Government accused of artistic interference

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A digital rendering of a portion of Canada’s proposed Monument to the Afghanistan Mission. (courtesy Team Stimson)

Three opposition parties in the House of Commons have denounced the Liberal government for overturning the results of a juried competition for the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan and awarding the contract to an Alberta, rather than a Quebec, competitor.

Conservative, Bloc Québécois and NDP members of the Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs outnumbered Liberal MPs in a vote to denounce the government’s decision and to launch an investigation into the controversy, The Ottawa Citizen reports.

In June, a government-appointed jury chose a commemoration concept proposed by Quebec-based designers Team Daoust. But Pablo Rodriguez, then the heritage minister, and Lawrence MacAulay, then the veterans affairs minister, announced the government was rejecting the jury’s choice and awarding the commission to Alberta-based designers Team Stimson, named after the lead artist Adrian Stimson, of the Siksika Nation in southern Alberta. The project is to be completed by 2027 and located near the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The decision, the government said, was based on the results of an online survey of veterans and other members of the public who preferred the Stimson design over the Daoust concept.

The decision prompted Team Daoust representatives — including former Supreme Court of Canada justice Louise Arbour, an adviser on the proposal — to condemn the “unfair” and “undemocratic” outcome of the competition, and to accuse the government of “cheating” to get the result it wanted.

The Veterans Affairs committee has ordered the government to produce “unredacted documents” related to the monument competition no later than Nov. 17. The motion specifically states that the committee “denounces the government’s about-face and lack of respect for the rules in deciding not to award the design of the commemorative monument” to Team Daoust, “which won the competition conducted by a team of experts set up by the Liberal government itself.”

Adrian Stimson served in Afghanistan as part of the Canadian Forces Artists Program a few years ago and has since created art inspired by that experience that has toured the country. His proposed memorial draws on “elements of healing from the concept of the Medicine Wheel,” including walls inscribed with the names of Canadian soldiers who died in Afghanistan and a “circular, sacred space of safety, a ‘home base’ of reflection, memory and contemplation.” The central feature is a stone circle with four bronze flak jackets and helmets draped on crosses, “utilitarian yet poignant reminders of protection.”

The Team Daoust design, led by Montreal architecture and urban design firm Daoust Lestage, Quebec City artist Luca Fortin and their strategic adviser Arbour, features a contemplative space around two large walls erected at angles to create framed views of the Peace Tower to the east and the Canadian War Museum to the west.

Source: The Ottawa Citizen

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