Museum vision comes to life

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2008 (6250 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

 Prime Minister Stephen Harper joined Canadians of many backgrounds in a heated tent near the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers Friday to mark the construction of the Canadian Human Rights Museum.

The only person missing was the man who came up with the idea, but the late Izzy Asper was certainly there in spirit.

Harper joined the museum’s main proponent, Asper’s daughter Gail, to mark the building of the first national museum outside the Ottawa region.

"This great national project will stand as a symbol for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law," Harper said to an audience of 140 people, which included his children, Ben and Rachel, and prominent Winnipeggers who made donations towards the museum — the first national museum to be built since 1967.

"As Izzy himself said, ‘to understand why a country is worth having you have to know where it came from,’ " Harper said.

Gail Asper said if her father were still alive he’d be smiling ear to ear.

"He would be saying a huge thank you," she said. "He would be eternally grateful. He was basically building a bridge to a new place he wouldn’t be able to cross."

Harper said Izzy Asper’s vision, before he died in 2003, was to create a museum that documented human rights abuses through world history and at the same time celebrated Canada’s history of its peoples.

"We are building a monument to Canada’s embrace of humanity’s highest ideals," Harper told the invited guests, including a who’s who of Winnipeg’s business and political elite. "The spectacular building that will arise on this site will be a place where future generations of Canadians and visitors from around the world can learn about the history of human rights in Canada and hopefully be inspired to build on this proud legacy."

He did not take questions from the media.

Harper, Gail Asper, Premier Gary Doer, and the museum board’s chairman, local businessman Arni Thorsteinson, took part in a symbolic sod-turning at the site. The sod had to be trucked in because the earth at The Forks was frozen solid with Winnipeg’s recent cold snap. Standing in for Mayor Sam Katz was city councillor Justin Swandel. Katz was out of the city on a family vacation.

Gail Asper said her father would also thank each person who has donated money towards the museum and believes in its cause.

"They should know our gratitude extends to each and every one of them," she said.

The $265-million museum is being funded largely by $100 million from Ottawa, $40 million from the Manitoba government and $20 million from the City of Winnipeg. The federal government will also cover the museum’s operating costs estimated at $22 million a year. The remaining $105 million in construction costs is to come from private donations.

Gail Asper said the museum is just $3 million shy of that goal — an amount that should be easily found.

"I’d like to think IKEA is coming because the museum is coming," she said, in reference to this week’s news the Swedish home-furnishings giant is eyeing southwest Winnipeg for a new store.

Gail Asper also said the city owes Harper a huge debt of gratitude because it was his decision a year ago to designate the museum as a national institution to make it eligible for federal funding to cover its annual operating costs.

But not everyone in attendance was ready to give Harper or the museum credit.

Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs Grand Chief Ron Evans, who was an invited guest, said local Treaty One First Nations leaders were excluded from the sod-turning ceremony. Evans’s criticism may reveal more about internal aboriginal politics than anything else.

"I am extremely disappointed that a museum devoted to educating the world about human rights, a museum built on traditional Treaty One First Nation territory, would exclude the Treaty One chiefs of Manitoba," he said. "Furthermore, appropriate ceremonial protocols were not followed during the event, a tremendous sign of disrespect to all First Nation people."

That snub was news to aboriginal elder Jules Lavallee of the Miskobiik Training Centre on Selkirk Avenue. Lavallee led an aboriginal prayer before the sod-turning and discussed the importance of the site in aboriginal heritage.

"It was good to be there," a proud Lavallee said after the event. "More and more the leaders of our country are recognizing the contribution of First Nations people."

The museum’s chief operating officer Patrick O’Reilly said construction should begin in early March.

It’s hoped the museum will open by 2012 and attract 250,000 visitors a year.

O’Reilly said the economic downtown has not altered the museum’s design or display area.

"The museum has not changed, the size, the scope, all of it as it was envisioned," he said.

He added museum officials are confident donations that have been pledged by private donors will not change.

He also said when construction proposals are issued within the next few weeks, museum officials hope bids will be competitive as companies jockey for work.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca

Donations matched until the end of the month

YOU’VE got only to the end of the month to see your donation to Canadian Museum for Human Rights doubled.

Arni Thorsteinson, chairman of the museum’s board of trustees, and his wife Susan Glass have said they will match dollar for dollar any Manitoba and Saskatchewan donation that comes in between now and the end of the year.

The couple launched the challenge in October when they increased their museum donation from $200,000 to $1 million.

“The more this museum develops into a reality, the more passionate I become about its potential to make an international impact,” Thorsteinson said in a news release.

Earlier this year, an anonymous Alberta donor issued a $500,000 challenge to Albertans, which resulted in an additional $1 million being raised. There’s a similar campaign taking place in Quebec.

Construction at The Forks is scheduled to begin in two months.