"The directors and professional staff of the Museum and Heritage Foundation are being placed in a troubling position at a crucial moment"

by - Andy Robb

Professor Emeritus of History and former Chair of the PEI MHF.

to Island Morning -- Good morning:

As a friend and former Board Chair of the PEI Museum and Heritage Foundation, I must express my dismay after hearing the Premier's thoughts on locating the Provincial Collection in a new store-front artifactory in Murray River. I'm afraid that the longer-term need to develop a coherent vision on the place of heritage and cultural tourism on the Island is falling victim to very short-sighted opportunism.

The directors and professional staff of the Museum and Heritage Foundation are being placed in a troubling position at a crucial moment. They have an overriding responsibilty to safeguard the Provincial Collection of 80,000 plus artifacts, but are being told that the only way to get new and safer housing for the collection is to move it all to Murray River from the admitedly inadequate building where it is now located. This can only stretch very limited human and financial resources even tighter, and very likely provide less fire protection for the collection. The decision also gives the new and distinguished Executive Director of the Museum and Heritage Foundation much less room to manouevre in terms of planning for the next few decades. The deal is "take it or leave it"--a classic lose-lose position if ever there was one. Murray River gets little or no meaningful development, the Museum is weakened, and a coherent cultural tourism and heritage policy doesn't seem to be on the government's agenda.

Vision seems to in short supply these days.