ground breaking ceremonies... should they maybe break ground?

JTF wrote:They could just make the place 30% smaller for all we know...we haven't seen any real plans afterall.

I sure hope it's true that she has a fund to look after the maintenance of the place.

The fund for cost overruns is known as the "taxpayer."

Triniman wrote:Their fundraising is struggling, at best. In fact, it is hurting so badly...

They've raised $102 million. This is *struggling*? This is *hurting so badly*?

Just outta curiosity, were this project 100% privately funded how would it be received? Never mind. I think I know.

grumpy old man wrote:

Triniman wrote:Their fundraising is struggling, at best. In fact, it is hurting so badly...

They've raised $102 million. This is *struggling*? This is *hurting so badly*?

Just outta curiosity, were this project 100% privately funded how would it be received? Never mind. I think I know.

The fundraising deadline was March 31, 2008. Then it was April 30, 2008. Then the concept of a fundraising deadline was simply abandoned.

The entire $105 million could have been raised in a month, if not a week, if the public was truly interested.

What's quite fascinating is that they have removed the page from their website showing the list of prominet donations. Now, why do you suppose they have done that? My guess is because by looking at the list, you can deduce which Winnipeggers, Manitobans and Canadians who have money, who have said NO to making a prominent donation.

Every time the backers themselves make a big donation with photos appearing in the media, it just sends home the message even more powerfully that very, very few people are willing to donate money and many, many people with the ability to donate are saying NO.

Due to the "Leslie Hughes" effect, few people are willing to voice their opposition to the project. But they are speaking loud and clear by withholding donations from their fat wallets.

So, yes, I'd say their fundraising is stalled. Not only that, but I bet it's long fallen behind the rate of construction cost increases.

If we don't see another announcement showing that Arni's offer to match dollars up to $800,000 by 31 Dec., 2008, has been met, then I'd say you'd have to admit that the public is screaming NO!

Show us the business plan.

Triniman wrote:The entire $105 million could have been raised in a month, if not a week, if the public was truly interested.

Ummmmm.... Prove it?

What absurd assumptions. You're grasping at mythical straws in your desperation to discredit this project.

Triniman wrote:If we don't see another announcement showing that Arni's offer to match dollars up to $800,000 by 31 Dec., 2008, has been met, then I'd say you'd have to admit that the public is screaming NO!

I'll admit no such thing. I'll say their fund raising has been spectacularly successful. They have raise 97% of more than $100 million dollars and are only a paltry few months behind some self-imposed deadline.

One thing I will agree with you on is they are indeed speaking loudly with their wallets. They are screaming YES.

grumpy old man wrote:

Triniman wrote:The entire $105 million could have been raised in a month, if not a week, if the public was truly interested.

Ummmmm.... Prove it?

What absurd assumptions. You're grasping at mythical straws in your desperation to discredit this project.

Triniman wrote:If we don't see another announcement showing that Arni's offer to match dollars up to $800,000 by 31 Dec., 2008, has been met, then I'd say you'd have to admit that the public is screaming NO!

I'll admit no such thing. I'll say their fund raising has been spectacularly successful. They have raise 97% of more than $100 million dollars and are only a paltry few months behind some self-imposed deadline.

One thing I will agree with you on is they are indeed speaking loudly with their wallets. They are screaming YES.

Yeah, the backers are screaming yes with their wallets, but that's about it.

Donations have been very disappointing.

"Between December '06 and December '07, private sector contributions to the museum were roughly $13 million." Quoted from the Black Rod Blog.

Between December '07 and now, private sector contributions have been roughly $19 million. This includes big donations from the backers themselves and undemocratic donations from unions.

In other words, in the last two years, they've managed to raise 12% of the $265 million. Not impressed. Sounds like their fundraising is in trouble.

From the Black Rod Blog
Friday, December 19, 2008, 6:04 pm.

Not the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. An out-of-this-world class tourist attraction.

A sham groundbreaking ceremony using dirt imported specially for the occasion to simulate the native earth that's frozen harder than tempered steel.

The symbolism couldn't be more appropriate.

If that doesn't sum up the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, then nothing will.

Nationwide focus groups have shown that pretty much nobody in the country intends to come to Winnipeg to see Izzy Asper's vanity project. And people who might come here anyway as tourists don't see wallowing in historical misery as a fun time.

