If this were a privately funded project that would be fine. But, since March 13, 2008, the museum has become a national institution funded from the public purse. Already over budget, and having failed to secure its projected donations, its ongoing operating costs will be borne by those who pay taxes. As that includes me, I reckon I have a stake in what this museum is all about. As you can probably guess I’m out of sorts, possibly because I’m sure I’ve been had.
Like many I took Israel Asper at his word when he claimed on May 29, 2003: “This museum will be totally apolitical and antiseptic in terms of trying to preach a message of one kind of inhumanity over another.”
I also reckoned that his daughter, Gail, and the executive director of The Asper Foundation, Moe Levy, meant it as they rebroadcast that soothing message. For example, on Jan. 9, 2004 in The Winnipeg Free Press, they affirmed the CMHR would not promote any "hierarchy of suffering." Nor, they claimed, would any community be “asked to contribute any specific amount in order to tell their story” since professionals working in “close consultation with all of the groups whose stories will be told,” would be responsible for the museum’s contents.
Furthermore those planners had “inclusiveness” mandated as their guiding principle. So when, 31 March 2008, the Ministerial Advisory Committee headed by Winnipeg’s own Arni Thorsteinson tabled its report with Josée Verner, member of parliament then minister of Canadian heritage, I swallowed the pablum, mollified by Table 7 which detailed how Canadians rank-ordered the subjects they wanted addressed, as follows:
Aboriginal (First Nations), 16.1%
Genocides, 14.8%
Women 14.7%
Internments, 12.5%
War and Conflicts, 8.7%
Holocaust, 7%
Children, 5.9%
Sexual Orientation, 4.9%
Ethnic Minorities, 3.8%
Slavery, 2.9%
Immigration, 2.6%
Charter of Rights, 2.3%
Disabilities, 2%
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1.8%
That was a very reasonable list, more or less ordered as I’d rank themes relevant for inclusion in any human rights museum, anywhere. You’d think the the museum’s trustees would honor this instruction. They didn’t. They probably always had a different agenda.
Evidence for that can be found in another “final “report, of the CMHR’s Content Advisory Committee, submitted 25 May 2010. From sixth spot the Holocaust somehow got pushed up the list to pride of place, with its own privileged, permanent, and prominent central gallery. All other genocides and crimes against humanity, formerly in the number two spot, were plunged into a “mass atrocities” zone. Native Canadians may have fared better. Whether aboriginals were going to have a gallery originally is not certain but now they might, although still slipping from poll position one to two since their stories will never get the same play as the Shoah. As the Assembly of First Nations has not uttered a word on the controversy over the CMHR’s contents they must have been pacified with what they got. We weren’t. And we said so, loud and clear.
Finally the other side replied, none other than Ms Asper herself, interviewed recently by Maclean’s. For her those who challenged the Asper vision of the CMHR are nothing but an “acrimonious” and “tiny minority,” easily dismissed. Ouch, that hurts.
But is it true? UCCLA and Canadians for a Genocide Education put her conceit to the test. We commissioned Nanos Research to include a question about the museum in a national survey completed in mid-March. The results show an overwhelming majority of Canadians, 60.3% of women and men representing all age groups, all regions and all voter profiles, agreeing with our position that the CMHR’s 12 galleries should be thematic, comparative and inclusive, that no gallery should elevate any community’s suffering above all others. Who’s the minority?
Now Ms Asper was right when she said the Canadian Museum for Human Rights “is Canada’s museum.” It is. It’s ours. Not hers. And Canadians have just told her and her friends – yet again – what we want included in our museum. Maybe this time she’ll listen. But it doesn’t really matter whether she does. We’re sure the politicians will hear us. Soon enough.
Lubomyr Luciuk is director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and a 2010 recipient of the Shevchenko Medal. The Nanos Research survey question on the CMHR and related materials can be found at www.uccla.ca (under Media Releases).
