Birthplace squabble sets tone for 2014

Second Opinion by Paul MacNeill, publisher West Prince Graphic
as posted at PEICanada.com

There is a battle brewing in Charlottetown that would make John A. MacDonald reach for his whiskey flask.
On paper it sounds much a do about nothing. What’s the Birthplace of Confederation? Oh come on you moan. Any Islander with half a brain can answer that in a nano second. Charlottetown is the Birthplace of Confederation, you say with a hint of intellectual superiority.

If you are an Islander that concept is fully engrained. We are taught that John A. MacDonald and his crew of fellow nation builders used the Charlottetown meetings of 1864 as a springboard to the creation of Canada in 1867.

Charlottetown takes great pride in its place in history - sometimes to an annoying level.

But history in the hands of modern politicians is often a fickle thing. No need to look at it in context or with an eye to accuracy, especially when history gets in the way of a political pot of gold.

Premier Robert Ghiz and PEI’s lady at the federal cabinet table, Gail Shea, have taken to a little historical revisionism. Charlottetown The Birthplace of Confederation has become Prince Edward Island the Birthplace of Confederation. It’s a subtle change but one that has the City of Charlottetown hopping mad, although city officials are hesitant to publicly criticize.
So what is the big deal you say?

Well a lot if there is potentially $100 million at stake. That is how much the provincial government is asking from Ottawa to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Charlottetown meetings. PEI figures if the feds can funnel $400 million to Quebec for 400th anniversary celebrations, we deserve a quarter as much.

Charlottetown fears that the subtle but important shift to Prince Edward Island Birthplace of Confederation is a strategic attempt to see 2014 funding flow out of the city and across all of PEI. And the city doesn’t like that because it has big plans itself.

A few weeks ago Mayor Clifford Lee floated the idea of replacing the Civic Centre with a new arena/provincial museum combination. No one will argue with the need to demolish the Civic Centre. It is a terrible venue; too small with obstructed sight lines. The city, and the province, need an arena where spectators walk down to their seat rather than up.

Adding a provincial museum is a novel idea but one with little merit, other than it affords the opportunity to tap into a bigger pot of federal cash.

If a provincial museum is needed – and that has yet to be shown – the site should be very carefully selected, something often ignored by city officials. Take for example the convention centre. It is being built on the wrong site, wasting for decades a prime piece of waterfront that would be far better served by other uses, including potentially a provincial museum.

Charlottetown should not simply assume it has a divine right for a museum. If rural PEI is too far for museum elites to drive, as they have repeatedly said, what about Stratford? A modern building on the waterfront would create a dynamic welcoming to the greater city area, similar to the Musuem of Civilization in Hull, Quebec across the river from Ottawa.

The spoils of 2014 should be spread, at least to some extent, across the Island. PEI supplied five fathers of confederation and not all of them came from Charlottetown. It’s easy to envision, for instance, programming in Georgetown, home to one of those five, AA MacDonald.

What is galling is the blatant attempt by Island politicians to rewrite history. It’s silly. It’s petty. And it sends a terrible message to our kids about the crassness of manipulating history to achieve an advantage.

Charlottetown is the Birthplace of Confederation. That is history Robert Ghiz and Gail Shea simply cannot change. It’s a history Islanders accept. Let’s not leave greed and petty infighting as the legacy of 2014. The Fathers of Confederation would not be amused.

Paul MacNeill is Publisher of Island Press Limited. He can be contacted at paul@peicanada.com