Manitoba’s inspiration economy

Every conversation about Manitoba’s future seems to arrive at the same place.

We talk about investment, innovation, productivity and skilled labour. We celebrate the strength of our aerospace sector, the opportunities created by the world-class companies, community development corporations and educational institutions that have made Manitoba one of Canada’s aerospace leaders.

These are important conversations, but I have come to believe we are overlooking one of the earliest — and perhaps most important — investments we can make in our future economy.

Where does inspiration begin?

Certainly not with a first job, an apprenticeship or even a university acceptance letter. Those milestones matter, but they come much later. The journey often begins with a single moment when a young person encounters an idea, a story or an experience that changes how they see their own future.

That realization has become one of the defining lessons of my first year as CEO of the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.

When I accepted the role, I expected to spend much of my time thinking about aircraft and preserving history. Those responsibilities remain central to our mission, but I have discovered that museums contribute something equally important.

They help shape the future.

Before a young person believes they can become an engineer, entrepreneur, scientist, pilot or astronaut, they first need to believe that extraordinary things can come from ordinary places — and that people like them have accomplished them before.

Museums preserve more than artifacts. They preserve a community’s confidence in itself. They remind us that innovation is not something that happens somewhere else. It has happened here. It continues to happen here. And it can happen through the next generation as well.

Over the past year, I have watched thousands of students walk through our museum. Many simply enjoy a memorable day exploring aircraft they have never seen before. But every so often, something different happens. A question grows into a conversation. That conversation sparks genuine curiosity. Curiosity becomes confidence and confidence becomes aspiration.

Many of our volunteers are retired pilots, aerospace engineers, aircraft maintenance engineers and aviation business leaders. They don’t simply explain how an aircraft flies or how an engine works. They mentor. They encourage. They help young people imagine themselves in careers they may never have considered.

We have seen young volunteers arrive with only a general interest in aviation and later pursue aerospace engineering, aircraft maintenance, commercial aviation and other STEM disciplines. Many return to tell us that conversations in our galleries helped shape the path they chose.

No museum can take credit for those journeys. Parents, teachers, mentors and the students themselves deserve that recognition. But museums can provide the place where the first spark occurs.

That is why I have come to believe that cultural institutions are not simply part of our heritage. They are part of our economic future.

The distance between a museum gallery and an aerospace manufacturing floor is much shorter than we often realize.

Every aerospace company in Manitoba depends on talented, curious and motivated people. We rightly invest in colleges, universities, apprenticeships and industry partnerships to develop those skills. But long before someone chooses an engineering program or applies for a first job, they must first believe they belong in that world.

That belief often begins in places that rarely appear in economic development strategies: museums, classrooms, science centres, Air Cadet squadrons, robotics clubs and conversations with mentors who take a few extra minutes to answer one more question.

The same principle extends well beyond aerospace. The curiosity, resilience, collaboration and critical thinking that define successful aerospace professionals are the same qualities that drive progress in medicine, advanced manufacturing, clean technology, artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship. When we inspire young people to ask questions and imagine ambitious futures, we are investing in Manitoba’s broader capacity to innovate and compete.

Museums, libraries, galleries, science centres and youth organizations deserve to be recognized, along with the passionate people behind them, not only as cultural institutions but as essential pieces of Manitoba’s innovation infrastructure. Together, they connect history with possibility, confidence with ambition and curiosity with careers.

Manitoba’s aerospace future will certainly be built in factories, laboratories, classrooms and flight decks. But before it is built there, it must first be imagined. The “Sky Economy” doesn’t begin with a paycheque.

It begins the moment a young Manitoban realizes that someone from here changed the world — and quietly decides that perhaps they can too.

Peter George is president and CEO of the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada in Winnipeg. He can be reached at peter@royalaviationmuseum.com