By Christine Otsuka
After a year of uncertainty over its future, the national portrait gallery is still without a home, raising concern in the arts community about the Conservative government’s approach to the arts.
Calgary energy giant Encana was in negotiations with the federal government in April 2006 to partner on a cultural space adjacent to its new 58-storey tower in downtown Calgary, however Encana spokesperson Alan Boras said the government decided Encana’s cultural space wasn’t “the right fit” for the gallery.
“We didn’t meet their criteria and now we’re shopping for something else to put in that space.”
Heritage Canada spokesperson Josianne Jalvert confirmed the gallery will not be moving to Calgary by way of the Encana project, adding they will not comment on the future location of the gallery.
Art buffs, historians and politicians were up in arms earlier this year when rumours surfaced that the national portrait gallery may be moving out of the nation’s capital.
At the moment, it is unclear whether the gallery will remain in Ottawa, leave the capital or possibly find a home in the former American embassy on Wellington Street where the gallery was slated to go up until last year.
Currently, the gallery’s artifacts remain in the Gatineau Preservation Centre.
The secrecy, delays and lack of information surrounding the future home of the gallery has Ottawa’s arts community questioning the government’s approach to the arts.
Alain Pineau, national director of the Canadian Conference of the Arts says it does not appear the portrait gallery is a priority to the Conservative government. “We’re not sure at all what the cultural policy of this government is — if they have one,” Pineau says.
“It’s difficult to connect the dots. This government does interesting things for arts and culture but we can’t trace it to any kind of policy or position.”
Naomi Grattan, director of communications for the Canadian Museums Association said she’s not surprised by the delays and lack of information being released about the gallery, calling it “indicative of the government’s approach to the arts.”
For now, Grattan says she hopes any decision made about the home of the gallery would be in the context of a national museum policy. “But we’re done holding our breath,” she says.
Since former heritage minister Sheila Copps announced the creation of a national portrait gallery in 2001, more than $11 million has been spent on renovations to the former American embassy. The long-awaited gallery was designed to showcase the vast collections of photo and visual material owned by Library and Archives Canada.
However, when the Conservatives came to power, progress on the Wellington Street site suddenly stopped.
Rumours regarding the future of the gallery surfaced last fall when information was leaked to the Ottawa Citizen stating that neither Public Works Canada nor Heritage Canada had included the gallery in their spending estimates for this year.
In December, a leaked government document charged that Encana offered the federal government $30 million to lure the gallery to Calgary and into the proposed downtown cultural space.
Ottawa Centre MP Paul Dewar has hounded the Conservative government about the future of the gallery for the past year.
Dewar has publicly expressed his outrage with the government’s secrecy regarding the issue, referring to the gallery as “a state secret.”
However, Dewar says the government effectively kyboshed its own plan to move the gallery to Calgary because it “didn’t think it through.”
Moving the portrait gallery outside of Ottawa means abandoning millions of dollars spent on design and development of a Wellington renovated heritage building, potentially damaging the national artifacts in transit and possibly losing or relocating the curators of the gallery, Dewar says.
In addition, moving the National Portrait Gallery to the prime minister’s hometown “doesn’t look good,” he says.
Dewar says the gallery should stay in the nation’s capital, pointing to Washington, London and Paris as examples of galleries in other national capitals.
For now, the government remains tight-lipped about the gallery’s future, while the arts community awaits an announcement.
Marilyn Read, spokesperson for the Portrait Gallery of Canada, says she is presently unable to provide any updates on the future of the gallery, but hopes to do so soon.