The Globe and Mail

Heritage Day is this Monday. Few of us know this, and even fewer celebrate it. The status of this holiday is similar to the status of preservation movement today -- noted for a moment, then ignored. In Canada, our generic deference to the state means that heritage -- like the arts -- is thought to be maintained by some public or quasi-public agency. This almost always means a lot of over-worked preservationists scrambling to implement under-funded programs. I am always amazed at how much more advanced heritage conservation efforts are in the United States than in Canada, powered by more favourable tax laws, historic designation legislation with teeth, but perhaps most of all, a national narrative that beads together all the individual stories that places tell.