Victoria city councillors don’t want to see the Maritime Museum of B.C. left high and dry and are seeking high-level conversations with provincial officials to prevent that from happening.
Mayor Lisa Helps has written to the premier that the city has located — after months of searching — a signed copy of the 1977 agreement between the city and the province promising a mutually agreeable museum site.
In a closed-door meeting Thursday night, council directed city manager Jason Johnson to meet with provincial deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers in light of that discovery. The former courthouse building at 28 Bastion Square was transferred to provincial ownership for $1 as part of that agreement.
Johnson is expected to contact the province early next week.
The museum was located at 28 Bastion Square — a National Historic Site — since 1965, until the province asked it to leave citing safety reasons last Oct. 21. It has been homeless since then despite months of negotiations for a new space.
The mayor’s letter to Christy Clark says the terms of the Bastion Square building transfer “included an on-going obligation by the province to house the collection of the Maritime Museum of B.C. and to retain the property in public ownership.”
Helps also noted that Bahamas-based TK Foundation has offered $500,000 to pay for building improvement costs if the museum is able to line up a new home.
In recent months, Technology Minister Amrik Virk has said that the provincial obligation has been met.
That stance puzzles Victoria Chamber of Commerce chairman Frank Bourree.
“In my opinion, the contract appears to favour the maritime museum and it’s disappointing that the province isn’t honouring it,” he said. He has seen a copy of the agreement posted on the city’s website and said “It looks black and white to me, but I’m not a lawyer.
“It would be a tremendous blow to our tourism fabric if we lost the maritime museum,” he said.
“We’ve struggled with the loss of a number of attractions so far [and] it’s such an important part of our maritime history.”
Bourree said he is surprised at the lengths the province seems to be going to avoid funding the museum, which holds artifacts belonging to the public in trust.
Museum chairman Clay Evans said the city move to engage with provincial authorities is “good news,” and assumes both sides will work toward a viable solution. Still, he thinks the decision might end up in the premier’s lap.
Meanwhile, the province is offering storage space for artifacts but no extension to its Sept. 30 deadline that the museum get all of its items out of Bastion Square.
About two-thirds of the artifacts, including all of the large ones, are still there, Evans said, adding the Ministry of Technology recently offered to cover moving costs.
A storefront office for the museum society will be opened in Nootka Court on Sept. 24.
The Sept. 10 letter from Helps to Clark supported the museum’s relocation at the historic CPR Steamship Terminal building — a non-starter barely a week later. That space, overseen by the Greater Victoria Harbour Authority, is now touted as a terminal for a Victoria-Vancouver passenger ferry run by Riverside Marine of Australia.
Helps wrote that in “a refreshed location” — at that time the CPR Terminal — the museum would be “a must-see attraction. Tourism numbers are on the upswing and a relocated MMBC will do much to meet the expectations of the discerning international travelers that we host in British Columbia’s capital city,” said the letter.
