Before the Canadian Museum for Human Rights opens in Winnipeg in 2013, its curators will have to grapple with the issue of how they will tell Canada’s stories fairly. Turns out, when it comes to political and social issues, there is no shortage of sides or opinions
The Red and Assiniboine Rivers meet in an area of central Winnipeg known as The Forks, one of the most historically significant junctions in Canada. Indigenous peoples gathered there for thousands of years before European fur traders and settlers—”invaders” might be another word—arrived by canoe, ox cart and rail. Many of the epic tales that tell the story of Canada began along those shores. Those stories include battles between Aboriginals and the more recent arrivals. Among the most enduring of those tales is that of Louis Riel, the Manitoba Métis leader who, depending on your point of view, is either a Father of Confederation or a traitor deserving of execution.
The new $310-million institution being built at The Forks will not resolve the question of Riel’s proper place
in history. But when it opens in April 2013, the Canadian Museum of Human Rights (using both public and private funding) will attempt to bring understanding to such divisive and complex chapters of our history.
The museum will be a national institution. That gives it the status of a Crown corporation, access to parliamentary funds and the right to operate at arm’s length from the government. But just how independent will the museum be? What happens if it decides to tell the story of Louis Riel, the recent imprisonment of Maher Arar or the battle over samesex rights in a manner displeasing to the government of the day or to lobby groups that have the government’s ear?
IN CONTEXT Chief operating officer Patrick O’Reilly near the shell of the museum. He says that while the museum is funded by government money, it will maintain its independence when it comes to programming. (Photo by Thomas Fricke)
History shows that Parliament, whether dominated by Liberal or Conservative governments, has been unafraid to interfere with the programming of national museums. In 2001, all political parties in the Commons directed the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Que., to stage an exhibition of Arab-Canadian art, which the museum had wanted to postpone in
the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
More recently an all-party Senate committee pressured the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa to revamp an exhibition about Second World War Canadian airmen who bombed German cities, killing mostly civilians but failing to cripple Germany’s war industries. And just this summer,
Heritage Minister James Moore publicly stated his displeasure with a National Gallery of Canada sexually explicit exhibit called Pop Life.
Such a public statement could invite a museum version of libel chill, pushing the National Gallery back to tame Impressionist paintings of flowers to safeguard its annual parliamentary appropriation.
building blocks Patrick O’Reilly and chief knowledge officer Victoria Dickenson on site. Together, they will offer context on Canada’s stories. (Photos by Thomas Fricke)
Patrick O’Reilly, BCom/92, chief operating officer of the human rights museum, is very aware of public concerns over the museum’s independence. “That’s probably the biggest question we get from Canadians,” says O’Reilly, a former bureaucrat with the Privy Council and the Department of Canadian Heritage and a former governor of Carleton University, the alma mater of a dozen or so officials at the human rights museum. “If Parliament decides we’re not doing something well and they tell us so, we will listen for sure. Parliament is a public forum. Even with a majority government, the direction is coming as a public debate through Parliament.”
Such public debate appears to hold more sway with O’Reilly than behind-the-scenes nudging from whatever government is in power. However, he quickly adds: “That’s not to say I’m not going to listen to the minister. Don’t misquote me on that.” O’Reilly says his museum learned lessons from some of those incidents of political interference at other national museums. One lesson was the necessity to engage in public dialogue before creating exhibitions and other programming. Officials from the Human Rights Museum toured every province and territory in the past year, visiting almost two dozen communities, to learn what the public wants the institution to do.
Museums aren’t there to judge… They’re not there sitting ex cathedra to make statements to the world. We leave that to the politicians.
So officials say they now feel they have the pulse of the country. O’Reilly puts it this way: “When there is a controversy, the government or Parliament wades in because they find the museum is not making a good decision. It is often the case that better communication needs to happen. Parliament or the government are reflecting the views they are hearing from constituents and perhaps the museum hasn’t been hearing from constituents. So one of the things going for us is that we are engaging, we’re listening, we’re consulting.”
Concerns over political independence intensified last year when the federal government appointed Stuart Murray, former leader of the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party, as the museum’s chief executive officer. Murray had voted against gay rights while in the Manitoba legislature and felt compelled, after his appointment, to say same-sex issues would be highlighted at the museum.
All other national museums in Canada are headed by nonpartisan bureaucrats or executives with vast museum experience. Murray had no experience in museums or in human rights, but he does have an intriguingly diverse resumé. Past jobs include being an aide to Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney and a roadie for the rock band Blood, Sweat and Tears.
The government-appointed museum board, O’Reilly notes, is aware that the institution will be caught in controversies because of its mandate to explore contentious human rights issues. “They have given management the direction that we are not to seek to avoid controversy.”
Where we do see a relativist approach is with more contemporary issues, current affairs, things going on in the world now,
But some issues are more controversial than others. Everyone (or almost everyone) agrees that the Holocaust was bad and that Hitler should not get equal time to present his side of the story. But many other issues within the human rights portfolio lack that same consensus—same-sex rights are an example— so the museum will try to air various points of view in exhibitions on such topics. “Where we do see a relativist approach is with more contemporary issues, current affairs, things going on in the world now,” says O’Reilly. “It’s very difficult to say this is black, that is white. There are a thousand shades of grey for almost everything happening currently, because you don’t have the perspective of standing back when it’s happening.” But museum biases will show. Same-sex equality will be treated as a legitimate human right at the museum, despite the voting record of the chief executive officer and even though many Canadians consider homosexuality an illness, a sin or a moral failing.
“It’s the law,” Victoria Dickenson, PhD/95, the museum’s chief knowledge officer, says of gay rights. Legalized discrimination against homosexuals in some countries “is not good news,” she adds. Dickenson’s job, in plain language, is equivalent to being chief curator. She is a former director of Montreal’s McCord Museum, a Canadiancentric history museum. Because of her background, Dickenson, perhaps more than anyone, will be able to give the human rights museum credibility within the national and international museum community.
The Winnipeg museum wants to be a national force and is already working with provincial education departments to produce materials for students.
There are a thousand shades of grey for almost everything happening currently, because you don’t have the perspective of standing back when it’s happening.
Even the bricks-and-mortar building will be more about ideas than artifacts, with an emphasis on interactive installations rather than passive display cases. One installation being considered would show a map of the world. Press a button to see which countries respect gender equality. Press another button to see which countries are poor. Then see whether there is a correlation between inequality and poverty.
Such exhibitions are designed to help visitors think about human rights in new ways and to encourage them to go out and champion causes. These exhibitions, says Dickenson, will not preach what is right and wrong but will present thoroughly researched data to allow visitors to make their own decisions.
“Museums aren’t there to judge,” says Dickenson. “They’re not there sitting ex cathedra to make statements to the world. We leave that to the politicians.”
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