President's Message
March/April 2010
(as published in Arch Notes New Series 15(2))
Greetings, all. With that accustomed blur, the year already seems to be speeding ahead, helped this time by mid-March weather that is more reminiscent of early May.
Of course, as soon as there is any hint of the seasons turning, the phones in the many archaeological consultant offices across the province begin to ring with people anxious to see work started, or be completed from last year. That seasonal cycle is as predictable a sign of coming warmer weather as is the first sight of a robin, or of crocus shoots in the garden! So here’s to the province’s consultants, whose view of the world is shaped by a two season reality, i.e., not-field season and field season. May the start of the next eight to nine months be successful, productive and exciting, while achieving that perfect, elusive balance between being too busy, and being not busy enough.
New Minister at Culture
Earlier this year there was a cabinet shuffle at Queen’s Park. As a result, there is now a new Minister and new Ministry. Michael Chan, the MPP for Markham-Unionville, is now the Minister of Tourism and Culture.
Those of you long enough in the tooth will know that Culture, on a couple of occasions over the last 30 years, had been joined with Tourism previously. In some of the press releases that accompanied the announcement there was a clear emphasis on culture as a tourist attraction, and on the need to work with Ontario’s cultural industries to create jobs. This was also the message within the Minster’s speech at a welcoming reception for him put on by the Ontario Heritage Trust in Toronto, a reception that Lorie Harris and I attended on behalf of the OAS.
Within this emphasis on the business of tourism and promotion, here’s hoping, on the eve of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, that archaeology and heritage will be front and center in the Minister’s mind in planning ways to celebrate and promote Ontario’s past.
Following that reception we sent a letter to the Minister congratulating him on his appointment, and reminded him that the OAS is the primary organisation for addressing the interests and concern’s of Ontario’s archaeological heritage, and of our long history of working with the Ministry on matters of archaeological concern.
There certainly are no end to the challenges facing Ontario archaeology and practice, and we offered to work closely with the Minister and Ministry to tackle these challenges together. As well, we reminded the minister that the archaeological consulting industry is an important economic engine in the province’s approach to heritage management, a cultural industry supported and regulated by the province that creates a significant number of specifically heritage-related jobs, and which leads to countless benefits within many communities over the good management and promotion of Ontario’s archaeological record.
We also reminded the Minister of the OAS’s role in helping the Ministry consult last year on the Archaeological Standards and Guidelines for this industry, and encouraged the Minister to move forwards on this initiative, given the difficulties the continuing delays and unpredictability to commercial practice this betwixt and between place continues to be for consultants and their clients.
Consultation themes
Predictability in practice and review, minimising risk, and moving on from discussions about what standards should be, to the effective operation and implementation of what those standards will be, were central themes we heard from members in those consultations on the Ministry’s draft document last year, as you’ll read in the two reports included in this issue of Arch Notes. Those reports include one on member consultations, and one reporting on the results of the Task Force consulting First Nations specifically on the Ministry’s engagement bulletin.
That report certainly reflects community frustration with the process followed so far in developing and consulting on that bulletin. On a bright note, though, clearly no one is saying engagement is a bad thing. Rather the issue continues to be the need to define the intent, practice and logistics of achieving an effective and regularised engagement. And certainly engagement is one of the more important and challenging directions the practice of archaeology will continue to move towards in the coming years, so guidance and clear expectations can only help that change rogress effectively in the years ahead.
One way or the other, we’ll likely know by the next issue of Arch Notes – what with the consultants’ field season on the cusp of starting up now – if all that effort, thought and time put into the 2009 draft will translate into decisions and implementation in 2010, r if consultants again spend the year having to tread the line between old practices, and personal expectations and assumptions over what may or may not be new practices! No easy task for either Ministry staff or the consultant community, and so we offer a collective hat’s off to everyone that anages to make the day to day of identifying and conserving Ontario’s archaeological record captured within development lands work as well as it does through this period of uncertainty.
Neal Ferris
OAS President