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The proposed site of the Memorial to Victims of Communism has been controversial.Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar says he’s opposed to the planned Wellington Street site of a national memorial — championed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and top minister Jason Kenney — commemorating the victims of communism. He argues that the decision-making process was too political.
“The site, I believe, is not appropriate . . . it goes against the original long-term plan of the NCC. There should have been some more consultation,” he says.
Dewar emphasizes that this is an “important piece of real estate” and that “what we put there is obviously permanent, long-lasting.” He says the decision “should be looked at again.”
Years into their campaign, it appears that the group known as Tribute to Liberty – with significant funding from Canadian taxpayers – will succeed in having the memorial erected in the heart of the nation’s capital.
The debate boils down to whether the central placement and size of the memorial are appropriate and proportional in relation to Canada’s national identity, and how exactly we should strive to commemorate the horrors of a political system that was never directly experienced in this country.
The “Memorial to Victims of Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge,” as it’s officially titled, is to be unveiled this fall.
The memorial’s backers have raised about $2 million in private donations and have also secured at least $3 million in federal grants.
A national competition has been held and the winning design was selected last month.
The planned site for the memorial is a choice parcel of land between the Supreme Court of Canada and Library and Archives Canada — a federal property that had been previously designated for a new justice building in the long-term plan for the Parliamentary Precinct.
In response, two veteran architects have also voiced their displeasure.
Toronto-based ABSTRAKT Studio Architecture’s design was selected from a list of six finalists. It features a folding concrete plain forming seven parallel, triangular rows that narrow in width while increasing in height, zigzagging vertically to an elevation 14.5 metres at the last row’s peak.
The plain will be ingrained with more than 100 million pixel-like “memory squares,” each one commemorating a victim.
Shirley Blumberg, a founding partner of KPMB Architects in Toronto and a member of the competition jury panel, has criticized the planned project’s location, the durability of its proposed materials and its estimated overall cost.
She doubts the memorial will fare well during Ottawa’s harsh winters. “The idea of a graphic representation of 100 million pixel images is not durable in our climate,” she says. “Memorials (in Ottawa) are typically built in stone to ensure durability. Concrete will degrade over time.”
The budget for the project has been set at $5.5 million, but Blumberg expects cost overruns of “at least twice the budget.”
Upon learning of the planned site, “my reaction was one of dismay,” veteran Ottawa architect Barry Padolsky told Centretown News. “The architectural and urban planning community are uncomfortable with the whole thing . . . It’s quite unanimous. There’s no one in my field who supports this idea.”
Blumberg told Centretown News that the memorial should be moved to a more appropriate location, and the current site “returned to the people of Canada for a national institution” that would complete a series of judicial buildings as originally planned in the 1950s. She also notes that the site was given to Tribute to Liberty “without any public consultation or due process.”
“Canada is a land of refuge for many people who have come here from countries with oppressive regimes, not just communist regimes,” she says. And due to the site’s prominence “a visitor to the Parliamentary precinct in the future would think that Canada was a country that overthrew the yoke of communism,” she says.
According to the 2006 census, more than eight million Canadians trace their roots to countries once ruled or still ruled by communism.
Harper appealed to this statistic when he spoke at a Tribute to Liberty fundraising dinner in May.
“Nearly one-quarter of all Canadians were either held captive by communism’s chains, or are the sons and daughters of those who were,” he said.