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WHAT KIND OF HUMAN RIGHTS
MUSEUM IS THIS?
Israel (Izzy) Asper, head of CanWest Global
Communications Corporation, had a dream. It was to leave as
his legacy, not just to his family, or to his country, but
to the whole world, a museum on human rights so people all
over the world could come for inspiration, education and instruction.
This dream is to be realized in 2011.
However, there were a few problems with his
dream. In the first place, as wealthy as he was personally,
with his media empire, which included ownership of the National
Post, the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen, the Montreal
Gazette etc., and Global TV; access to his well-funded Asper
Family Foundation; and access to wealthy donors in the private
sector, he still could not begin to raise the funds to cover
the approximately $300 million building costs of the museum.
As well, there were the further annual costs of approximately
$22 million for the maintenance and staffing of the museum.
Mr. Asper died in 2003, but his family took
on his dream: in particular, his daughter Gail Asper. In short
order under Ms. Asper's direction, the proposed human rights
centre received the following grants:
Province of Manitoba - $40 million
City of Winnipeg - $20 million
Asper Foundation - $20 million
CIBC, Royal Bank, Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia -
$3.5 million
This funding was still not nearly enough to
get the project off the ground. Fortunately for the dream,
the Liberal government, accurately assessing the museum as
reflecting its own liberal values, announced on April 15,
2005, that a grant for the museum, in the amount of $100 million,
would be provided by the government. The sun seemed to be
shining on the project - that is, until the January, 2006
federal election, when the Conservative government was elected
to power. The Asper family and supporters of the museum held
their collective breaths over whether the Conservative government
would honour the Liberals' pledge to the museum.
The problem with the museum is that it was
mainly a shrine to former Liberal Prime Minister Trudeau and
his Charter of Rights. That is, it was supposed to reflect
the values set out in the Charter of Rights, which has been
interpreted by Liberal-appointed judges to reflect the liberal
views or philosophies of the judges and that of the Liberal
party, rather than the views of the public.
Patrons of this museum are the feminist Governor-General
Michaëlle Jean (See REALity, May June 2007, "Our
Wayward Governor-General," page 3) and John Harvard,
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba. In the latter's former life,
he was an outspoken left-wing Liberal MP from Winnipeg who
traded his seat to allow the former homosexual Winnipeg Mayor,
Glen Murray, to run in the June 2004 federal election (Mr.
Murray was defeated) in return for his appointment in May
2004 as Lieutenant-Governor.
Further, to ensure that liberal values would
prevail, the museum organizers identified, in addition to
ethno-cultural and Jewish representatives, so-called "human
rights experts", including representatives of homosexual
and feminist interests, who were to sit on the museum's National
Advisory Council. These representatives included:
Constance Backhouse, hard-line feminist
professor from the University of Ottawa, specializing in women's
studies. She is currently writing a book on sexual assault
in Canada.
Ken Norman, former member of the executive
committee of the notoriously biased and discriminatory Court
Challenges Program (now, thankfully, disbanded by the Harper
government - See REALity November/December 2006, p.7 "Conservative
Government Cuts Left-Wing Agencies"), Professor of Law,
University of Saskatchewan.
Beth Atcheson, chair of the legal arm of
the feminist movement, LEAF (Women's Legal Education and Action
Fund).
Lloyd Axworthy, known as "Pink Lloyd",
former Liberal Foreign Affairs Cabinet Minister under Prime
Minister Chretien.
Stephen Burri, president of the homosexual
lobby group EGALE (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere).
Basil "Buzz" Hargrove, National
President of the Canadian Autoworkers Union (CAW).
Senator Mobina Jaffer, feminist lawyer,
appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Chretien. She was
a member of the feminist only Canada Panel on Violence Against
Women, and a former unsuccessful Liberal candidate, as well
as president of the National Women's Liberal Commission.
Madame Justice Claire L'Heureux Dubé,
retired feminist judge from the Supreme Court of Canada, founder
and former member of the Board of Directors of the feminist
organization CRIAW (Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement
of Women).
Professor Kathleen Mahoney, hard-line feminist
professor of law at the University of Calgary. She has published
extensively on women's rights and has served as legal counsel
before the Supreme Court of Canada on the issue of hate propaganda
and pornography from a feminist perspective.
The Honourable Maurice F. Strong, well known,
left-wing UN advisor, currently under investigation for his
Oil-For-Food gambit in Iraq. He is also co-sponsor, with former
USSR President Mikhail Gorbachev, of the so-called "Earth
Charter", which includes, in its provisions, a right
to abortion, environmentalism, and aboriginal traditions,
etc. as basic international human rights.
The Honourable John N. Turner, former Liberal
Prime Minister.
