Letter from Dr. Tom Nesmith, University of Manitoba

Dear Mayor Fiacco,

I am deeply concerned about the proposed cut of $60,000 to the budget of the Regina City Clerk's office. I am especially concerned that the cut may be entirely directed at the City of Regina Archives program. If so, this would be a near mortal blow to this fledgling program -- a program of great value and potential to Regina, Saskatchewan, and all Canadians. If this cut is planned, I strongly urge you and your colleagues on city council and in city administration to reconsider it.

Regina cannot improve civic administration, ensure that citizens' information rights are legally protected, and provide the many social and economic benefits of making archival records more readily available by cutting this already too modest program. Information is the lifeblood of effective administration and overall civic well being. The City of Regina Archives should be seen as a core service, responsible for an essential civic asset, and a program to be built up further, not threatened.

If the archival program is cut in this way, Regina will be far out of step with progressive administrative and urban development thinking in other major Canadian cities. Although cities do find it hard to provide funding for all the legitimate needs they must address, most progressive ones do value and support their archives and add to its budget as opportunities allow. My home city of Winnipeg, for example, has gone through major reviews of its services and concluded that strengthening a once too weak records management and archival program was a key priority. In the last few years, the City Clerk's department invested significantly in this program in order to enable it to become the vital and valuable program that it now is.

Although I am from Winnipeg, I write as someone with a commitment to archives in neighbouring Saskatchewan, as I am a member of the Saskatchewan Archives Board, which oversees the work of the Saskatchewan Provincial Archives. It has been a great pleasure to have made many visits to Regina in order to serve on the board over the last seven years. Regina has become something of a second home for me as a result. In those years I have seen first hand how important archives, records, and the proud history of your city and province are to people in Saskatchewan. The City of Regina would deal a serious blow to the community if it proceeds with such a drastic cut to its archival program.

If I can provide any further information to you about the great value and roles of records management and archives I will be very pleased to do so. I would be very happy not only if I helped persuade you and your colleagues not to cut the budget of the city archives, but also if you accept my offer of whatever assistance I can give to help build this key program into what it can be, and what programs like it are in many other cities.

Sincerely,

Tom Nesmith

Tom Nesmith, Ph.D
Associate Professor
Master's Program in Archival Studies
Department of History
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Mb
Canada
R3T 5V5
Phone: (204) 474 8559

Archival Studies Program Web site: http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/history/archives