April 30, 2007

Letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the HR museum

From: Susan Howard-Azzeh
To: Steven Harper Prime Minister of Canada ;
Cc: letters@globeandmail.com ; letters@globeandmail.ca
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 9:43 AM
Subject: Exclusive Canadian Holocaust museum set to win federal funding

Dear Mr. Harper,

The Asper Holocaust Museum was originally asking $300 million from the Canadian taxpayer for its Museum. After numerous objections regarding the Museum's focus on only the Holocaust while ignoring multiple other examples of genocide, the Museum changed its name to Human Rights Museum, but did not change its basic program. The "Human Rights" Museum will still focus almost exclusively on the Holocaust and will not include other forms of genocide. People writing letters to Heritage Minister Bev Oda expressing concerns about the Museum's programs were told to write to Gail Asper. Where is the accountability?

Additionally money is being taken from other already established but ailing Museums to be given to the Asper Museum. And other Canadian museums such as Pier 21 in Halifax receive no government money at all. So here we already see the Asper Museum's destructive effect.

I and many others strongly object to an exclusive Holocaust Museum, even while renamed Canadian Human Rights Museum, receiving tax dollars.

Tragically there have been many forms of genocide throughout our history. However, one form of genocide such as the Holocaust does not take precidence over another. Let us as Canadians focus on the universality of suffering of all victims of genocide.

Sincerely,

Susan Howard-Azzeh
Niagara Palestine Association

See also http://www.cjnews.com/pastIssues/99/apr8-99/main.htm

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/2003-March/007372.html

For more articles in opposition, google "Canadians for a Genocide Museum".
========================================================================

Rights museum set to win federal funding

by VAL ROSS

From the Globe and Mail, Friday April 20, 2007

The government is expected to announce Friday that the proposed Winnipeg-based Canadian Museum for Human Rights has won federal operating funding of between $9-million and $12-million.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who took over the controversial dossier this year from Heritage Minister Bev Oda, is expected to join Vic Toews, the Treasury Board President, for the announcement.

The $311-million project grew out of CanWest media mogul Izzy Asper's dream of a Holocaust museum and has been expanded and driven forward by his daughter, Gail Asper, chair of the Asper Foundation.

When completed in 2010, a glass ziggurat by prize-winning American architect Antoine Predock will open doors into galleries and installations dealing with slavery, suffrage and civil rights. “It's great news for the country and a real centrepiece for Winnipeg,” MP Inky Mark said. “My understanding is that it's going to be like a world university.”
Related to this article


The museum's ambitious educational program, which involves flying in 20,000 schoolchildren from across Canada each year, requires annual operational funding of about $12-million. Ottawa has been wary of taking on responsibility for that funding, because, traditionally, it pays for the operation of museums and art galleries in the National Capital Region only. It has committed to giving $100-million to the museum's capital campaign but avoided setting a precedent by giving national status to a Winnipeg venue, lest it trigger similar demands from other museums and galleries.

It is possible that the government has found another mechanism to provide operating funds, such as giving the human-rights museum a long-term contract to deliver education services. But most observers expect today's announcement to bestow national status on the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

“It's great news, because it establishes the principle: If there's a national story to be told, let's tell it, regardless of location,” said Robert Moody, executive director of Halifax's Pier 21, which currently receives no operating funding from any level of government.

Two years ago, he said, the Auditor-General warned that many museums and heritage sites were in dire straits. Since then, the last budget cut the federal Museum Assistance Program, which helps support specific projects for 2,400 regional museums across Canada, from $11-million to $9-million a year — the same amount that will now flow to the still-unbuilt museum in Winnipeg.

Another reason for Ottawa's delay has been its reluctance to involve itself with a museum with a controversial mandate.

“This week there are Senate hearings over just 60 words in a text in the Canadian War Museum,” said John McAvity, executive director of the Canadian Museums Association, referring to the long-running outrage by Second World War vets over a war museum wall panel on the bombing of Dresden. “So there have been significant questions about how this new museum will maintain neutrality in advancing human rights.” For her part, Ms. Asper counters that this is precisely what makes her museum exciting.

Earlier this year, Ms. Oda told The Globe and Mail that her department had outstanding governance questions about the museum. For the museum to qualify for federal operational funding, the government was said to be demanding that the Aspers' dream project become a Crown corporation, with an independent board, accountable to a minister and subject to the Auditor-General. Since Mr. Harper has taken over the dossier, these questions may have been resolved. But for the museum community, which still awaits a long-promised comprehensive national museums policy, it looks ad hoc.

Senator Serge Joyal, who calls himself an early supporter of the project, observed: “It's surprising that this private initiative is becoming a public museum, while public museums such as the Portrait Gallery of Canada are having to turn to the private sector. It's backwards.”

****************

Fair Use Notice: The above newspaper article is copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.