City advised to return Ten Commandments statue to donor

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This article was published 11/09/2024 (360 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The mayor’s cabinet will be asked to return the Ten Commandments monument, which was given to Winnipeggers in 1965 and erected in Assiniboine Park, to the donor, the Fraternal Order of Eagles.

The executive policy committee will consider the issue at its meeting next week, but philanthropist Gail Asper says she hopes politicians reject the recommendation, which is included in a city report.

Asper, who has advocated for the monument to be placed back in the park, called the potential deal tragic.

“If you look at all the (news) headlines, it says to me our world does need reminders not to kill or steal or lie,” Asper says. “The Ten Commandments are an integral part of our history and literature.”

The fraternity donated statues to various entities across Canada and the United States.

The monument was put in storage in 2017 to make way for construction of The Leaf at Assiniboine Park. It was later decided not to reinstall it because of concern it might make the park feel less welcoming for some members of the community, the conservancy said in 2022.

Asper says the Ten Commandments statue is an essential part of the park’s history, adding visitors would do well to educate themselves on the rules that are written in the Old Testament, such as “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Thou shalt not steal.”

She suggested the monument be placed in the Leo Mol sculpture garden next to the artist’s depiction of Moses, who the Old Testament says was given the commandments by God as he led the Jewish people out of slavery from Egypt.

“If that’s OK to have Moses in the park holding the symbol of the Ten Commandments, why is it not OK to have the actual Ten Commandments clarifying what the Moses story is all about? If you can’t have the Ten Commandments, you might as well take out the Leo Mol sculpture,” she says.

The city report says the municipality received a request from the order for the monument’s return, but the organization’s local chapter says it has nowhere to put it.

Treasurer Mike Zushman says the chapter’s headquarters on Pembina Highway is mostly surrounded by a concrete parking lot and there’s no spot fitting for the monument.

“We’re pretty tight over here … we don’t have any space for it,” he says.

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Zushman says he was unsure who could have made the request to the city for its return.

The city report says should the request be approved, the order and Assiniboine Park Conservancy will co-ordinate the cost and logistics of relocating the monument to a privately owned location in Winnipeg.

The city, and the fraternity’s main office in Ohio, could not be reached.

A separate monument to the Ten Commandments is on public land in Kildonan Park. It was erected by the Knights of Columbus in 1968.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca

Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer

Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.

Every piece of reporting Nicole produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.