Charlottetown mayor wants to remove date from welcome sign

Charlottetown Mayor Philip Brown is asking for a "confusing" date to be removed from a large sign welcoming people to the capital city at the foot of the Hillsborough Bridge.

The sign is at the corner of Water and Grafton Streets upon entering the city and reads: Welcome — City of Charlottetown — The Birthplace of Confederation, and also includes an emblem which reads Est. 1765.

Brown said he believes the date on the sign may be confusing, given that the Charlottetown Conference, for which the city has been formally recognized as the birthplace of Confederation, was hosted in 1864.

"We want to keep it clear that we are the birthplace of Confederation and we don't want to confuse it with different dates that relate to the City of Charlottetown and the province," said Brown. 

Charlottetown was established in 1765 as the colonial capital of the Island.

The city was granted the distinction of Birthplace of Confederation when P.E.I. Senator Diane Griffin's bill received Royal Assent in December 2017 as part of the Canada 150 celebrations, which honoured the 150th anniversary of the British North American Act. 

"So does 1765 indicate when the birthplace of Confederation, the actual event, took place? Or does it mean something else? It's just to make the message as clear as possible: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, is the birthplace of Confederation," Brown said. 

A conference to remember 

In 1864, delegates from the three Maritime colonies met in Charlottetown to discuss the possibility of a Maritime union, while a delegation of Canadians — now Ontario and Quebec — attended as observers. The idea of a Maritime union was quickly put to rest in favour of discussing the larger idea of bringing together all of British North America.

The result of the conference was a rough consensus on the principles of a federal union and some of its functions.

The British North America Act, which created the Dominion of Canada, was passed by the British Parliament in 1867 with the original provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on board.

Despite hosting the Charlottetown Conference, P.E.I. backed out of Confederation for fear they would lose autonomy and be overtaken by the voices of the larger provinces' governments. 

P.E.I. eventually joined the Dominion of Canada in 1873, with Canada agreeing to take on the Island's substantial debt — which it had racked up building a railway. 

New signs this summer

The mayor said the city will be asking the partners who helped put up the sign a few years ago if they have objections to removing the date.

Once that is complete, Brown said the city hopes to redo many of the signs at entry points to the city. 

"People will see — visitors, residents — that you are coming into the birthplace of Confederation," said Brown.

The new signs will be smaller and have a look and feel modelled after the sign at Water and Grafton. 

Brown said they hope to have the new signs up this summer.

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