Montague
council welcomes Canadian Tire, Buddhist retreat
January 13,
2009
STEVE SHARRATT
The Guardian
MONTAGUE — Two cultural icons will bring the yin and yang to
eastern P.E.I.’s largest town in 2009.
Town council agreed to the planned arrival of a Canadian Tire
store and a Buddhist meditation retreat that will open on the
banks of the Montague River.
“We are most delighted to have such diverse operations come to
our community,’’ Mayor Pat McGowan said here Monday night when
both announcements were unveiled.
Canadian Tire development manager Charles Theriault of Montreal
told council a new store featuring about 24,000 square feet of
retail space, service bays and a garden centre would be
constructed next to the Superstore.
The project, estimated at roughly $2.5 million, is expected to
proceed sometime this year and employ about 20 full- and
part-time workers. Canadian Tire, about half the size of the
Charlottetown store, will be constructed between the Superstore
and the new Services Canada building along Main Street.
Once popular for pints of Guinness and Irish bands like Ryan’s
Fancy and the Irish Rovers, the Lobster Shanty will become the
Island headquarters for Buddhist spiritualism. The Great
Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society plans to convert the
aging operation into a meditation retreat.
“We believe (Montague) is a great place,’’ said executive
secretary Peter Wu of the group based in Taiwan. “It is very
peaceful and there are very nice people here.”
The society has been scouting a location in the Maritimes for
almost a year. Council was told the retreat will provide for
about 50-100 monks and nuns. The society is environmentally
conscious and pro-organic farming.
