The Memorial to the Victims of Communism will no longer be built at the initially proposed and controversial Supreme Court site, instead it will be moving to the Garden of the Provinces and Territories as a result of decisions made Wednesday.
The National Capital Commission board members passed the motion made by Canadian Heritage to rescind the land request near the Supreme Court of Canada. The memorial will instead be moved to the Garden of the Provinces of Territories.
The 5,000-square-metre area of land was set for decontamination in preparation for the memorial, but as of Wednesday’s decision, these motions have come to a halt.
NCC CEO Mark Kristmanson has referred to the memorial project as “divisive” and “difficult” in reference to the opposing opinions towards the use of the land near the Supreme Court. There has also been debate surrounding the initially large size of the memorial as well.
The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Heritage Ottawa and architects Barry Padolsky and Shirley Blumberg filed a federal lawsuit against the NCC in efforts to halt site development plans.
The group made claims that the NCC violated its own public consultation procedures as well as the National Capital Act in its decision to start decontamination the land without having finalized design plans.
As a result of Wednesday’s decisions to move the memorial to the Garden of Provinces and Territories however, the lawsuits have now been dropped.
With regards to the lands current contaminated state, NCC director, Michael Pankiw, pointed out Ottawa has many contaminated land sites and this is just one of the locations.
“I still think that it’s important to clean up sites when we have the opportunity to do it. And I would like to see the site cleaned up,” he said.
The executive director of Capital Planning, Steve Willis, says the land by the Supreme Court will likely be used as parkland because Public Services and Procurement Canada view the land as “safe.”
Canadian Heritage will officially propose the Garden of the Provinces of Territories as the new memorial site to the NCC board of directors at their meeting this April.