Columnists
Heritage rears its ugly head
I’m big on heritage. I make my living by bringing County history to life, with all of its quirks and eccentricities.
For some reason, talk of preserving heritage has become something of a controversial issue. I’d like to explore it and, God willing, perhaps add a little insight to the topic.
First, let’s set the stage: I was at the nowfamous Beach Bum council meeting and spoke to council spontaneously in my allotted three minutes. (I think other people get 10, but councillors know I can run for an hour on any topic!)
My purpose was not to support Beach Bum, as I barely knew them, but to point out that the County was saddled with a bylaw that was more concerned with sign dimensions, substrates and collecting a fee than it was about heritage.
In fact, part of the problem is that signs are not the major part of heritage preservation. But this is how governments work: “We not only want to control you, we want you to pay for the privilege!”
With good intentions, the Heritage Advisory Committee tried to make a case for preserving our historic buildings. What they ended up with was a bylaw that does nothing to support the cause. What they got was a pile of rules about signs, placed under the auspices of the Planning Committee of Council, designed to do little more than to collect fees for putting up signs.
This was evident during Beach Bum’s presentation when, clearly, most of the councillors were okay with the sign, but were hogtied by their own bylaw. So the argument basically boiled down to following proper procedure and paying the proper fee.
Do you see Heritage leaping out of this discussion? No. You look for heritage protection, and end up with a municipal body whose sole purpose is to read, interpret and implement a bylaw.
Many comments have been made about heritage. I’ll say up front that I disagree with Bill Roberts’ letter, Steve Staniek’s response and Jamie Forrester’s plan. And here’s why. Okay, I don’t completely disagree with Bill. He nicely defined the need for preserving our glorious past. But he neglected to define it. For all of the talks, consultants, surveys and community outreach over the course of years that he refers to—no one has defined the elusive “heritage” we wish to preserve. He answered the why but not the what. More on this later. As for Steve, he seems to indicate that a public poll should decide if there is any interest in pursuing a preservation plan. I strongly disagree. All preservation efforts call for vision, not referendums. Every worthwhile conservation effort in Canada has been launched by handfuls of people who care, even if no one else cares. And future generations thank them for their foresight.
Do we care about World War Two? Hell no. That was ages ago. Forget about it. That could be the response of an apethetic 18-year-old.
But those who look to the future know that “Lest We Forget” is more than a slogan, and the message of that war and others needs to be preserved as a constant reminder of the terrible toll it took on the world.
I do agree, however, that legislation is not the answer to preservation. More on that later.
Jamie Forrester, with good intentions, wants to throw money at the problem. And that, again, is not the solution.
Everyone is thinking way too hard about this.
I was a participant in Steve Ferguson’s Two Days About Yesterday in Wellington. If you want to talk heritage, this was the place to be.
I had a brief look at a display by ERA Architects. Two people were deep in conversation with somebody about the porosity of old brick versus new brick. So I just looked at the pictures of Picton and area building restorations.
Then it hit me. All of the thoughtful restorations of Picton’s many beautiful red brick façades were done by the owners of the buildings!
They weren’t legislated or controlled by punitive bylaws. They brought their personal vision to the table and made it happen.
Let’s forget for a minute about signs as a heritage item, and the hideous Canada Post Box, and the futuristic new LCBO (which, by the way, will consume all of Ontario’s wind power just to heat the enormous empty space above the booze bottles). And yes, we’ve had some pretty slapdash infill buildings in place of alleyways and burned-out spots.
Look instead at the work of Alex Fida in restoring the Downes/Falconer home. The work on the Royal Hotel is a jaw-dropper for any passer-by. And take a look at the businesses of Alexandra Bake, who brought so many of the Main Street buildings back to life with taste and care—and probably considerable expense.
Even The Edward—a new construction— mirrors the heritage of Main. This is not only true vision, but a statement of the power of heritage preservation in improving the atmosphere of an old rural Ontario town.
I’ve heard County people scoff at projects like this: “Oh, yeah, but they’ve got lots of money!” Maybe so, and I hope so. But keep in mind, any one of these people— and others who have taken the time to improve their buildings—could just as easily have dropped their money in a GIC and walked away. Instead, they chose to invest in Prince Edward County. I, for one, greatly admire that.
You can’t legislate it. You can’t buy it. But you sure as hell can encourage it.
If you have vision, brains and will, the job can be done. In Bloomfield, if you plant a spectacular flower garden, next year your neighbour does the same. And pretty soon, everybody does.
If you are a building owner and don’t have a lot of money to restore and improve it, that’s where I think help is needed. Perhaps some guidance through the Heritage group. Maybe some helpful videos on how to treat your old porous red brick to preserve it.
Not everyone can undertake a major renovation project, but some helpful tips on small things that can be done over time might help those who can’t make a big one-time cash outlay.
Turn to the experts, not the damned consultants. I’ve heard nothing but great things about County contractors and have personally had great experiences with them.
Forget the legislation, and the ridiculous sign issue, and the pot of money. Make the pathway to doing the right thing easy to follow. We’ll take it from there.
Hey Steve, not many British Christian Supremacists [BCS], are eager to publicly self identify the way you have. It suggests that you still believe in, or have confidence in colonial culture in the County despite the fact that it has been exposed as a culture of racial hatred, social entropy, and oppression. Your BCS ideas are still supported by a teeny minority of heritage extremists representing almost 1% of the County. A few years ago about 250 out of 25,000 residents actually engaged in the Heritage District study. Indifference is silent dissent.
Rome perfected classical colonialism in 325 CE, by inventing and making Christianity the central prong in brutal colonialism. Most students of classical and modern colonialism, quickly recognize the deep criminality of the 3 prongs of colonialism: 1) the use of massive genocidal violence, 2) imposition of state religion, and 3) enslaving laws to control indigenous people and their land wealth. Last year, I brought a new word to Prince Edward County not heard here before. The word is “ethical” and I combined it with “Canada”, for the first time, to produce an emerging concept that will eventually transform Canada’s criminal foundations into an ethical platform of governing concepts.
Ethical heritage lovers and supporters preserve and honour their own historic properties, while covetous heritage “extremists” believe they have a right to control everything historic whether they own it or not. They disrespect the human rights of others, and use legal but “hostile” means to gain control over private properties as they willfully harm their neighbours. The heritage district is a bad joke, a complete sham and another County disgrace, along with the worst highway, the worst bridge, the worst municipal governments, and of course supporting all those failures are the worst local press.
The criminal state of Canada was constructed with colonial terrorism, ie” genocidal land theft that produced generational traumas, and ultimately destroyed millions of Canadian lives through abuse of native children. The post colonial state of Canada grew into “a nation of child abusers”, by terrorizing little children with physical, emotional, and spiritual terrorism. No mercy, kindness, or cuddly Christmas teddy bears for hundreds of thousands of native children taken from their families and communities by Red Coats, and thrown into remote and dark Christian prisons, where their teacher-guards abused them in the name of Jesus, and the royal monarch of the day. British racial hatred and social entropy were embedded in County culture by UELs, who brought it here from New England. Talia Epstein reported recently on the levels of racial hatred that still thrive in PEC.
QUESTION: Will you and other County historians, eg: Warrick, etc. willing to engage me in an electronic debate over British Christian colonialism in the County? This paramount issue needs to be addressed and resolved before this County and this country can move ahead.
Yes. it’s high time to hold evil accountable, especially those who continue to self identify as British Christian Supremacists, and still support the old criminal British Empire, the worst of the European predator nations.
The British Christian social delusion of supremacy has been blown away forever into the annals of false history by the TRR.