The national group that serves as the leading voice of architecture in Canada is poised to join the chorus of criticism over the high-profile Wellington Street location of a planned memorial paying tribute to past and present victims of communism.
Members of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada are developing a formal statement questioning the proposed site of the “Memorial to Victims of Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge,” says Ian Chodikoff, the institute’s executive director.
“The RAIC will be releasing an official position soon,” he told Centretown News. He says the national group is not happy with the multimillion-dollar plan to place the memorial on a prime piece of real estate between the Supreme Court of Canada and Library and Archives Canada.
“We have members across the country and all of our members, I can tell you, have viewed that site and that area of Ottawa really as a national site . . . so we view that land as belonging to Canadians. It doesn’t belong to one or two groups. It really has to speak to a broad constituency,” says Chodikoff. “The site area is part of the overall plan for the city of Ottawa – the capital of Canada.”
The site is a non-starter for many stakeholders and the consultation process leading to the site’s allocation for the memorial has been criticized as non-transparent, non-inclusive and politically driven.
Speaking to the process and consultation, Chodikoff says that several bodies, including Public Works, National Capital Commission, Parks Canada and Heritage Canada, initially advised the government against selecting the prominent Wellington Street site.
“You have to heed to that,” he says. “We need to respect professional advice . . . (that) the site is inappropriate. There was a lot of political intervention, I understand, by some of the higher echelons of our current government.”
The RAIC is weighing in on the controversial project after a number of critics have voiced concerns – including Shirley Blumberg (an architect who sat on the memorial’s national design competition jury panel), prominent Ottawa architect Barry Padolsky, Supreme Court chief justice Beverley McLachlin and Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar.
But proponents say a prominent site is important. “We need to make sure that this is given a pristine location that properly represents the suffering (of victims) and the beacon of freedom that Canada has given to us,” Tribute to Liberty chair Ludwik Klimkowski told the Epoch Times in an interview last year.
Tribute to Liberty was established in 2008. Over its first four years of existence, the charitable organization fundraised through events held by community groups consisting of immigrants and descendants tracing their roots to communist or formerly communist countries.
From the beginning, the campaign received consistent support and encouragement from federal cabinet member Jason Kenney.
In 2009, approval for the construction of a memorial to victims of “totalitarian communism” was granted by the NCC. Details were to follow. In 2010, the project was mentioned during the Conservative government’s throne speech.
The NCC spent two years evaluating potential sites and in June 2011 the agency granted a federal land use approval for a memorial projected to cost $1.5 million to be built in the Garden of Provinces and Territories – a less prominent site on Wellington Street southwest of Library and Archives Canada.
For the process to progress to a national design competition, two-thirds of the required funding had to be secured. Tribute to Liberty was struggling to meet this benchmark, with just $130,000 raised as of early 2012.
Things changed rapidly later that year. In a short period of time, Tribute to Liberty’s donor support increased exponentially. During an evening’s fundraising at a December dinner party, $620,000 was raised and another $100,000 was contributed days later.
About three months later, the NCC received a letter from Public Works requesting a site amendment to a larger and more prominent site previously designated for the planned Pierre Elliott Trudeau Judicial Building.
Since then, progress in raising funds and political support for the project have steadily accelerated – while the projected cost has soared to an estimated $5.5 million.