Inheriting the artifactory dilemma

Editorial in The Guardian - June 21, 2007
The Ghiz government must resolve the dispute over the artifactory and a centrally located provincial museum.

When they won the May 28 election, the provincial Liberals inherited some complex and delicate dilemmas. The future of the provincial artifactory and the call for a centrally located provincial museum were two of them. It's their job now to find a solution that will put these issues to rest.

Many Islanders outside the heritage community may not have known what an artifactory was until Premier Pat Binns announced last year he was relocating the storage facility to Murray River. Many heritage activists protested the decision saying the facility should be more centrally located so more Islanders would have access to it, and staff would be able to interact more easily with others also working in that area of interest and expertise. Still others said it should be part of a provincial museum situated at least in the central region of the province, if not the capital city area.

But proponents of the move argued that anything was better than the status quo. Right now, an estimated 80,000 artifacts are stored in a leaky storage facility in the West Royalty Industrial Park - hardly an ideal location for the precious pieces of our history.

In spite of the vocal opposition to the move, the Binns government proceeded with it, and the Northumberland Development Corporation in Murray River acquired the land necessary for the artifactory and moved ahead with some of the plans.

The Liberal victory in last month's election has put those plans on hold. Premier Robert Ghiz has put a moratorium on the project until he can review it, a move that obviously doesn't thrill the development corporation, which has already invested $250,000 in the land purchase, demolition and preparatory architectural work at the site.

Few would dispute the fact that our artifacts deserve better shelter. But locating this facility anywhere other than central P.E.I. could end up being a greater disservice in the long run. Our artifacts need protection, but they also need to be accessible to the public. The opinion of many heritage activists seems to suggest that we need, first of all, a broader vision of how we want to protect and display our heritage, and, second, a centrally located facility that would best accommodate this vision.

It's unfortunate that the plan to move the artifactory to Murray River has proceeded as far as it has. The new government will have to consider the investment that's already gone into the project in deciding whether to go ahead or go back to the drawing board.

But this shouldn't be the key consideration. If after reviewing the project and consulting with interested parties, government halts the artifactory move - and hopefully it will - it should look into moving some other facility to Murray River. In this way, the time and money that's gone into preparing the site for development won't be wasted.