New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt says there’s no new money for heritage sites despite the operator of an anchor tourist attraction in the Saint Andrews area saying it would fold at the end of the year without more funding.
The charitable organization that runs Ministers Island says it’s set an Aug. 5 deadline to notify the province that it will be ending its lease over concerns that the operation is financially unsustainable.
But Holt told reporters last week that the government doesn’t have any additional money for sites such as Ministers Island or Macdonald Farm in the Miramichi area, which closed earlier this month over funding issues.
“At this point in time, the government does not have additional monies to put more monies in those heritage sites,” Holt told reporters, saying they would “work closely” with operators and communities to preserve the sites.
Ministers Island is a national historic site about three kilometres north of Saint Andrews that served as the summer home of former Canadian Pacific Railway president William Van Horne until his death in 1915 and contains important Indigenous archeological sites.
The provincially owned tourist attraction, accessible only at low tide, has been operated by a community volunteer-run charity called the Van Horne Estate at Minister’s Island, Inc. since 2008. The charity’s board chair John Kershaw told Brunswick News the state of the organization is a “tale of two cities.”
Visitation numbers have been “positive,” Kershaw said, with 23,937 visitors last year and things “trending well” to meet or exceed that this year.
By comparison, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery received 15,666 visitors in 2024, Kings Landing received 35,375 and Kingsbrae Garden received 45,039, according to statistics from the province’s ministry of tourism, heritage and culture.
“But of course, the issue of the day is the lack of support funding from the provincial government, which has put our organization into a situation where we’re not fiscally sustainable going forward,” Kershaw said.
The board has voted to give its six-month notice to the province that it is ending the lease and Kershaw said they would deliver that notice and dissolve the organization by the end of the year if the funding situation hasn’t changed by its Aug. 5 annual general meeting.
Tourism department spokesperson Jennifer Vienneau said the government “recognizes and values the significant contributions VHEMI has made over nearly two decades in preserving and sharing this important provincial heritage site with the public.”
She said the province is “committed to ensuring the continued conservation and public enjoyment of Ministers Island” and would work with the charity “through any and all decision-making process on their continued stewardship.”
James Geneau, a member of Explore Saint Andrews’ board, said that the island is part of the “holy trinity” of attractions in the area, including Kingsbrae and the Huntsman Marine Science Centre. Other activities like food, whale watching and golfing then fill the schedule around the major attractions, he said.
“You need to have more than one attraction to get people to stay more than one night,” he said. “If you start losing the multi-attraction model that we have here, it becomes harder and harder to sell and market the town as a longer-stay destination.”
Ministers Island is also part of a “network” of national historical sites that makes the area unique, Geneau said, including Saint Croix Island, the Blockhouse and the Greenwich Church as well as the Charlotte County Courthouse and Gaol.
Speaking for himself, Geneau called it “mind-blowing” that the province and Canada don’t recognize the audience for “authentic heritage and cultural experiences.” He noted that the global heritage tourism market was worth about US$600 billion last year, which is expected to exceed $840 billion by 2033, according to an IMARC Group report.
He said that jurisdictions like Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island and Quebec are “completely tapping into that” with funding and asset management plans.
“People want to go and see an authentic historical site and experience, and … it’s very lucrative,” he said. “They should be able to be sustainable as heritage and cultural attractions, but we unfortunately don’t do things that way.”
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