10 August 2007
Windsor Station Loses Landmark Statue
The dour likeness of George Stephen, first president of
Canadian Pacific Railway,
had regarded visitors to Windsor Station since 1913.
Railway founder Lord Mount Stephen trucked - trucked! - to CPR in
Calgary.
George Stephen no longer greets visitors at Windsor Station.
The bronze statue of Lord Mount Stephen, the Canadian Pacific Railway's first president, is en route to Calgary in a mover's truck, the
CPR said yesterday.
The railway, which announced 1 Aug 2007 it intends to sell the historic train station, removed the statue - plinth and
all - last week, said Michel Spenard, CPR manager of public affairs in Montreal. The statue, cast in 1913, will join other historical
CPR treasures at a new pavilion next to Canadian Pacific's head office in Calgary, he said.
"We've been gathering artifacts for years now from across our system" to bring to Calgary, Spenard said. The CPR moved its
head office from Montreal to Calgary in 1996.
Lord Mount Stephen "was the company's first president and that's where the head office is, in Calgary," he added.
Spenard said the CPR has also shifted some of the other moveable artifacts in Windsor Station into storage rooms while it seeks a buyer
for the building.
The statue's removal from Windsor Station is distressing to Heritage Montreal program coordinator Dinu Bumbaru. And the sale raises
concerns that other jewels of the station, including plaques, and a 1923 memorial to CPR employees who enlisted and died in the First
World War, could be removed, he said.
"They belong to Windsor Station, just as much as the turrets," Bumbaru said. "They're integral to that place. The
station was not just a warehouse. It was equivalent to a public square."
The statue's removal was news to the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, which oversees Windsor Station's dual federal
designation as a historic site, officials said.
The station, built between 1887 and 1889, is protected under the federal Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act.
It is also designated a National Historic Site.
The Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act safeguards only the building, said Michel Audy, who is responsible for application of the
law at the Historic Sites and Monuments Board.
The National Historic Site designation carries no protection, he said.
The Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act, however, requires a railway company to obtain authorization from the federal environment
minister to sell a historic station.
The board is working on a "commemorative integrity statement" that could include objects deemed by the board to contribute to
the station's historical significance, Audy said.
"It would identify those objects that should remain in the station after its sale because they're intimately associated with the
station's significance."
The provincial and municipal governments should also classify the station and its artifacts as historic to ensure their protection,
Bumbaru said. Once a railway station is sold, the federal Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act no longer
applies.
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