TEMAGAMI – There is a group that is working to create a landmark in Temagami — a 50-foot long canoe, which would become the world’s largest wood canvas canoe.
Temagami council agreed to support the project in principle at its Thursday, Aug. 27, meeting.
The municipality has worked with the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and have a potential location for the canoe in front of the train station.
Temagami’s understanding is that there is sufficient community interest in the project that all the costs will be covered through donations.
Since the municipality would be the benefactor of this project, donations made through the municipal office are eligible for a tax receipt that can be used by the donor as permitted by the Income Tax Act.
“The whole idea of the 50-foot canoe was that the community would get behind it and it wouldn’t actually cost the municipality anything,” treasurer-administrator Craig Davidson said.
“Municipalities are able, through the Income Tax Act, to issue receipts for donations to municipal projects. Any costs for the project would be paid out of the donations received and if there’s cost overruns, then the organizers need to figure out how that’s going to be paid.”
In order to ensure these costs and donations are segregated from the rest of municipal operations, Davidson noted that council had a pair of options.
They could set up a reserve account or a trust fund for the project.
A trust fund would have a separate audit, at an additional cost, while a reserve account would be included with the accounts examined during the annual financial audit.
Council agreed to establish a reserve account for the purpose of receiving donations from the community for the canoe project and that costs for the project would be paid through those funds.