Short of chloroform and duct tape, the museum's only hope for visitors is trucking in tens of thousands of luckless students and arm-twisting governments to force civil servants to attend.

That's what's known as a Manitoba success story.

For reasons unknown, Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to Winnipeg to participate in the phoney-baloney groundbreaking and, so, officially to turn on the money taps. There's obviously a reason for the pretence that the project has been started before Dec. 31, 2008, even though the private donors have failed to raise their required share of the funding.

Instead of asking the obvious, how the Friends of the Museum expect to fund the inevitable cost-overruns which they've pledged to cover, there's a rush to start pouring taxpayers' money into the black hole.

And what a money pit it's going to be.

Let's start with the fact nobody actually knows how much the Asper boondoggle is going to cost. Officially it's a $265 million project. That's their story and they're sticking to it.

Three years ago in Muse, the museum projects quarterly newsletter (which lasted on issue as far as we can tell), the fundraising goal was $311 million.

One year ago Gail Asper, managing director of the Asper Foundation, the private charitable organization that has led the project’s fundraising, said they had to raise all the money by April, 2008, or else.

“We have urgency because we have been given a budget and the budget will hold for a certain period of time,” Asper said. “If we have to extend our timelines extensively, then the budget will rise and that will put this building in jeopardy.”

The Winnipeg Free Press wrote this week :

"About half of the $265-million price tag is for the building itself. The rest is intended to develop the museum's exhibits and multimedia presentations." (Harper's visit brings museum closer to reality, Meghan Hurley and Mia Rabson, Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 17, 2008.) That would translate in roughly $133 million for construction.

That's interesting. In June, 2005, Canadian Architect.com, in a story on the awarding of the design for the museum, wrote "The total cost of the project is estimated at $243 million, with construction costs estimated at $126 million."

So the cost of construction has risen a measley $7 million over the past three-and-a-half years. Now that's a Christmas miracle.

By contrast, the City of Winnipeg has been experiencing construction inflation averaging 16-18 percent this year alone. (City hopes slump cuts cost of its public works, Bartley Kives, Winnipeg Free Press, Nov. 27, 2008.)

At that rate by the time its built the only exhibits the CMHR can afford will be a couple of postcards from Nelson Mandella and a videotape of Roots, in Beta.

And by the time the rest of Canada realizes its been suckered into paying the construction, the cost overruns, and $22 million a year in operating costs, the museum's 328 foot tower will look like a giant middle finger sticking up out of the heart of the continent.

It is to weep.

Then, Thursday, came the news that Nasa is selling its fleet of Space Shuttles. Once they're decommissioned in 2010--two years before the CMHR is finished at its earliest--the three shuttles will be sold off for $35 million apiece, plus $6 million shipping and handling.

For $41 million U.S. ($50 million Canadian at today's exchange) we could own a Space Shuttle.

For less than one fifth of the claimed cost of the CMHR we could have our very own, one-of-a-kind (okay, one of three of a kind) irresistable, unbeatable, world-class, out-of-this-world class, tourist attractions.

Winnipeg gets 2.7 million tourists each year. And you can bet that each and every one of them would visit a Space Shuttle. And every single one would tell a friend or relative who couldn't wait to come to Winnipeg to see the Space Shuttle. To have a picture taken beside the Space Shuttle. To walk into the Space Shuttle. To sit in the cockpit of a Space Shuttle.

And to dream.

To dream of the future. Not dwell on the past.

A future that's leaving Winnipeg--and Canada--behind at a rapid clip.

There are many people still alive in Canada who remember being urged to finish their suppers because "there are children starving in India." Manitoba grain farmers were heroes for growing surplus crops that could be sent to India. Canadians grew up proud that we as a country could help alleviate the grinding poverty in India through our foreign aid programs.

Last month India landed a probe on the moon. It was launched from India's unmanned moon-orbiting satellite Chandrayaan-1. India joins an extremely select group of advanced nations; only the U.S., Russia, the European Space Agency, Japan and China have previously sent probes to the moon.

The Indian Space Research Organization plans to land an unmanned moon rover by 2012. In the third phase of their lunar program, another rover will land on the moon and return to Earth with lunar soil and stone samples in about 2017.

In between ISRO plans to launch satellites to study Mars and Venus.

