Brandon Sun - PRINT EDITION
A lot of Westman’s history is about to be harder to access.
A federal funding cut by the Harper government threatens efforts to preserve Canadian history in small historical archives and museums in dozens of communities.
The National Archival Development Program — a federal grant program with a budget of about $1.7 million annually — was cut as part of $9.6 million in reductions to Library and Archives Canada.
Archivists from across Canada protested recently in Ottawa.
“It’s seed money to help community archives across Canada help preserve and make accessible to Canadians our documentary heritage,” Lara Wilson, chair of the Canadian Council of Archives, told the CBC.
The money used to be provided as a matching grant program for religious archives, First Nations archives and historical archives, she said.
The archivists called on the government to restore the program funding small archives and even increase that funding.
In Brandon, a small group recently gathered outside Brandon University’s John E. Robbins Library to draw attention to the issue. Wearing white T-shirts and black ribbons, librarians, library workers and faculty members hoped to send a message to the Conservative government.
The cuts are “an attack on the cultural fabric of the country,” former Brandon University archivist Tom Mitchell told the Brandon Sun.
“It’s our only hope,” said Mitchell, who was the university archivist for 15 years. “It’s unbelievable that they’re doing this. The thing is so many people have worked so hard over the last decade … to build up these institutions and in the stroke of a pen, the federal government destroys things. It’s unbelievable.”
The cuts are going to impact Brandon University’s library in a number of ways, including the accessibility of the S.J. McKee Archives and Lawrence Stuckey Collection.
In its ongoing effort to inform and entertain readers, the Brandon Sun regularly uses images from the S.J. McKee Archives and Lawrence Stuckey Collection.
One example of that can be found on Page A8 today — a very rare image of early farmer John Sandison, known as “The Wheat King.”
While damaged, the photo is one of the very few images known of the Sandison farm.
Images from the S.J. McKee Archives are also being used in the Sun’s ongoing five-part multi-media series entitled: “Prince Edward Hotel at 100: A Vanished Landmark.”
Mitchell is worried about the impact the cuts will have on rural Manitoba.
“If you’re an archivist or trying to do archival work in Minnedosa, Boissevain, Neepawa, Carberry … you name it, you are totally isolated,” he said, adding the elimination of the Association of Manitoba Archives will also be a major blow.
Chris Hurst, acting university librarian, told the Sun the government needs to consider the implications.
“What I worry about … is that we live in a society where it’s all too easy to think that you can find anything you want just by going to a little search box and typing something in. Most people think that’s enough and it really isn’t,” said Hurst, a second-generation librarian. “Librarians really do bring a breadth of experience and knowledge to the organization, preservation and dissemination of knowledge.”
While we applaud the Conservatives’ efforts to keep the economy healthy and the government’s books in good shape, we have been calling into question a number of cuts that on the surface simply don’t make any sense.
As one archivist put it: “Archives really are about the memory of our nation. They tell us who we are, where we’ve been, what we’ve done. It’s a patchwork of pieces of the puzzle of who Canadians are.”
And these cuts could level a devastating blow to that effort.
The Tories surely have to reconsider this one.
Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition June 11, 2012
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A lot of Westman’s history is about to be harder to access.
A federal funding cut by the Harper government threatens efforts to preserve Canadian history in small historical archives and museums in dozens of communities.
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A lot of Westman’s history is about to be harder to access.
A federal funding cut by the Harper government threatens efforts to preserve Canadian history in small historical archives and museums in dozens of communities.
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