Save the Canadian National Archives

Readers will remember that Canada's national archives are in trouble: they've undergone a $9.6M cut, with more to come. The collections are being sold off to private collectors, many outside of the country. Now the Documentary Organization of Canada has weighed in: "Lisa Fitzgibbons, Executive Director of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), succinctly states a case for continuance of sustainable funding of Library and Archives Canada."

Library and Archives Canada advocacy message from DOC

• [sam1148]

  This is bad. Really bad. It would be like selling off the Library Of Congress in America.

  The only thing I can offer is this snarky cut/paste I made ages ago.

  The Flintstones age actually came after the Jetson’s.

  They were a “modern” stone age family.

  After the sprocket/cog corporate wars. The earth was left in ruins. No more flying cars, no more high rise apartments.

  All Digital Media was lost..music, books, education texts. What remained was hard copy print films, books and LPs. Forgotten in the vaults of ground based libraries.

  Using that media which did not require specialized players the ground dwellers rebuilt a society based on the 50′s and 60′s decades of America. LP/Film Movies/and hard copy books were the template to imitate cultures and styles.

  Appliances were simulated using escaped bio engineered animals—and trained to preform specific tasks.

  This is how that started: “I got a Kindle”

• [ravenlunatick]

  Grrr…this pisses me off. But what to do? Stephen Harper isn’t interested in what Canadians think about *any* issue. Any letter writing or petitions are just going to end up filed under ‘G’. :(

• [Maurice Hilarius]

  Naturally if it were to be valuable to Canadians, we would not mind paying to fund it.
  Right?
  Voluntarily?

  Hmm, what is that sucking silence?

  • [Danno]

    Why don’t we give people the option of voluntarily paying for the military – or not – and let’s see what happens.

  • [woodycanuck]

    Stupid logic is the worst kind of logic. We should let people voluntarily pay for road upkeep. Or schools. Or social assistance programs.

    I believe it was Jesus who so eloquently put it: “I got mine, Jack! Every one else for themselves!”

• [Reg Robson]

  My country’s government does not have the support of the majority of my country’s people. Only the support of the majority of my country’s electoral districts. This is not a case of the electorate getting what they deserve, it is a case of the 35 percent governing the 65 percent. I hope for a NDP-Liberal coalition come next election. Open question: what would it take for Albertans to stop voting Conservative federally?

  • [conflator]

    As an Albertan: maybe if the Conservatives brought in some tar-sands killing legislation, or an NEP, that might sway a few votes. Maybe.

    Most of the PC voters out here seem to be pretty single-issue. What’s good for the oil companies is good for Alberta. Former premier Ed Stelmach essentially got booted from the provincial PCs just for suggesting that royalty rates should be brought closer to what they were under Lougheed.

    Talking with people in my rural chunk of Alberta, the idea that we’re messing up our economic future by giving away the oil gets some traction, but slowing production to reasonable levels, or requiring companies to invest in things like carbon sequestration are complete non-starters.

    It’s like Peter Lougheed and the Heritage Fund never happened.

    • [Reg Robson]

       I’m sorry to hear that it is so black and white out there, though it explains why the federal Tories lack nuance in many of their policies. About the NEP, I thought that was your premier’s idea to bring it up again?

      • [conflator]

        Oh, no! Allison Redford is talking about a “Canadian Energy Strategy.” Definitely not NEP! And Harper’s busily distancing himself from any such talk. Things haven’t been as cozy between the federal and Alberta provincial tories since Redford came in.

        I actually like Redford quite a bit, for a Conservative. It’s this kind of talk (and other things too long and too OT to go into here) that are giving the Wildrose Party traction, unfortunately. When party fatigue sets in with the electorate (as it’s wont to do after a few terms) I’m seriously concerned that the WP will make a good run at forming the next government.

        • [Reg Robson]

          My understanding of Alberta provincial politics is that there is only one party that will ever get elected so everyone joins it, even the progressives. Thus “Progressive Conservative” is the correct name again. The parallels between Alberta and other one party systems would be interesting to look at.
          Is there an actual difference between a CES and an NEP?

        • [conflator]

          Differences: The NEP was presented by Trudeau and called the NEP, the CES is proposed by a PC and called the CES.

          Also, mentioning the NEP without spitting will get you kicked out of bars.

          (What exactly a “CES” would look like isn’t something anyone’s committing to right now, as far as I know, but the hatred of the NEP is largely based on it’s introduction being coincidental with a crash in world oil prices, so it gets blamed. Also, Trudeau).

  • [a_w_young]

    Electoral reform is needed. First past the post voting stinks, so does “strategic voting”. We have an effectual dictatorship right now.

• [Pat Barclay]

  The worst aspect of the Harper gov’t. is its blind ignorance.  A country this brave, talented and resourceful deserves much better.

• [Laura Whitmore Dickens]

  Could anybody provide the mp’s email address to write to about this issue?

• [conflator]

  The unfortunate thing is two thirds of us got what we didn’t vote for.
  I guess it’s good that they’re saving $9.6M. That will help offset the $12.8M spent on their 1812 campaign.

• [Laurel L. Russwurm]

  Canada’s Minister of Heritage is The Hon. James Moore
  postal mail: Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages
  House of Commons
  Ottawa, Ontario
  K1A 0A6 James Moore:
  email:  [e-mail]

  It is not acceptable to eliminate our heritage; this is a crime against our children.

• [Laurel L. Russwurm]

  Just posted in my Whoa Canada blog
  “Preserve Canada’s Past”
  http://whoacanada.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/preserve-canadas-past/

• [Gordon Stark]

  The “Harper Government” is in the process of re-writing Canadian history and so the old history is in a conflict of interests with what Harper has now decided the truth to be, and so all past historical records are to be disposed of, and are no longer relevant to what Canada has been transformed into by the war which was declared on Canada in 2005 by the foreign aggressors and their partisan collaborators in Canada.

• [Shinkuhadoken]

  Canada’s wealth is being plundered, it’s sovereignty weakened by those who swore to defend it. Before Harper is done, the country will be tearing apart at the seams, and any future prime minister will find the means to pull it together again utterly sabotaged all for the glory of Alberta and its delicious oil.

  • [Reg Robson]

    Alternate scenario: Quebec and Ontario get the band back together. Go on a drive around town gathering up Manitoba, Saskatchewan, BC, Atlantic Provinces and the Territories. The Bloc is dead, next time the Conservatives have a minority government (ie. next election) they won’t have the power to rule, the NDP and the Grits will form a coalition and begin the process of building a better Canada. Alberta can come too as soon as it gets it’s head out of the tar sand.

• [Eric Lilius]

  “So we would not read other than their sacred writings They burned ours in bonfires Our history, our poetry, the records of our people They filled the sockets of our eyes with smoke They filled our intestines with tears They burned our writings, carefully painted by the scribes They burned the history that made us who we were.” This excerpt from a poem by Gioconda Belli