Former president of India Abdul Kalam, a rocket scientist in his own right, said the landing of the moon probe -- time for the anniversary of the birth of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru -- "will kindle a dream in children".

"In 15 years I want to see an Indian on the moon," said Kalam, who conceived of the so-called moon impact probe.

Kindle a dream in children.

Isn't that what we want?

The Indian space program will do more to foster national pride and dreams of the future in home-grown scientists and engineers than all the museums in the world. There are already more students enrolled in engineering classes in India than in the US. Also there are more women engineers in India.
(With the museum, we're inspiring lawyers, social workers, sociologists, Marxist activists, and more millionaire panhandlers who dream of pet projects being financed by a bottomless public pit of money.)

But is it practical? AFP addressed that in their story on the Indian lunar mission:

"Critics say India, which has hundreds of millions of people living in deep poverty, should not be embarking on a space race with starstruck regional powers like China and Japan.
But the country has been keen to display its scientific prowess and claim a bigger slice of the global satellite business.
Not only has India "put our national flag on the lunar surface, we have also emerged as a low-cost travel agency to space," ISRO chief Madhavan Nair said, referring to the space mission's total 80-million-dollar price tag which is less than half spent on similar expeditions by other countries."

Ouch. For less than a third of what we're going to waste on the CMHR, India has positioned itself as a player in the space business world.

The Western Economic Diversification fund has been pumping $5 million a year into the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to keep them going and plans to keep doing it for another two years at least.

Obviously they think the way to wean Manitoba off its dependence on farming and fishing is to build a museum that depends on federal funding to survive.

In Manitoba, that's called economic planning.

It is to weep.
http://blackrod.blogspot.com

WTF??? Let Black Rod post here if he/she has a mind to... I don't see what posting someone else's blog brings to the party. Unless it is your blog. If I want to read someone's personal blog I'll go there and read it. Bizarre.

That said, meh. Whatever. Who gives a fiddler's frick about what India is doing with its space program. Go find a story about the big honking museum India is building. They we'll compare.

Sheesh. Enough already. Time to give up on this dangerous obsession of yours Triniman. I grow mighty weary of it.

grumpy old man wrote:WTF??? Let Black Rod post here if he/she has a mind to... I don't see what posting someone else's blog brings to the party. Unless it is your blog. If I want to read someone's personal blog I'll go there and read it. Bizarre.

That said, meh. Whatever. Who gives a fiddler's frick about what India is doing with its space program. Go find a story about the big honking museum India is building. They we'll compare.

Sheesh. Enough already. Time to give up on this dangerous obsession of yours Triniman. I grow mighty weary of it.

Let's see the business plan. We're entitled to it, are we not?

You couldn't possibly be as weary as those of are who see a monumental lack of due diligence, transparency and accountability to the major stakeholders in this project - the taxpayer.

Deank wrote:

Pavolo wrote:Also do you believe the goverment is going to give away the money with out a proper bussiness plan comeon .

umm...are the sarcasm fonts missing from this?

Besides the fact the government does indeed do this all the time...... Name 5 prominent politicians who have even questioned this project.. no wait.. name 2.

Was unable to get you a list suffice to say almost all local politicians and almost all federal MP's have stood to support and some have given there money too .
Dean we will agree to dis agree but this project will do more for this city 's stature then anything in the last 50 yrs like it or not and yes it will lose money but then so doe's most football stadium's and every other public building so fricking what . the money is being spent here not in Ottawa . For gods sake support the city and stop being a head in the sand .
Triniman yes you or I can find probably 50 different things to spend money on but none of them will ever be supported by all .
Also Dean ever gone to ask the goverment for money in the amounts involved in this plan it is not easy to sell the idea to all and Izzy did it which in its own is a feat of ability and not all could do it . Liberal which he was and conservatives have all supported it .

Pavolo wrote:

Deank wrote:

Pavolo wrote:Also do you believe the goverment is going to give away the money with out a proper bussiness plan comeon .

umm...are the sarcasm fonts missing from this?

Besides the fact the government does indeed do this all the time...... Name 5 prominent politicians who have even questioned this project.. no wait.. name 2.

