Layoffs Loom at Vancouver Art Gallery
145June 28, 2025
TheVancouver Art Gallery(VAG) is set to lay off or buy out roughly one-third of its unionized staff, theVancouver Sunreports. An unspecified number of non-union workers are expected to be made redundant as well. The cuts arrive in the wake of the museum’s June 17 annual general meeting, during which the institution revealed it had lost $2.85 million in operating revenue during the 2023–24 fiscal year and was on track to lose money in 2024–25. VAG board chair Jon Stovell told the paper the cuts were being made in an effort to avoid what he characterized as an “unsustainable annual deficit.”
“The cuts are across the organization, every department, all levels,” said spokesperson Jasmine Bradley, who affirmed that the gallery currently employs 129 full-time staffers. Warren Williams, president of CUPE Local 15, which represents unionized staff, told theSunthat twenty-nine unionized workers would lose their jobs. “They’re offering severance packages, which are somewhat better than the collective agreement language allows,” said Williams. “The employer has been pretty good about that. They’re in a deficit financially, there’s no doubt about that.”
Stovell cited a post-pandemic lack of attendance and changes to funding streams as behind the cuts. “We’re not like a government that could just tax our way and keep going,” he said. “We really are obligated to live within our means.” Stovell said VAG aims to achieve a balanced budget for the 2025–26 fiscal year. The museum for the past decade and a half had been working toward constructing a new Herzog & de Meuron–designed gallery but last December announced it was scrapping the plan as too expensive. VAG, which still possesses a building fund of roughly $99 million, is expected to forge ahead with a more cost-restrained building designed by a Canadian architect. Anthony Kiendl, the museum’s CEO and executive director, departed in March.