Canoe museum plan is a costly mistake

Giant whirlpools are insatiable, and the Canadian Canoe Museum proves that by boasting of a replacement building cost increase to $65 million from $50 million, with final design at least three months away, they say, so watch for the wild ride from Put In (as we canoeists say) of 40 to 50 million.

Peterborough city council appears haplessly entrapped in the whirlpool, seemingly having given their authority to John Ronson, chair of the canoe museum board (but not appearing on council’s website as a councillor or spokesman) saying, “Council is delighted because this is a much needed facility,” that facility including a surprise reception space hosting up to 400 tax supported, luxury surrounded diners, yes tax supported with requests for solid gold life jackets made to the provincial, federal and city governments of at this time: $9 million from Ontario, $4 million from Peterborough, and probably $25 million from the feds as “Half the money to build the new Canadian Canoe Museum is expected to come from government grants, says a museum official.”

Ahoy .. if a luxury reception space is needed in Peterborough, why hasn’t private enterprise built it? Surely they would profit from a “serpentine design with a lot of glass” which even in its unfinished stage allow clear view of the tax swallowing water serpents who themselves avoid personal whirlpools. Please remember that the reception space will certainly become another annual tax subsidy.

Fans of football, hockey, soccer, baseball, badminton, ringette etc. will be paying the tax but have no say as to where their tax dollars go. I am not a fan of many sports but I am an avid canoe tripper who has been to the current canoe museum twice, and I totally resent this replacement building as it is NOT needed for any purpose, especially to surround affluent diners with tax funded luxury at a time Trudeau has just promised the United Nations Canada will clean up our disgraceful record regarding aboriginals, and with youth of most races in Canada killing themselves at epidemic rates. Even if the 1,000 museum members each donated $65,000 to cover the costs of the building, the money spent is unconscionable.

Of course, promoters boast ‘spinoff benefits’ to locals in Peterborough, with the first of those benefits going to an Irish firm, Irish architectural firm Heneghan Peng. Ireland, a geographic Atlas will show, is not local to Peterborough, despite the many Irish names here.

The museum is holding a community information session Oct. 5 at 6:30 p.m., but please, you who may be outraged by the mentality behind this ego centred monstrosity, don’t wait to make your protest. It’s YOUR tax dollars being sucked into the vortex. Bob Mosurinjohn Lakefield