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Mayor seeks $100K from county for homestead

BY Laurie Watt August 26, 2008 17:08

Simcoe County council is being asked to consider a $100,000 request to help restore the Sir Frederick Banting Homestead in Alliston.

New Tecumseth Mayor Mike MacEachern turned to the county's Performance Management Committee a week ago, to bring other mayors and deputy mayors up to speed on the birthplace of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Frederick Banting, whose insulin discovery changed the lives of people with diabetes.

"The town has already invested $600,000. We're requesting one-time funding of $100,000. We're looking for a contribution to the restoration of the homestead," said MacEachern.

Located in rural Alliston, the 100-acre homestead should be considered not only a local and a county historic site, but a provincial and national one as well, MacEachern said. Several years ago, the town saw the need to protect the area from development, as well as to stop the degradation of the farmhouses and its buildings - to perhaps one day create a camp for children with diabetes or a resource/retreat centre for people with the disease.

"The buildings are in desperate need of repair work. Let's bring it back to its original condition and go forward. There are so many opportunities for a public purpose," he told his county colleagues at a committee meeting Aug. 14.

MacEachern, who also serves as the chairperson of the New Tecumseth Save the Banting Homestead Fundraising Committee, noted that in the United States or Great Britain, such a site would receive the support of many levels of government.

In Canada, however, he has discovered it's not quite so easy.

He has applied for provincial and federal funding, as well as for the one-time county grant. He and his group are not alone; there are about 7,200 national heritage sites falling into disrepair, and British Columbia MP Mark Warawa is urging the federal government to create a Canadian National Heritage Trust.

The Heritage Canada Foundation has said many buildings are at risk because developers opt to knock them down and clear the way for new.

"This is a case study," said MacEachern, who noted the land was almost sold to a developer. The area, he added, is under intense pressure to urbanize, and the homestead could become a green, rural heritage site that attracts tourists and honours the area's heritage.

The county is preparing to update its grants policy - which has only focused on operational grants, rather than one-time capital injections - in time for its 2009 budget talks.

Collingwood Mayor Chris Carrier said the Banting project should be seen as significant, and receive support - even if it doesn't quite fit the county's grant policy - and the county should assist MacEachern in obtaining other government funding.

"I see that as recognizing our heritage of who we are," he said. "This is a national heritage site and that should be recognized soon. I would be an advocate for (it)."

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