Was unable to get you a list suffice to say almost all local politicians and almost all federal MP's have stood to support and some have given there money too .
Dean we will agree to dis agree but this project will do more for this city 's stature then anything in the last 50 yrs like it or not and yes it will lose money but then so doe's most football stadium's and every other public building so fricking what . the money is being spent here not in Ottawa . For gods sake support the city and stop being a head in the sand .
Triniman yes you or I can find probably 50 different things to spend money on but none of them will ever be supported by all .
Also Dean ever gone to ask the goverment for money in the amounts involved in this plan it is not easy to sell the idea to all and Izzy did it which in its own is a feat of ability and not all could do it . Liberal which he was and conservatives have all supported it .

Understand the "Leslie Hughes effect." No political party would dare to oppose this project. Never underestimate what being rich and powerful can do for you.

I still say we are entitled to see the business plan. Agree or disagree?

grumpy old man wrote:

Triniman wrote:Their fundraising is struggling, at best. In fact, it is hurting so badly...

They've raised $102 million. This is *struggling*? This is *hurting so badly*?

Just outta curiosity, were this project 100% privately funded how would it be received? Never mind. I think I know.

If it were 100% funded, I'd say locate it on your own land. The Forks is a "fun" destination and the museum has the ambiance of a funeral home...not "fun."

Locate it on private land and charge whatever admission the owners like.

Whatever, get over it.

grumpy old man wrote:Whatever, get over it.

You asked...

BTW, do you think they should disclose the business plan?

If they do which they probably will what difference will that make , yes being goverment involvement it will lose money and maybe won't get as many as projected.
But then every thing the goverment touches loses money rather this then 2000 of the so called artist with Steel picnic tables and dead rabbits from trees, and No 1 Northern and the whole slew of crap that the taxpayer buys so some artist can feed him self for a year.
It is a matter of how you look at it yes the money amounts are different but the principle the same govt money , If your art can't pay your way then get a new job.

"If they do which they probably will what difference will that make , yes being goverment involvement it will lose money and maybe won't get as many as projected. "
The difference is... they are "snowing" people into believing everything with this project will always be rosy. They are steadfastly maintaining that they will be getting massive amounts of people. (oh yeah and lets not forget they keep saying this will help solve world problems... without actually saying how )

The truth would be nice. But then it the truths were revealed this project would never have gone anywhere.

We can't handle the truth.

I just had to throw that in there...

This is a waste of $300+ million to begin with and $25 million a year thereafter.

Thank you very much Izzy Asker. Fcuk you and your legacy.

They'll get their funding...I have it on good authority another $8M has been promised.

JTF wrote:Thank you very much Izzy Asker. Fcuk you and your legacy.

Be upset. Fine. But this? This is going a little overboard. I don't understand this level of anger.

As long as they don't build it higher than the Portage & Main landmark skyscrapers...

It is supposed to be a very high structure. Can't recall how high though. It will be a landmark though to be sure. Maybe not as significant as the Sydney Opera House or the Eiffel Tower. But it will be prominent and statuesque.

Want more proof that their fundraising has stalled?

There is a small article in the Freep today indicating that the public has up the end of Dec. to take advantage of Arni's promise to match new donations dollar for dollar, up to $800,000. Now, why do you suppose they are not crowing about how much money has been donated since Arni's offer first appeared? I suspect it's because they have barely raised any money at all and thus have virtually nothing to boast about.

Fundraising is in trouble. People are saing NO with their wallets.

let's see the business plan.

grumpy old man wrote:

JTF wrote:Thank you very much Izzy Asker. Fcuk you and your legacy.

Be upset. Fine. But this? This is going a little overboard. I don't understand this level of anger.

$25 million plus dollars a year doesn't concern you???

Compare spending this amount on something that is needed.

Even the currently quoted figure of $22 million does J2F. But not enough to make such a horrid comment about a dead man. I respect Izzy Asper for what he did and tried to do for this city. To see such an disrespectful comment upsets me. I have a higher opinion of you too J2F. Frankly I don't expect this kind of shite from you.

The people who did or tried to do good for Winnipeg in the past were always under pressure... I wonder how many thought twice before going ahead with an improvement project for the city. Sometimes it's better to just announce straight forward what the heck is going to be built. That way, you don't give too much time for ranters.

I didn't respect Asper when he was alive and I'm not going to pretend that I do/did now that he's dead.

And frankly, using the arguement that he's dead to disallow comment is not going to presuade me to buy into the bullshit surrounding this monument.