A monumental blunder in Ottawa

My parents, who arrived in Canada as displaced persons from Lithuania and Estonia, were victims of the Soviet occupation of their homelands. They were eternally grateful to be accepted by a country that was peaceful, democratic and beautiful.

While the idea of appropriately commemorating the suffering of victims of totalitarian governments is a laudable goal, the federal government’s plans for the Memorial to the Victims of Communism is an affront, including to those who would welcome a thoughtful memorialization of Canada’s role in responding to communist governments.

It mocks the judicial wing of our government by usurping the land that was long-planned to complete a judicial triad of buildings. Its size and design are reminiscent of the sheer ugliness and brutality of much Soviet architecture. Its central prominence in the nation’s capital suggests that atrocities abroad are more important to commemorate than the historical and contemporary injustices within this country and to which the Canadian government has been a party — including the cultural genocide and devaluing of life among Aboriginal peoples, the internment of the Canadian Japanese, and the Eurocentric oppressions against a variety of peoples. The process by which this plan and its location were arrived at is the antithesis of democratic principles which so many victims of totalitarian governments sought in finding refuge in Canada.

As a child of “victims of communism,” I am strongly opposed to the current plans for this execrable monument and would feel only shame and anger at my federal government who ignores the mounting opposition to this ill-considered monument. Daiva Stasiulis, Ottawa