Intangible Cultural Heritage

1. Establish policies and programs to protect and preserve our intangible cultural heritage.

2. Continue and intensify efforts to perpetuate the Mi’kmaw, Acadian, and Gaelic languages of Nova Scotia.

3. Lobby the federal government to become a signatory to the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Cultural Diversity

4. Work with heritage champions (such as the Mi’kmaw Cultural Network) within the Mi’kmaw, Acadian, and African Nova Scotian communities to identify opportunities for increased emphasis on the heritage of these populations.

5. Ensure that the Mi’kmaw, Acadian, and African Nova Scotian communities play a lead role in telling their own stories.

6. Increase funding to help Nova Scotia’s diverse cultural populations celebrate their heritage at the community level.

Museums

7. Create a temporary working group of experts to restructure the provincially supported museum system to achieve the ends identified in this report and to

• a. Identify the heritage centerpieces that will form Nova Scotia’s provincial museum system (The Nova Scotia Museum).
• b. Identify the year-round, regionally significant county/regional heritage facilities to be supported by the province. These independently owned and governed museums should also have a mandate to serve as archival facilities and sources of expertise for community museums in their area.
• c. Identify those community museums to be supported by the Community Museum Assistance Program in partnership with municipal governments.

8. Freeze the current list of museums that get funding under the Community Museum Assistance Program unless corresponding increases in funding to the program occur when new recipients are added.

9. Develop a funding formula that enables provincially funded museums to fairly compensate and train their heritage workers.

10. Make the Passage Project a permanent addition to the Community Museum Assistance Program.

Archives

11. Encourage publicly funded institutions and municipal governments in their efforts to develop and maintain public archive systems.

12. Develop a regional archives system for records of the people (regionally significant non-government records, letters, diaries, etc.) in conjunction with the regional/county museums (Recommendation 7b).

13. Emphasize the traditional role of Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management (NSARM) as a public archives, holding the records of the people (provincially significant non-governmental records, letters, diaries, etc.).

14. Undertake and implement the results of a comprehensive needs assessment on information technology as it relates to archives.

Built Heritage

15. Amend the Heritage Property Act to give municipalities the option to reject proposals to alter or demolish heritage properties.

16. Increase the grant money to help property owners maintain provincially designated heritage properties and to facilitate the creation of heritage conservation districts.

17. Create a heritage property assessment classification with a lower applicable tax rate to provide a financial incentive for owners of registered heritage properties and properties included in heritage conservation districts.

18. Change the assessment system so that property owners who make investments in a registered heritage property or to properties included in a heritage conservation district are protected from assessment increases for a period of time.

19. Consider all lighthouses in Nova Scotia for heritage property designation. Pursue partnership opportunities with other levels of government and community groups to protect and maintain public access to lighthouses and the associated properties.

20. Establish a policy that encourages provincial and municipal government offices to occupy heritage buildings.

Abandoned Cemeteries

21. Support volunteer groups through training and modest funding and encourage youth to be involved in locating, documenting, protecting, and preserving abandoned cemeteries.

22. Create and maintain a detailed provincial inventory of abandoned burial grounds and cemeteries.

Archaeology

23. Commit to a research agenda and fund professionally directed archaeological excavations. Take advantage of the opportunities for education and tourism.

24. Provide resources to finalize the management plans for all existing designated Special Places and consider options for designating additional locations—particularly those sites related to Mi’kmaw, Acadian, and African Nova Scotian communities.

25. Amend the Special Places Protection Act to make it a planning requirement for those undertaking construction projects to check inventories of known heritage resources before starting.

26. Support the creation of a graduate program in archaeology.

Underwater Cultural Heritage

27. Repeal the Treasure Trove Act immediately.

28. Amend the Special Places Protection Act to make it effective as a tool for designating and protecting Nova Scotia’s underwater cultural heritage.

29. Co-sponsor Nautical Archaeology Society training programs for Nova Scotia’s diving community.

30. Hire a provincial marine archaeologist and initiate an ongoing research agenda that discovers, explores, and reports on underwater cultural heritage sites.

Natural Heritage

31. Work diligently and with a sense of urgency to complete the provincial protected areas network.

32. Support private land conservation through direct investment and incentives, and by working to eliminate barriers faced by private landowners who want to leave a legacy to their community.

33. Develop a coastal management plan to protect Nova Scotia’s coastline and ensure that public access is not lost to private land ownership or development.

34. Review industrial forestry practices in Nova Scotia. Adopt measures and standards, such as Forest Stewardship Council certification, to ensure the sustainability of healthy forests and the sustainability of the wildlife dependent on these forests.

Heritage Promotion

35. Create a promotions plan that enhances our collective heritage consciousness and advertises opportunities for heritage experiences in an engaging way to Nova Scotians, to our visitors, and to those interested in learning about Nova Scotia. Make increased use of television, radio, and online program delivery.

36. Fund a heritage signage program to promote heritage assets.

37. Develop signage protocols for the naming of places and streets that involves consultations with heritage specialists and communities.

38. Make Nova Scotia’s tourism advertising campaign more inclusive of our province’s cultural and geographic diversity.

39. Develop heritage products as an integral element of our tourism strategy.

Publishing

40. Increase funding to Nova Scotian book publishers for the production and marketing of heritage-based books. Revitalize and fund appropriately the Nova Scotia Museum’s copublishing program.

41. Encourage the Department of Education to examine the curriculum for opportunities to include books published by Nova Scotian companies.

Education

42. Establish a joint forum of heritage workers and educators to identify and pursue opportunities for and report on the advancement of heritage education in the public education system.

43. Increase funding for the Heritage Fair program as a valuable part of middle school education.

44. Investigate and pursue partnerships between the heritage sector and our community colleges and universities to support training, research, and succession planning for heritage workers.

The Governance of Heritage

45. Create a Deputy Ministers’ Committee on Heritage to help foster a greater and more positive heritage mindset among decision makers in key related divisions or departments of the provincial government, e.g., Tourism, Culture, Education, Natural Resources, Environment and Labour, and Transportation and Public Works.

46. Establish the Nova Scotia Heritage Council with members nominated by the heritage community who broadly represent the heritage sector, our geographic regions, and the diversity of our population.

Planning

47. Require the departments participating on the Deputy Ministers’ Interdepartmental Committee to include a heritage section in their business plans with actions and budget allocations.

48. Encourage all municipal governments to

• a. include a heritage section in their business plans
• b. establish a heritage advisory committee with a mandate for the full meaning of heritage as proposed by the task force—tangible cultural, intangible cultural, and natural

49. Support the creation of heritage inventories and ensure that these inventories can be made accessible.