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Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney is standing firm in the face of public and political opposition to the Conservative government’s planned national monument to communism’s victims near the Supreme Court of Canada.
Kenney said on Monday that it is “unfortunate” that the Memorial to Victims of Communism, which will receive about $3 million in taxpayer support, has become a lightning rod for controversy.
“It’s not about politics,” Kenney told reporters after an unrelated ceremony to dedicate a federal building on Sparks Street to those who served in Afghanistan. “It’s a question of national memory.”
Kenney’s comments came after an EKOS poll commissioned by the website iPolitics.ca found more than 78 per cent of Canadians said they would oppose the monument “in its current form after they were shown design plans for the monument.” That number rose to 83 per cent for those living in the National Capital Region.
Some local politicians have also criticized the monument’s proposed location. Mayor Jim Watson opposes building the monument on land long reserved for a new judicial building. Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum said he plans to introduce a motion at Ottawa Council to formally ask that the federal government move the memorial.
Kenney, however, defended the planned site. The National Capital Commission “has made a decision,” he said, and it’s “much more suitable to have an open space with a park and a monument remembering tens of millions of victims in a prominent location, as opposed to yet another Ottawa office tower.”
“The National Capital Commission is controlling authority of that land,” he added, “not the City of Ottawa.”
In fact, the site for the memorial is owned by Public Works and Government Services Canada, not the NCC.
The minister, who has championed the memorial to victims of communism as well as a separate monument dedicated to those who died during the Holocaust, said he regretted that some people have “political objections” to the two projects.
“I would ask them to listen to the victims of those tragedies and indeed to every political party that has endorsed the monument to victims to communism,” he said.
The Liberals and NDP did endorse the project in principle several years ago, but the Liberals oppose the site chosen, as does Ottawa Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar.
“We should respect and remember the memory of the tens of millions of people who were killed by authoritarian communist regimes in the last century, many through genocide, many of which victims ended up migrating to Canada as refugees,” Kenney said.
The NCC approved a request from Canadian Heritage to allow the memorial on the site in 2013 and still must approve the design of the memorial, which it may do in June.
The NCC has no real power to refuse, however, because the National Capital Act allows the federal cabinet to overrule any NCC objections on the use of federal land or the design of structures on it.
– With files from Elizabeth Payne and Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
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lberthiaume@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/leeberthiaume
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Kenney said on Monday that it is “unfortunate” that the Memorial to Victims of Communism, which will receive about $3 million in taxpayer support, has become a lightning rod for controversy.
“It’s not about politics,” Kenney told reporters after an unrelated ceremony to dedicate a federal building on Sparks Street to those who served in Afghanistan. “It’s a question of national memory.”
Kenney’s comments came after an EKOS poll commissioned by the website iPolitics.ca found more than 78 per cent of Canadians said they would oppose the monument “in its current form after they were shown design plans for the monument.” That number rose to 83 per cent for those living in the National Capital Region.
Some local politicians have also criticized the monument’s proposed location. Mayor Jim Watson opposes building the monument on land long reserved for a new judicial building. Rideau-Rockcliffe Coun. Tobi Nussbaum said he plans to introduce a motion at Ottawa Council to formally ask that the federal government move the memorial.
Kenney, however, defended the planned site. The National Capital Commission “has made a decision,” he said, and it’s “much more suitable to have an open space with a park and a monument remembering tens of millions of victims in a prominent location, as opposed to yet another Ottawa office tower.”
“The National Capital Commission is controlling authority of that land,” he added, “not the City of Ottawa.”
In fact, the site for the memorial is owned by Public Works and Government Services Canada, not the NCC.
The minister, who has championed the memorial to victims of communism as well as a separate monument dedicated to those who died during the Holocaust, said he regretted that some people have “political objections” to the two projects.
“I would ask them to listen to the victims of those tragedies and indeed to every political party that has endorsed the monument to victims to communism,” he said.
The Liberals and NDP did endorse the project in principle several years ago, but the Liberals oppose the site chosen, as does Ottawa Centre NDP MP Paul Dewar.
“We should respect and remember the memory of the tens of millions of people who were killed by authoritarian communist regimes in the last century, many through genocide, many of which victims ended up migrating to Canada as refugees,” Kenney said.
The NCC approved a request from Canadian Heritage to allow the memorial on the site in 2013 and still must approve the design of the memorial, which it may do in June.
The NCC has no real power to refuse, however, because the National Capital Act allows the federal cabinet to overrule any NCC objections on the use of federal land or the design of structures on it.
– With files from Elizabeth Payne and Don Butler, Ottawa Citizen
Related
lberthiaume@ottawacitizen.com
Twitter.com/leeberthiaume
查看原文...