Tom Axworthy, political strategist and policy
advisor for the Liberal party, former principal Secretary
to Prime Minister Trudeau
Alexandre Trudeau, son of the late Prime
Minister Trudeau and a left-wing film producer of a laudatory
film on President Castro of Cuba and an anti-American film
on the Iraq invasion.
Senator Noël Kinsella - Conservative
Senator appointed in 1990 by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
- former Chairperson of the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission
for 22 years. He tabled a bill in the Senate in 1996 to include
sexual orientation in the federal Human Rights Act.
Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein, appointed to
the Senate by Prime Minister Trudeau in 1984.
Senator Vivienne Poy, appointed to the Senate
by Prime Minister Chrétien. She is the sister-in-law
of former Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson. Senator Poy
tabled a bill in the Senate to change the words of our national
anthem to remove the scandalous phrase "all our sons
command". Not surprisingly, the bill was not successful.
(See REALity, September/October 2001, p. 10.)
Although these left-wing extremists predominate
on the museum's Advisory Council, there is a sprinkling of
others, such as former red Tory Conservative Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney and representatives from each of some Japanese,
Ukrainian, Jewish, and francophone organizations.
These latter representatives, however, are
all outnumbered by the left-wing, liberal activists who all
bring to the Advisory Council their own special interests
and agendas.
Many Violations of Human Rights
The museum has two sections: the Hall of Fame
and the Hall of Shame.
There are many violations of human rights
in Canada to fill the Hall of Shame: these exhibits will,
hopefully, serve as a reminder to future generations of past
wrongs, never to be repeated. Examples include, the Chinese
head tax passed in 1885; exclusion of all Chinese immigrants
in 1947; refusal to allow a freighter with Sikh passengers
to land in Canada in 1914; internment of Ukrainians, Italians
and Japanese as enemy aliens; our treatment of Aboriginals;
the refusal to allow Jews as immigrants, etc. The list is
tragically long. On the other hand, the Hall of Fame will
certainly be, according to Prime Minister Trudeau's former
principal secretary, Thomas Axworthy, a monument to Pierre
Trudeau. Mr. Axworthy described Mr. Trudeau's accomplishments
in the Winnipeg Free Press, March 13, 2005, as follows:
[Prime Minister Trudeau] modernized divorce
and reformed the Criminal Code in 1967 by removing prohibitions
against homosexuality and abortion, passed the Official Languages
Act in 1969, and is the father of the 1982 Charter of Human
Rights and Freedoms. …
In an article in the Ottawa Citizen (April
17, 2003), Izzy Asper is quoted as stating that his museum
must:
… tell the dirty stories very clearly.
And that relates to women, that relates to gays …
He goes on to say, however:
One is going to have to be very, very careful
to prevent it from becoming a propaganda device for a particular
political point of view.
Quite so.
The fact is that the museum is shaping up
to be quite "a propaganda device". The museum will
be used as a powerful tool to champion the left-wing interpretation
of human rights, such as abortion rights, feminism, homosexual
rights, with some legitimate exhibits sprinkled here and there
to give the museum an appearance of legitimacy. Also, if abortion
and gay rights activists find themselves in the Hall of Fame,
for furthering such so-called human rights advancements as
unrestricted abortion and same-sex marriage, then, by default,
will those who defend human life from conception to natural
death be relegated to the Hall of Shame, since they do not
support all the "human rights" defined by liberals?
The museum is also intended to be used as a centre of learning
for police, military, political personnel and, above all,
children, to combat the "forces of hate and oppression"
which include all those who do not support the humanist ideology.
Conservative Prime Minister Harper Backs
the Museum
On April 20, 2007 Conservative Prime Minister
Harper announced that this left-wing museum would be designated
a "national" museum of Canada. He said that it would
receive the $100 million originally promised by the former
Liberal government. He also said that the federal government
would assume full responsibility for the museum's operating
costs - possibly $22 million a year once it is opened.
With this federal funding, the museum must
be transformed into a project that will recognize human rights
from other than one left wing political perspective.
The selfless dedication of those protecting
the lives of the unborn child, year after year, or those defending
the family and traditional marriage, or struggling to protect
the rights of the aged and ill against euthanasia must not
be dismissed as "bigots" and "extremists,"
unworthy of "noble" liberal ideals. In short, this
controversial museum must not entrench the dubious values
of left-wing interests.
Please write to Prime Minister Harper and
to your Conservative MPs to insist that the Board of the Museum
and its Advisory Council be changed to reflect the views of
all Canadians, and that the human rights exhibited in the
museum be those basic human rights on which all Canadians
agree.
Please write to:
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
Langevin Building, 80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2
Fax: 613 941-6900
Your MP
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
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