Ottawa Citizen reporter Chris Cobb quotes BIFHSGO president Glenn Wright in an article Rental fees for Library and Archives building threaten to freeze out community groups.
“We are very concerned with the escalating cost and whether we’ll be able to stay,” he added. “This year, we’re apparently paying 25 per cent of market rate, whatever that is, and next year it will be 50 per cent. But we will stay the course for this year."
Another chapter in a sad story of Library and Archives' descent into irrelevance.
ReplyDeleteThe current library and archival building at 395 Wellington was built as a national Centennial project in 1967 for the public to have open access to and use on a regular basis. It was never meant to be a convenient place for federal civil servants to meet during the day near Parliament Hill.
Its a terrible indictment of current government and LAC administrators that the public areas of this building would be taken over by Public Works and used instead for bureaucrats to meet. Our government is too cheap to spent taxpayers money it receives from operating funds to find alternative meeting space for its bureaucrats. Instead, the take a slice out of community groups and expect them to pony up at market rates in a building created with public funds.
How bad is that?