Canada celebrates Heritage Day (and the grass being greener...)

In "A day to celebrate, or commiserate," the Toronto Globe and Mail reflects upon Heritage Day. The author makes a good point, that by "governmentalizing" the protection of heritage, that it becomes the responsibility of the government, not people themselves.

Trevor Boddy writes:

Heritage Day is this Monday. Few of us know this, and even fewer celebrate it. The status of this holiday is similar to the status of preservation movement today -- noted for a moment, then ignored.

In Canada, our generic deference to the state means that heritage -- like the arts -- is thought to be maintained by some public or quasi-public agency. This almost always means a lot of over-worked preservationists scrambling to implement under-funded programs.

I am always amazed at how much more advanced heritage conservation efforts are in the United States than in Canada, powered by more favourable tax laws, historic designation legislation with teeth, but perhaps most of all, a national narrative that beads together all the individual stories that places tell.

Not so here, the results being cityscapes as steeped in amnesia as Vancouver's, our city having done more to devastate its historic buildings than any other Canadian city, save Calgary. Never-mind telling the story of our nation, the story of Vancouver has lost entire chapters of its built history.
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Being an issue of "the grass being greener," while it is true that the U.S. has decent legislation at the federal level, there is no question that preservation is underfunded at the federal level.

At the local level in the United States, the strength of legislation varies. DC has great laws, many jurisdictions do not. But funding is anemic everywhere. The demands and needs are greater than the funds. And it is difficult to create new historic districts. The property rights movement has blowback even in terms of dealing with preservation, even in a city like Washington, DC.

Interesting, a major preservation battle is underway in New Orleans in so many ways. Historic architecture is one of the city's competitive advantages, but most of the elected officials, including the Mayor, aren't too committed to historicity. The damage of so many buildings because of the levee breaks after Hurricane Katrina has led to the unnecessary demolition of many buildings.

Now, in the U.S., we do have National Heritage Preservation Month, sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It's held in May.

Click here for information on Canada's Heritage Day.