How “Things” work category too.
Interestingly, Moore has no problem celebrating war. In a Friday, Oct. 21, 2011 article by Randy Boswell for the Vancouver Sun,
This decade will see the Canadian government spearhead an unprecedented anniversarypalooza, with recent announcements about a $28-million fund for War of 1812 commemorations, just the first of a host of planned federal investments to mark a range of milestones.
Those include Queen Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee next year, the centennial of the important but ill-fated Canadian Arctic Expedition in 2013, the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War in 2014 and – above all – Canada’s 150th birthday bash in 2017. [emphases mine]
I have overstated it somewhat. There are other celebrations planned although why the beginning of World War I would be included in this “anniversarypalooza” is a mystery to me. It does seem curious though that war can be celebrated without insult. As more than one commentator has noted, society in general seems to have less trouble with depictions of violence than it has with depictions of sex.
In any event, I’m thrilled to see so much interest in Canada’s ‘science’ museums. May the conversation continue.
* Correction: Huggington changed to Huffington, July 17, 2013.