It takes $2M for Magna Carta visit
Lawyer leads effort to raise funds so copy of document can tour Canada
It’s almost 800 years old, it’s a document that created a foundation for the development of law and democracy in Canada and, for $2 million, it may make Ottawa a temporary home.
Created in 1215 in what is now the United Kingdom, the Magna Carta helped establish a framework to ensure personal liberties and was developed to check the power of the monarchy. It has often been cited as an instrumental document in helping shape present day democracy.
And now, with its 800th birthday quickly approaching, a Toronto lawyer has taken it upon himself to bring a copy of the document to Canada, and tour it through four cities.
“I’ve always loved history,” said Len Rodness, a real estate lawyer with Torkin Manes. “And given my career as lawyer for more than 25 years, the Magna Carta holds a very special place because of its development of law and its development of parliamentary democracy.”
A year and a half ago, Rodness was put in touch with a member of Durham Cathedral in England. Rodness was told the cathedral was interested in lending one of its copies of the Magna Carta so it could be exhibited in Canada. Rodness leaped at the opportunity, and after going through a lengthy approval process, he now only needs to secure the appropriate funding to bring the document across the Atlantic for its 800th anniversary in 2015.
Rodness has received commitments for the Magna Carta to be exhibited at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, at Fort York in Toronto, at the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton and at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
“We’re quite excited about the possibility of it coming here,” said Dean Oliver, director of research at the Museum of Civilization. “It is one of the most famous documents in western history, if not in all of history, and it’s one of the foundational documents of democracy itself.”
Oliver said the primary message within the Magna Carta is one that should resonate with all Canadians.
“The principal of it is that no monarch is above the law, which is to say no government is above the law,” he said. “In other constitutional documents we might call this natural, or inalienable rights, or as we sometimes translate it: human rights.”
Rodness just began the fundraising process to bring the Magna Carta to Canada and he estimates the total cost will be about $2 million. The project has mainly been self-funded so far and he has yet to set up a website for prospective donors. Rodness is hopeful major Canadian companies will contribute and that the federal government and provincial governments will be key investors. He also hasn’t ruled out beginning a Kickstarter campaign.
If all goes according to plan, he said the nation’s capital is the logical first stop on the tour. “I think it is important we bring the Magna Carta to Canada because it will help give Canadians a sense of the bigger perspective of the forces that were at play that helped create the society we live in,” he said.