Archaeology Challenged – Lessons from Twenty Years Ago
Archaeology Challenged – Lessons from Twenty Years Ago With the recent furor over Bill 66 and anticipated changes to Ontario’s Housing Supply Policy, newer archaeologists and heritage managers might think we’re living in unique and uncertain times. While perhaps uncertain, recent events resemble a similar sequence from 20 years ago. We are, in fact, re-living the past in many ways and that past turned out to be not so bad for standardizing archaeological practice in Ontario. In 1995, the Mike Harris Progressive Conservatives (PCs) swept to power in an election that displaced Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party (NDP). Then, as now, the PCs campaigned on a platform of fiscal constraint and so-called “red tape reduction,” the reduction of bureaucracy. To that end, Mike Harris convened the Red Tape Review…