By Travis Webb
A man-made “cave” runs along the eastern side of the canal under the stretch of Rideau Street in front of the Chateau Laurier.
The cave looks clean from the outside, but it’s dark and smells of urine. A black chain-link fence runs across its mouth, discouraging would-be trespassers.
But if officials with Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame have their way, attracting people into the cave would be the goal. They want to transform this empty space – along with the adjoining Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP) – into a museum honouring Canada’s greatest sports legends.
It’s a project Hall officials have been waiting 18 months to begin. The delay, they say, is just the latest example of government dawdling in a four-year effort to bring the Hall to Ottawa.
“(The delay) is beyond a joke,” says Allen Stewart, the Hall’s executive director. “This has been . . . beyond my expectation in terms of delay, procrastination, and downright ineptitude.”
Stewart says the Hall has been trying to move out of Toronto for the last seven years. Organizers want to transform the 48-year-old Hall, whose inductees include Silken Laumann and Wayne Gretzky, from a small-scale resource centre and museum into a popular tourist attraction.
Stewart says that change is impossible at the Hall’s current location thanks in part to mid-summer traffic problems caused by the Canadian National Exhibition.
Downtown Ottawa has been a serious possibility since 1999, when the federal government gave the Hall permission to develop a plan to take over the conference centre across the street from the Chateau Laurier.
After three years of work, Stewart says the Hall had devised a detailed proposal to take over the building. But the government pulled the conference centre off the table in January 2002. The building is now slated to host a political history museum.
“(Losing the conference centre) was staggering to us,” says Stewart. “It was unbelievable.”
Shortly thereafter, Stewart says the government offered the building that currently houses the CMCP.
The Hall accepted the new site. That was over a year ago.
“We made up our minds in five weeks,” says Stewart. “We’ve just been totally frustrated. We’re not able to get a decision (from the government).”
Stewart says he’s been told the Hall’s proposal is being considered by the Treasury Board. But a spokesperson for that department would neither confirm nor deny their involvement.
Meanwhile, an official with Canadian Heritage, the department that oversees Canada’s historical sites and institutions, would only say a location for the Hall had not been decided upon.
But Jim Durrell, a member of the Hall’s board of governors and a former Ottawa mayor, says the Hall has already been granted use of the CMCP building.
“There’s not any disagreement about going (to the CMCP),” says Durrell. “It’s strictly down to finances and that’s it.”
Those finances include asking the federal government for a one-time contribution of $5 million to help fund the move, according to Stewart. The rest of the funding, he says, will be raised privately.
Durrell says most of the confusion and delays in approving the deal have to do with the number of government departments involved.
Still, he’s surprised at how long it’s taking to bring the Hall to Ottawa.
“Here we have an opportunity to do something right downtown in the centre of Ottawa and everybody’s dragging their feet,” says Durrell. “Frankly, I find that disappointing.”
While there have been rumours of a deal being finalized soon, Durrell says it would take about a year to open the Hall’s doors in Ottawa after an agreement is reached.
In the meantime, Durrell says the Hall isn’t considering any other locations or cities.
He says the Hall needs to be in the nation’s capital, like the National Gallery or the War Museum.
Stewart agrees. While the delays are discouraging, he says organizers persevere because they believe in the project.
“(The Hall) is a great organization and it deserves a good home,” says Stewart. “We’ll just have to wait and see, but we’ve been waiting an awfully long time.”