Ella Jean Canfield Building

Peter Rukavina

As an accidental journalist, I mistakenly came upon the press conference this morning where the name of the name federal building in Charlottetown was revealed: it will be the Ella Jean Canfield Building, named after Ella Jean Canfield, Member of the Legislative Assembly for First Queens, and the Island’s first elected female member.

For more on Canfield, and other women in the Legislative Assembly, Elections PEI has a backgrounder on women in Island politics.

Comments

Submitted by head scratcher on

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It strikes me as odd that the fact that it took until 1970 for a female to be elected to the Provincial Legislature would be cause for celebration but little if anything else about the federal building project seems to make sense.

Submitted by Marcus on

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While I have nothing against Ms. Canfield’s name being on the building, I have yet to understand why we even needed this building in the first place…

Scott Brison’s department seems hell-bent on getting everybody out of a perfectly fine building (Charlottetown’s Dominion Building) and into a brand-new $30+ million edifice. Of course political interference, cronyism and corruption on the part of municipal, provincial and federal politicians in this province had NOTHING to do with the decision. Scum bags, every one of them. This entire file stinks.

It’s ironic that a federal government so overtly committed to the environment (“let’s clean up Bobby Taylor’s Esso station site by putting in a new building”, or, “let’s sign Kyoto and not implement it just to look especially bad”) just doesn’t seem to get it that less environmental impact would have been created in this project if a decision had been made to renovate/recycle the Dominion Building, which is only 50 years old and is structurally solid.

From the fall-out bunker in the sub-basements to the 6th floor, the Dominion Bld. is extremely well-built, if not a bit small. So herein lies my argument, why not just have extended this building, using the same architectural design out to fill in the entire block of Queen-Richmond-Pownal-Sydney to 6 stories high with underground parking, then finish renovating the rest of the older part of the building fronting on Queen St. Then you’d have an incredible structure, which likely would not have cost the $30-50 million the current boondoggle is costing (purchasing new land, consolidating lots, remediating soil, endless modifying of plans, finally building the structure, etc.)…

Recycling makes sense - of course no federal administration in history has ever done so (recycling, or making sense).

Stories on recycling buildings:
http://tinyurl.com/96z9w (CNN)
http://tinyurl.com/8ued9 (Philly Enquirer - free reg. required)

Submitted by head scratcher on

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We hope that they remediated the soil, just like we hope that there’s enough chairs for everyone in the new building when the music stops. No fun playing duck, duck, goose in a brownfield..

Submitted by Kathy Tomlinson on

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Hello…
I am a reporter with CTV, and I am working on a story about the Jean Canfield Building. I am interested in some of the comments posted by “Marcus”.

If someone could help me get in touch with him directly, I would appreciate that.

Regards,
Kathy Tomlinson
416-313-2494

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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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