If the Maritime Museum of B.C. were still open, it could mount a compelling exhibit of its own financial crises.
Like many not-for-profit outfits, the institution has been living hand-to-mouth for the better part of its 60 years. That hasn’t stopped it from dreaming big. But most of the dreams have been dashed over the years.
The latest vision that looks to be going under is the move to the CPR Steamship Terminal. To most, that looks like a no-brainer — move out of the cramped, land-locked hideaway downtown to a featured touristy location on the water. A maritime museum on the waterfront. Imagine!
But nine months of dickering between the museum, the harbour authority and the province about leasing and improvement costs collapsed last month. Provincial officials have been unrelenting throughout, saying the various funding limits can’t be increased to make the move happen.
One of the last shreds of hope is — fittingly enough — a historical relic. It’s an understanding purportedly reached in 1977 in which the city of Victoria transferred title to the old Bastion Square courthouse to the province for $1, on condition B.C. would “house the museum in perpetuity, either in the courthouse or another mutually agreeable location.”
That’s being disputed, because no signed copies of the document are at hand. Even if the scavenger hunt now underway to find the document produces something, it might not save the day. Old agreements don’t always stand the test of time. One of the terms of B.C. joining Confederation was “continuous” operation of the E&N Railway, and look where that got us.
Browsing through the more recent history of the museum, it looks as if the origins of the latest crisis started 12 years ago. The B.C. Liberal government was in the midst of its core review and squeezing every nickel it could. It served notice it would stop subsidizing rent to the tune of $211,000 a year. That would have hiked operating costs considerably, and it sent museum backers hustling to find different operating models.
B.C. relented two years later and came up with $450,000 just as the museum was about to go under. It was devised as a rent subsidy that cut the museum’s share to $75,000 a year. Underlying the lifeline was an urgent push to find a better home, anywhere on the water between Ogden Point and the Johnson Street Bridge. The Steamship Terminal option was identified early on, and as the refurbishment there eventually took form, it became the target destination. Until last month, when the deal fell apart.
It’s not the first time the museum’s moving plans have collapsed.
The Legislative Library has a copy of a document, A Maritime Museum on the Inner Harbour, from 1991 that envisions what might have been. It detailed a $34-million plan to build a new facility near Ship Point, where the big, empty waterfront parking lot (“Victoria’s Other Shame”) now sits.
The grand plan arose from a $400,000 grant the Social Credit government delivered a few years earlier. The money was spent on dreaming up a museum for the ages.
They called it “the jewel in the crown of Inner Harbour redevelopment plans.” Site-planning work was done and it got 86 per cent approval at public meetings. There are two pages of signatures from luminaries who endorsed the plan, everybody from the lieutenant-governor on down.
They projected boosting attendance tenfold, to 200,000 visitors a year. There was a commitment by the City of Victoria and the now-defunct Provincial Capital Commission to lease the site for a nominal rent. That didn’t happen, none of the funding came through and the project evaporated.
Moving to the Steamship Terminal is much more modest venture, but it appears to be on the rocks, as well.
The difference this time around is the museum has been closed since October. As it stands, the province says it has to move out of the courthouse and it can’t move in to the terminal (under current terms).
It badly needs a champion in government, but there’s no sign of anyone with the clout to resurrect the attraction.
