My name is Robert Trainer I am representing the CN Pensioners
Association.
I am the Vice president of the Atlantic Regional Council .
I began working for the Railway here on Prince Edward Island on Steam
Locomotives and I was than trained as a machinist to work in Charlottetown.
Did you know, Charlottetown was the fist testing ground for the diesel
locomotive in Canada. When I finished my work in 1985 I was a supervisor
in the locomotive diesel shop here in Charlottetown .
Tonight I am representing the railway pensioners association and the Future
Generation project.
Our project Future Generations is working to preserve this very important
part of Prince Edward Island s heritage.
I welcome the opportunity to address the Island Heritage Study to provide
you with our many challenges we have encountered in trying to have our
history recorded for Future Generations.
I am disturbed that there is no cultural charter here on Prince Edward Island
that protects and preserves our historical legacies.
When the railway properties was purchased by Prince Edward Islanders,
Great care went into insuring the transfer of this property, A committee
known as the Abandoned Rail Rights Of Way was created to assure the
people of Prince Edward Island, that this historical property would be
preserved for future generations.
However twenty years later we see their was no clear provisions made to
secure railway history on the Confederation Trail.
No cultural strategy exists or policy to insure us that the railway history will
survive within our lifetimes.
The CN pensioners Association would like the land that once carried the
trains and the people of Prince Edward Island to preserve the legacies of
people who are connected to it’s history. We feel this is important to all
islanders.
We are requesting that the Prince Edward Island planning act to be amended
to include a cultural charter for the Confederation Trail as soon as posible.
The Prince Edward Island Planning Act needs to include a cultural legacy
charter for heritage.
This amendment would insure community projects that are funded by the
province and financed with tax payer dollars would include a cultural
planning process in the projects design and proposal in keeping with the
heritage of the land or the building being developed with public monies .
The same way an environmental impact study works only this is a historical
impact study.
This would have avoided the current problem we face today with the
Confederation Trail today where there is no cultural charter and there is no
cultural planning for it’s history along it right of ways.
We have discovered that the unthinkable has happened.
The railway is being erased from the Confederation Trail history and simply
forgotten.
The memories and the legacies of a railway century are vanishing.
Our story will not be told by the people who lived and worked on railway
life.
We could point fingers and blame this group or that group but what good
dose this do.
We require a change in government policy that insures the people of Prince
Edward Island that our people are as important as bricks and mortar and that
the stories and artifacts of our fore fathers and co-workers and their history
will be presented to the Future Generations.
This will only happen if a cultural charter is attached to publicly funded
projects that are approved for public financing.
For example, If a cultural charter was included and implemented on the
Confederation Trail in 1988. The railway pensioners would not be here
tonight advocating for their legacy to be honoured. . Today we fear that
without a cultural charter no history is safe from being erased from the
community memory chest and unavailable for the Future Generations to learn
and appreciate this important part of Canada’s history such as the Prince
Edward Island Railway and it workers from across the province.
When the trail was proposed to Prince Edward Islanders in 1988. It was
purchased for the people of Prince Edward Island and the land was divided
up to the cities and rural areas to develop.
How is it? That there is no cultural charter that would insure the preservation
of railway workers and the railway buildings along the Confederation trail.
What wrong with this picture?
This is what happens, when, there is no cultural charter or heritage policies in
place on projects that use tax payers dollars to finance and recondition these
properties. Prince Edward Islanders need a cultural charter.
A cultural charter would let people know that their historic sites and their
historic legacies are safe for the future generations,
The trail is an example of what not to do.
Do not forget the people who worked and toiled along side the trains and in
the buildings along the railway right of ways.
My job here tonight is to represent the people who once worked on the
railway here on Prince Edward Island. There are lass than 360 of us left. I am
one of the youngest and i am the last of a group of people who have worked
the railway since 1871.
I am very concerned that the Confederation trail history will not be reflected
on the old railroad beds.
This is sad not just for me, but for you to.
This historical workforce was and still is the longest and largest employer in
Prince Edward Islands history.
Yet we are an invisible presents on the Confederation Trail and in railway
wharfs and city ports of Prince Edward Island.
We are being excluded and we are being covered over.
Heritage and cultural charters do not exist here on Prince Edward Island and
this means history is often lost and forgotten in the planning and building
stages of projects.
I ask myself how?, such a large group of people, who contributed so much to
the our island economy, and culture in every community of along our railway
lines, can be forgotten in history so quickly!
We will not stop working until our legacy is preserved.
The Prince Edward Island Railway workforce have already done their work
through out Prince Edward Island history.
I did not expect I would spend my retirement protecting a legacy I would
have believed secure in Canada’s history.
On Prince Edward Island we need a heritage and cultural charter that insures
our people’s history for future generation.
Therefore I request on behalf of the CN Pensioners council #9 and along with
the CN Pensioners throughout the Maritimes, to this Island Heritage Study
group, to include the following recommendation to the Minister of Cultural
Affairs,Tourism, Education, Development, Technology, Public Works and
Transportation,
• To amend the Prince Edward Island Planning Act to include a cultural
charter for historical legacies and buildings.
A cultural charter designed to protect and preserve the heritage and the
legacies attached to the history and the people within the community.
On behalf of my fellow pensioner from across Prince Edward Island I thank
you and look forward to see the results and action taken from this study.
Robert Trainor
Vice president CNPA Atlantic Canada
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