Construction begins on rejigged memorial
Tribute to victims of Communism
OTTAWA • Work has quietly begun on Canada’s Memorial to the Victims of Communism, more than 12 years after the concept was first presented to Parliament — and after public outcry forced the project to be scaled down and moved out of its plum spot adjacent to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Workers began preparing the foundation for the memorial last month in Ottawa, on a corner of the Garden of the Provinces on Commissioner Street, off Wellington Street and kitty corner to Library and Archives Canada. Work is now suspended for the winter, but will begin again in spring with a planned completion in the summer.
It’s been a long road for Tribute to Liberty, the charity backing the project, but its chairman, Ludwik Klimkowski says he couldn’t be prouder.
“I’m profoundly moved. It’s a reflection of the diversity of Canada that we’re always talking about,” Klimkowski said. “You have Vietnamese
Canadians, Koreans, Tibetans, Chinese ... all building this memorial together with Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Cubans and people from Africa. It’s a delightful reflection of Canada.”
The winning design, called Arc of Memory, was submitted by Toronto architect Paul Raff, arborist Michael A. Ormston-holloway, and landscape architects Brett Hoornaert and Luke Kairys and chosen as the winner of a juried competition in 2018. It features two gently curving four-metretall walls made up of more than 4,000 bronze rods that are aligned so that one rod is pointing directly at the sun every hour of every day. The memorial is now under construction in Raff’s Toronto studio and will be shipped to the capital in the spring to be installed.
The monument will cost $3 million, with $1.5 million being provided by Tribute to Liberty, an amount that is being matched by the federal government. Canadian Heritage contributed an additional $500,000 in design costs.
The concept of the memorial was proposed to the government in 2008. Jason Kenney, who at the time was former prime minister Stephen Harper’s secretary of state for multiculturalism, had been approached with the idea by several people including the former Czech ambassador to Canada. The memorial was originally meant to be built in the Garden of the Provinces but the Harper government moved it across the street to the Supreme Court site, to a spot that had been originally proposed for Canada’s National Holocaust Monument.
The site, and the original design of the Victims of Communism memorial — an enormous $5.5-million concrete structure nearly as large as the National War Memorial — drew public ire. Even former Supreme Court chief justice Beverley Mclachlin weighed in, complaining of the structure’s “bleakness and brutalism.”
When the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau was elected in 2015, the project was sent back to the drawing board for a new design and the site was moved back across the street to the Garden of the Provinces. Raff’s design was chosen in June 2018 and ground was broken that November with a planned completion in 2019.
Asked why it took so long for work to begin, NCC spokesman Jean Wolff said in an email, “It was necessary that all the design development requirements be met in order to proceed with construction.”
Klimkowski said he’s glad the controversy is over.
“I’m delighted that this project and this design and this location seem to be fully endorsed. There’s no conversation about the need to have (a memorial). There’s no negativity of any sort,” he said.
Like the Holocaust monument, now in place on Lebreton Flats across from the war museum, the Memorial to the Victims of Communism is an example of Canada standing up for what’s right, he said.
“It goes in tandem with victims of the Holocaust monument. Neither of these took place in Canada, yet we as Canadians feel a moral obligation to stand up and speak up when we see evil that needs to be called out,” Klimkowski said.
“When you see what’s going on in Hong Kong today, people starving for freedom and resisting the oppression that is imposed upon them by the communist government in Beijing, they are giving us a shining example of what it means to stand up and fight for the rights of your fellow citizens.”
Tribute to Liberty turned over its $1.5-million portion of the construction two years ago, he said, but the organization will likely continue to exist as an education and advocacy organization.
IN TANDEM WITH VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST MONUMENT.