Memorial foes not swaying Tories
The Conservative government is standing firm in the face of public and political opposition to plans for a national monument to victims of communism near the Supreme Court of Canada.
Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney and Heritage Minister Shelly Glover on Monday defended the proposed Memorial to Victims of Communism, which has become controversial due to its planned location on a large plot of land on Wellington Street, southwest of the Supreme Court.
In separate appearances, the two ministers defended the proposed site and promised the monument, which will receive about $3 million in taxpayer support, will be built.
“By undermining this memorial with shallow, improvised rationalizations that sacrifice principle for insensitive political gamesmanship, you diminish and devalue the victims’ contribution to Canada and disrespect their memory,” Glover said in response to NDP questions in the House of Commons. “We will build this monument.”
The ministers’ comments came after an EKOS poll commissioned by website iPolitics.ca found more than 78 per cent of Canadians said they would oppose the monument “in its current form after they were shown design plans for the monument.” That number rose to 83 per cent for those living in the National Capital Region.
Some local politicians have also criticized the monument’s proposed location. Mayor Jim Watson opposes building the monument on land long reserved for a new judicial building. Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum said he plans to introduce a motion at Ottawa Council to formally ask that the federal government move the memorial.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin raised red flags last September about the “bleakness and brutalism” of the proposed monument.
Ottawa-Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar demanded to know why the government was refusing to listen to Watson, McLachlin or Ottawa residents when it comes to the monument.
“What kind of governing party ignores the opinion of 82 per cent of the population?” he asked Monday during Question Period. “Why won’t this government listen to the community and change the location of this monument?”
Speaking to reporters after an unrelated ceremony to dedicate a federal building on Sparks Street to those who served in Afghanistan, Kenney said it was “unfortunate” that the monument has prompted controversy.
Kenney defended the planned site, saying the National Capital Commission “has made a decision,” and it’s “much more suitable to have an open space with a park and a monument remembering tens of millions of victims in a prominent location, as opposed to yet another Ottawa office tower.”
“The National Capital Commission is controlling authority of that land,” he added, “not the City of Ottawa.”
In fact, the site for the memorial is owned by Public Works and Government Services Canada, not the NCC.
The minister, who has championed the memorial to victims of communism as well as a separate monument dedicated to those who died during the Holocaust, said he regretted that some people have “political objections” to the two projects.
The NCC approved a request from Canadian Heritage to allow the memorial on the site in 2013 and still must approve the design of the memorial, which it may do in June. The NCC has no real power to refuse, however, because the National Capital Act allows the federal cabinet to overrule any NCC objections on the use of federal land or the design of structures on it.