Charity behind anti-communist monument seeks $750,000 in federal help

OTTAWA — After raising only a fraction of the costs of building an Ottawa memorial to victims of communism, the charity behind the controversial project says it expects to receive $750,000 in funding from the federal government.

Tribute to Liberty has raised only $140,000 toward the $1.5 million that it expects to need for the Memorial to Victims of Totalitarian Communism.

But the group is counting on Citizen and Immigration Canada to provide matching contributions for the memorial.

The department’s minister, Jason Kenney, has spoken favourably about the project in the past, even though it risks offending the Chinese government at a time of improving Canada-Sino relations.

The Chinese reacted strongly to A similar memorial to victims of communism built in Washington, D.C., in 2007 with the blessing of then-president George W. Bush. The Chinese embassy said the monument provoked “confrontation between ideologies and social systems.”

The application for funding comes as the Conservative government defends the $2.5-million spent on a visitors centre honouring Dr. Norman Bethune, the Canadian surgeon who treated soldiers in Mao Tse Tung’s Red Army in the defence of China against the Japanese invasion in the 1930s.

Some critics say the Bethune memorial, in Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s riding, was tantamount to supporting communism and insensitive to those killed under Mao’s rule.

In fact, Bethune died nearly a decade before Mao’s Communists came to power and long before millions perished in the famines of the Great Leap Forward and the anti-rightist purges of the Cultural Revolution.

Kenney’s office said the government is working with Tribute to Liberty and would consider the funding application in due course. Press secretary Alexis Pavlich noted that that government committed to a memorial to victims of communism in its 2010 Speech from the Throne and again in the Conservative Party’s 2011 election campaign platform. The National Capital Commission agreed in 2010 to provide space for the monument in the Garden of the Provinces and Territories, opposite the Library and Archives Canada building on Wellington Street. But the NCC required the charity to put up 80 per cent of the total cost before convening a design competition.

Much of the money raised by Tribute to Liberty so far has gone to consulting fees, startup costs and staffing, Canada Revenue Agency filings show. The agency had only $9,600 in the bank at the end of its 2011 fiscal year last summer.

“We have more funds in the bank than last year at this time, but unfortunately it has not been a good fundraising year from individuals/organizations,” Alide Forstmanis, chair of the charity, said in an email.

But Forstmanis expects the fundraising efforts will take off if C.I.C. approves its request for a grant to match donations dollar for dollar.

“(The) likelihood of approval is very high,” she said. “After all, this memorial is of national significance, since more than eight million Canadians (according to Census 2006) trace their roots to countries that either were or still are communist ruled.”

The bulk of the money raised by Tribute to Liberty in the last reporting period went to operating costs. “Professional services and consultants” cost the charity $51,980.

In the same period, the group raised $52,200 in donations, with the majority coming from other charities such as the Latvian Relief Society of Canada and the Polish Scouting Association.

“It is very hard to initiate a project like this with volunteers only,” Forstmanis said. “Practically all organizations have paid staff to do administrative tasks. We had a mountain of bureaucratic work.”

Forstmanis said the consulting costs were incurred in the project startup and filing applications with the NCC and the Canada Revenue Agency and are no longer required.

Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: glen mcgregor