Canadians give thumbs-down to grandiose memorials planned for Ottawa and Nova Scotia: poll

Two controversial memorials are getting the thumbs-down from Canadians, according to a new poll.

Fifty-eight per cent of respondents to the survey by Postmedia and research firm Mainstreet Technologies said they disapproved of plans to erect a memorial to victims of communism in Ottawa, while 50 per cent objected to a huge statue planned for Nova Scotia.

Both projects are private initiatives.

As part of the Never Forgotten National Memorial Foundation’s multimillion-dollar proposal, a 24-metre-tall Mother Canada would be installed to commemorate war victims in Cape Breton Highlands National Park.

The Memorial to the Victims of Communism would be erected on a prime site in Ottawa, next to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Quito Maggi, Mainstreet’s president, said the negative response to the Ottawa memorial should ensure it is never built.

“While the level of disapproval may not seem extremely high on the surface, among those who express an opinion, that amounts to 77 per cent disapproval, with over 53 per cent strong disapproval,” he said.

“It’s a pretty clear signal.”

Jonathan Vance, research chair at the department of history at Western University in London, Ont., believes the results do not reveal opposition to war memorials, but concern about the use of public space.

“Canadians are not strongly opposed to commemorating military history. But they’re opposed to the notion that some group with money and political clout can get ‘their’ monument erected on a public space,” he said.

“If these two projects were not commemorative, I expect the response would be the same — ‘Cape Breton Highlands National Park and the prime location on Wellington Street is our space — you can’t just plunk something there just because you have money or influence.’”

You can’t just plunk something there just because you have money

As a whole, 45 per cent of Canadians disapprove of the location of the communism memorial, with Ontario residents expressing the highest level of resistance: 35 per cent are strongly opposed.

For the construction of Mother Canada, just as unsurprisingly, the most disapproval comes from the Atlantic Canada, with 34 per cent strongly disapproving and 18 per cent somewhat disapproving.

Aesthetic and history do matter, says Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history at the University of Toronto, adding very few memorials are memorable.

“Some memorials are ludicrous. Poor Mackenzie King on Parliament Hill looks like something out of Planet of the Apes. Taste matters, as does good design. The Victims of Communism memorial fails on both counts, while the gigantic Mother Canada would be better located in ancient Egypt,” he said.

Respondents were also worried about commercialization of public space: 39 per cent said they disapproved of Mother Canada — which includes plans for a gift shop — because of its location in a national park, followed by objection to its location, size and appearance.

“Canadians do have a sense of proportion, and sometimes we also have a sense of humour, so Mother Canada might draw tourists simply as a giant piece of kitsch,” Bothwell said.

“The Ottawans and Cape Bretoners who object to these massive monuments to the Harper government’s bad taste and political cynicism are right to do so on esthetic grounds alone.”

The margin of error is plus or minus 1.96 per cent.

Original Article
Source: canada.com/
Author: SADAF AHSAN