Poll: Who should pay for the new national Holocaust memorial in Ottawa?

Last week, Parliament unanimously approved a bill calling for a national Holocaust memorial to be built in Ottawa within three years.

The Liberals, who originally introduced the bill, say that it should be funded by the Feds. The Conservatives are saying that it should be funded largely with private donations.

"Toronto Liberal MP Joe Volpe said he successfully overturned a series of last-minute government changes to the legislation that would have required the monument to be paid for through fundraising, spearheaded by Canadian Jewish groups.

“There’s no need for fundraising because it’s going to be all financed by the Government of Canada,” Mr. Volpe said. “If that group wants to raise funds, it’s an additional voluntary tax. I don’t know if anybody wants to go down that road.”

But the bill’s sponsor, Edmonton-area Conservative MP Tim Uppal, said the government has only promised to donate the land. The money to design and build the monument will have to come from a committee set up to collect private donations.

“It brings a buy-in from the Canadian public,” he said, adding that “the government really believes that Canadians will be more than willing and pleased to contribute the full amount to this.”

None of the other 16 national monuments managed by Ottawa’s National Capital Commission were privately funded, Mr. Volpe said. Lessons learned from the Holocaust are for all Canadians and he said targeting only the Jewish community to provide the money will “diminish” the monument."


Read more: Parties bicker over Holocaust memorial funding

I did predict that donations to the CMHR were coming in slower than expected because potential donors were holding out for a Holocaust-only museum to be located in Eastern Canada.

I was wrong.

It's my speculation, though, that potential donors may have been holding out for a new, national Holocaust memorial, to be built in Ottawa.

"Laura Grosman, a 22-year-old University of Ottawa student, first proposed a bill to create a national monument in Ottawa two years ago, saying Canada is one of few Western nations without a national tribute honouring victims of the Holocaust.

She said the memorial would serve as an educational tool for Canadians and a personal tribute to her grandfather, who escaped the Nazis during the Second World War, only to return to find the rest of his family had been killed in concentration camps.

Ms. Grosman, now executive director of the Canadian Holocaust Memorial Project, supports the government’s plans for private fundraising.

“I believe that our community, as well as the Canadian community as a whole wants to be able to contribute the funds to this monument,” she wrote in an e-mail."


http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Parties+bicker+over+funding+national+Holocaust+memorial/3966302/story.html

Please add another option to the poll.

5. djh

I don't know why there is money being wasted on this subject, while the feds haven't wasted all their money on global warming studies and planning to have safe drinking water up North, within 15 years to the Aboriginal community!

Mr. Volpe said. “If that group wants to raise funds, it’s an additional voluntary tax. I don’t know if anybody wants to go down that road.”


Of course we don't - we like the mandatory taxes of endless funding announcements (of our wages). That's what has to change - their ability to even do that.

How many fcking museums do we need. This is getting tedious. I mean what the interest in witnessing mans brutality towards man. You want to know about the holocaust, watch Schindlers List. It may not give you the all encompassing visceral feel, but it gives you an idea.

I agree. I have to believe that the Holocaust has been memorialized, remembered and catalogued adequately aroud the globe. It will not be forgotten and another few hundred million of Canadian wages will not impact that one way or the other. If Rosey demands it be done - then we'll have to consider it. So it's in his court - not the Fed's.

I would be in favour however of memoralizing the death of the Global Warming scheme - if they wanted to build that shrine. And even that should be constructed with ice - so it melts and doesn't linger - or leave a footprint.

Isn't there some sort of holocaust museum on the Asper/Jewish campus in Tuxedo already? Why another one? Not to negate the importance of the holocaust, but this is a subject that has been re-hashed to death.

If you bother to google holocaust museum, you will find that in every city in the world there is some sort of memorial wherever there is a Jewish population.
Livio- I haven't gone to see Schindler's list because the subject bothers me too much.
I believe the idea is if every school kid is dragged through a memorial, they hopefully will get the idea that killing off an entire race isn't a good idea.
The local museum in Wpg when up and running will have all of man's inhumanity to man, documented and if my sources are correct the German atrocities will be under 10% of the story!
This is not a building that will be high on my list to visit.
The list is pretty long, and the killing continues all over the world today.
If you look back to the 1930's to 1960's in Canada and the U.S. you can see examples of some inhumane treatment of its cirizens.
The Vietnam war , from Vietnam's point of view could be classified as that, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq another.
China's treatment of Monk's, the Huutus Tutsis.
North Korea, Russia starving the Ukrainians in the 1930's?

Volpe is an old time Liberal that spent us into deficeits and would fund anything that would get him a vote.

It would be interesting to know who funded all these holocaust memorials throughout the world.

CitizenSourpuss wrote:Isn't there some sort of holocaust museum on the Asper/Jewish campus in Tuxedo already? Why another one? Not to negate the importance of the holocaust, but this is a subject that has been re-hashed to death.

Yes, there is one at the Asper campus. However, the impetus for this new one, approved by Parliament is that there is no "national" memorial in Canada.

"Canada is one of few Western nations without a national tribute honouring victims of the Holocaust."

So.

Curiously, the Free Press has chosen to not cover this story.

If they did cover it, people would be wondering how this new Ottawa-based memorial would impact things like fundraising for the CMHR, as well as tourist and students trips. Would students from the East have a less-expensive field trip to choose from, if they could go to Ottawa instead of Winnipeg?

These are legitemate questions, but I suspect the Free Press does not want to ask them, even though the public would find the answers interesting.

is it April 1st?

Triniman wrote:Curiously, the Free Press has chosen to not cover this story.

If they did cover it, people would be wondering how this new Ottawa-based memorial would impact things like fundraising for the CMHR, as well as tourist and students trips. Would students from the East have a less-expensive field trip to choose from, if they could go to Ottawa instead of Winnipeg?

These are legitemate questions, but I suspect the Free Press does not want to ask them, even though the public would find the answers interesting.

One only has to look at the ownership to see why they are doing what they are doing.

ahh there we go...
She said the memorial would serve as an educational tool for Canadians and a personal tribute to her grandfather




common theme eh?

Oh fu uck!! The A sker cancer is spreading!

JTF your age and intolerance is slipping out! lol
I believe every where there are lots of Jewish citizens , you will find some sort of memorial'
The U.S. one in Washington has had 15,000,000 visitors since 2004.
There are on Google some more towns that are listed, Montreal Toronto, Florida, Dallas, Chicago, Virgiania, Poland, Palestinian, Macedonian, Germany Vancouver, and even here in Wpg, and not that big beautiful one that is coming up, and bigger than any others in the world.
This will make Winnipeg 1st class, with its 1st fancy building!

rosencrentz wrote:
I believe the idea is if every school kid is dragged through a memorial, they hopefully will get the idea that killing off an entire race isn't a good idea.

I hope every kid in Canada is not forced to go to the CHRM just to graduate from high school.