Beyond bricks and mortar

Re: Rideau corridor mayors not yet satisfied with Parks Canada fee changes, Jan. 23. I’d like to add my voice to the debate on fee increases on the Rideau Canal. Before moving to the university, I served as Director General of National Historic Sites and led Canada’s delegation to World Heritage for 20 years.

The risk of Parks Canada’s proposed hefty fee increases is that boaters may no longer afford to use the canal. This could trigger a downward spiral that would eventually justify a government decision to close canal operations and leave the lock stations as static monuments to industrial heritage.

The importance of the Rideau Canal goes beyond bricks and mortar to include intangible values associated with continuing use and traditional manual operation of the locks. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee confirmed the outstanding universal value of the Rideau Canal because of its largescale adaptation of European slack water technology, noting that “it is the only canal dating from the great North American canal-building era of the early 19th century that remains operational along its original line with most of its original structures intact.”

In 1996, Parks Canada disagreed with the perspective of the Auditor General of Canada’s insistence that boaters bear the full cost of the navigation system. This view ignores the very real benefits for Canadians who can experience a rare surviving example of an early 19thcentury operating canal system with locks, weirs, blockhouses and dams intact. The World Heritage Convention calls on countries to “give the cultural and natural heritage a function in the life of the community” (article 5). Surely pricing the Rideau Canal out of the market is counter-productive to reaching this goal.

CHRISTINA CAMERON, Ottawa Professor and Canada Research Chair on Built Heritage, University of Montreal