Museum's final spot sparks heated debate at meeting

Audience debates whether artifactory should be in urban or rural centre


NIGEL ARMSTRONG, The Guardian - March 8, 2007

Don LeClair, centre, president of the Community Museum Association, joins a discussion group on the future of museums on the Island during the first of three provincewide public meetings on the issue. Close to 80 people attended the meeting. Guardian photo by Nigel Armstrong

As a topic, museums on P.E.I. and more especially the lack of a provincial museum is a delicate and complex affair.

The Institute of Island Studies is hosting three meetings across the province to discuss the issue, prompted in part by the recent controversial move to set up an artifact storage facility in Murray River.

The first public meeting hosted by the institute was Wednesday in Charlottetown.

In Charlottetown was exactly where former city councillor Philip Brown wants to see a provincial museum located.

Dodging verbal bullets from Catherine Hennessey about his “political announcement,” Brown said Charlottetown agreed with the province to “wait and see” before proceeding on a grand scheme some four years ago to have a firefighters’ museum built to include other types of museum exhibits.

“This is what ‘wait and see (did),’” said Brown of the lack of any museum in the city.

“The site should be in the Charlottetown area, simple,” said Brown.

Stratford MLA David McKenna, who was one of the last to speak, ended his remarks by saying the move of the artifacts to a Murray River facility “is a go,” despite confident statements from guest panelist Ann Howatt that there is still a fight left to fight on the matter.

McKenna said the goal of the move to Murray River is to protect the existing artifacts and a longer-term plan for the whole museum system can come later.

“It’s one step at a time,” he said.

Some at the meeting noted how embarrassing it was that the Island has no provincial museum and others noted wonderful museum projects in other places, notably Newfoundland.

Yes, said McKenna, but that cost $50 million. He said not every community will agree Charlottetown is the place for a provincial museum.

Librarian Simon Lloyd then jumped to his feet, barely able to control his anger, to launch an attack on McKenna, demanding that he apologize to the people of P.E.I.

“How dare you play the people of Murray River off against the people of Charlottetown,” said Lloyd.

“This province deserves so much better.”

Organizers had the meeting break into discussion groups, which then returned to report on a vision for the future that grew as each group added a feature. The vision included a year-round provincial museum designed more for Islanders than for tourists, with professional staff and guides. The new complex would also house the provincial archive, community meeting space, provincial art gallery, research space, exhibits that change regularly and interpret the natural and social history of the province, including aboriginal people.

Barry King, executive director of the Community Museums Association, didn’t exactly disagree with the idea of a provincial museum to present Island history, but didn’t want anyone, especially government, to forget the work and the funding needed for the many small community museums in the province.