MP presses Ottawa to halt move of Winnipeg artifact collection

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This article was published 06/03/2019 (2576 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Winnipeg MP MaryAnn Mihychuk believes she’ll convince her government to renege on plans to move local artifacts to an Ottawa suburb — but officials insist they haven’t changed course.

“These are plans that (former Tory prime minister Stephen) Harper put in place, and the bureaucrats were continuing with their plan. And there is no way that the West would agree,” Mihychuk told the Free Press. “It’s just not logical.”

Today, Mihychuk and local museum officials will tour a Winnipeg depot Parks Canada has been working for years to have cleared out, and brought to a centralized location in Gatineau, Que.

Parks Canada operates “collection-storage facilities” in Winnipeg; Cornwall, Ont.; Ottawa; Quebec City; and a newer one in Dartmouth, N.S. The others, according to the agency, “do not meet environmental and security standards,” putting roughly 60 per cent of its 31 million artifacts “under threat.”

In 2012, the former Conservative government decided to consolidate all those collections to a Gatineau warehouse, across the river (and provincial border) from Ottawa.

Mihychuk believes doing so would deprive Manitobans of their own history, from Mennonite to Ukrainian settlers to the start of the Red River Colony. “I fought for Manitoba, for the West, for the Métis,” she said.

The Liberal MP said John Young, chief executive officer of the Winnipeg-based Canadian Museum for Human Rights, “tentatively agreed” to “storing the artifacts temporarily.” Young was not immediately available for an interview, but a CMHR spokeswoman said there’s been no firm commitment.

“We don’t know whether we will be able to assist with any artifact storage related to this matter and have made no commitment to that effect,” Maureen Fitzhenry wrote. “We have limited artifact-storage space, as our collection is primarily digital in nature.”

Mihychuk also said “the Manitoba Museum is also on board” with her plan, while the Public Service Alliance of Canada held meetings on the issue. PSAC did not respond to an interview request.

The Winnipeg-based Manitoba Museum “is part of ongoing discussions with interested parties to identify options for supporting Manitoba community access to the Parks Canada collections slated for transfer,” CEO Claudette Leclerc wrote.

Yet, Mihychuk suggested keeping those artifacts in Winnipeg was almost a done deal.

“We have basically an understanding; we are fully informed of a solution. And as long as there’s no disaster, our artifacts will stay in Western Canada,” the MP for Kildonan-St. Paul said, clarifying Wednesday that she’d have to present the arrangement as an alternative for the government to take. “We just need to do the formal letter of agreement.”

That was news to Parks Canada.

“All artifacts stored in this facility will be moved,” Dominique Tessier wrote. “The new facility in Gatineau is expected to be complete in 2022, and the Winnipeg collection will move once the facility is operational.”

The agency stressed the collection will be available for researchers, exhibits and ceremonies.

In any case, Mihychuk said Parks Canada ought to have reached out to local museums: “The argument that Manitoba doesn’t have sophisticated facilities: it just wasn’t the case.”

The Winnipeg collection, located at 145 McDermot Ave., spans roughly five million “archaeological artifacts, historic objects and reproductions” from the four western provinces and all three territories, according to Parks Canada.

The items “range from historic period household goods and construction materials to pre-contact Indigenous hunting tools,” the agency wrote. “Only a fraction of the collection is represented by complete objects, as much of the archaeological material is fragmentary.”

Mihychuk said she’d be touring the Winnipeg facility today with Young — and they only got permission when Environment Minister Catherine McKenna “personally intervened” against reluctant Parks Canada bureaucrats.

Yet, McKenna’s office wrote Parks Canada “recommended that she do a tour,” and then set one up; the agency said it will be to “learn more about the project” of transferring the artifacts.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca