A restoration that was supposed to take five years has stretched into a decade and cost taxpayers more than $132 million, according to records detailing Parks Canada’s overhaul of Prince Edward Island’s historic Province House.Figures tabled in the House of Commons show Parks Canada has spent $131,512,998 renovating the Charlottetown landmark, home to the provincial legislature and widely known as the birthplace of Confederation. Blacklock's Reporter says the building has been closed since 2015.The cost breakdown was disclosed in an Inquiry Of Ministry response after Conservative MP Richard Bragdon asked how much the federal government has spent to date on the Province House National Historic Site Conservation Project.Records show the largest share — $123.3 million — went to engineering and construction-related work. Other expenses included $1.4 million for signs and panels, $18,413 for historical research, and $2.6 million for poetry, art, decorations and other elements tied to the revamped visitor experience..Province House has been under Parks Canada management since 1974 and was shuttered a decade ago for what officials initially described as a five-year restoration. At the time, then-government whip Bush Dumville warned the closure would come at a cost to Island politics and history.“It is sad,” Dumville said in 2015. “We just wrapped up our last session. It is a privilege to sit in that assembly because of its history, and we know some of us will likely never be back to see it reopen.”Dumville said years of deferred maintenance finally caught up with the 19th-century structure.“It is a very old building,” he said. “They left the big repairs until they needed doing. They are saying they had concerns that sides of the building would fall on people.”.The Classic Revival building dates to 1847, though much of its original fabric has already been replaced. Ornate wood doors and other features were swapped out with reproductions during renovations in the 1980s. Maintenance records also show asbestos was installed in the 1960s.Access To Information documents reveal how fragile the building had become before its closure. In 2014, a 10-by-4-foot section of ceiling plaster collapsed, prompting $150,000 in emergency repairs. No one was injured.The roof has been replaced multiple times — in 1935, 1960, 1980 and 1995 — with slate shingles repeatedly found to be failing. Construction of underground tunnels to the Confederation Centre Library in 1966 altered drainage patterns and lowered floor levels, compounding long-term structural issues.Federal inspectors ultimately rated Province House as being in “fair to very poor” condition. Former Prince Edward Island premier and later senator Catherine Callbeck said in a 2014 interview that the building’s decline reflected a national problem.“Some of this country’s most valuable historic buildings and structures are in deplorable condition,” Callbeck said. “We cannot afford to let them crumble to the ground.”
