Michael Ignatieff once dreamed of leading Canada toward the 150th anniversary of Confederation, but a disastrous federal election in 2011 scuttled the former Liberal leader’s plan to be prime minister when the birthday bash happens in 2017.
The approaching sesquicentennial had been a beacon for Ignatieff during his brief political career, prompting the renowned author and professor to host a Canada 150 “thinkers’ conference” in Montreal in March 2010 that was cast as a brainstorming session to imagine ways the country could celebrate the Confederation anniversary, but which was principally designed by Ignatieff to revive his party’s fortunes and generate ideas for a looming election campaign.
Ignatieff floated several ideas during his time as Liberal leader about how Canada might mark the historic milestone, pledging at one point that a government under his leadership would build a new bridge across the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Gatineau, Que.
“A Liberal government will advance the project, and it would be a magnificent project for the 150th anniversary of Canada in 2017,” Ignatieff said.
He had earlier suggested that other worthy sesquicentennial projects might include a high-speed rail link between Windsor and Quebec City, a four-lane highway stretching across Canada, and — in considerably more general terms — making Canada the “smartest, greenest most open-minded country there is” by 2017.
But nearly three years after the Canada 150 conference, and now back at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, Ignatieff told Postmedia News the sesquicentennial project he’d make a priority is the creation, at last, of a stand-alone national portrait gallery at the former U.S. embassy in Ottawa — a long-anticipated and, in recent times, a highly politicized idea.
“If you look at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Scottish Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, you see what these institutions do to raise popular awareness of our historical heritage,” Ignatieff said. “It’s a real shame that we don’t use our portrait collection to teach generations to come about our rogues and heroes, our heroines, our forgotten giants.”
The Portrait Gallery of Canada, a collection of thousands of paintings, photographs and other depictions of notable men and women from Canada’s past, today remains a sub-unit of Library and Archives Canada with an unrealized vision to exist as an independent institution.
A stand-alone gallery was announced in 2001 by the Liberal government of Jean Chretien. Years of planning and renovation investments at the old American embassy in Ottawa – directly across the street from Parliament – followed until the Conservative government scuttled the proposed launch in 2008, pointing to ballooning costs. Another key concern was the planned siting of yet another national institution in Ottawa rather than at least inviting proposals to build the new cultural attraction elsewhere in the country. Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa eventually submitted bids to become the home of the portrait museum, but the government said none of the proposals measured up and left the gallery — despite objections from its Liberal and NDP advocates — as a “program” within Library and Archives Canada.
“What better place than right in front of the Parliament Buildings where, as I saw, thousands of Canadians come every year in the expectation of seeing and enjoying their heritage,” said Ignatieff. “Every single school party that goes up on the Hill could then go down and spend time with the men and women who made our country and whose portraits need to be put together in one place, in a living museum of our national character.”
Portraits from LAC’s collection have been shipped around the country for satellite exhibits. Just ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Heritage Minister James Moore and Conservative Sen. Nancy Greene Raine launched a temporary display — Portraits in the Streets — in the city’s popular Granville Island tourist district. The exhibit featured portraits of famous Canadian Olympians — including one of Greene Raine, a former world champion skier who was Canada’s star athlete at the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France, winning gold in the giant slalom and silver in the slalom event.
But Ignatieff says the country would be better served by giving the gallery its own home as an independent base for its travelling exhibits.
He added: “So yes, let’s build a museum that commemorates 150 years, and let’s also have one hell of a party.”
Michael Ignatieff at-a-glance
— Born May 12, 1947.
— Author of both fiction and non-fiction, held prestigious posts at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and University of Toronto.
— Federal Liberal leader 2008-11.
— His 150 wish: Finally build a National Portrait Gallery in Ottawa.
Related articles
- Canadian history, heritage at risk from cuts to Libraries and Archives Canada, say academics (o.canada.com)
- Canada at 150: Experts urge government to get planning for the anniversary underway (o.canada.com)
- Celebrating Canada 150: Michael Bliss (o.canada.com)
- ‘I think parliament’s going to die,’ Michael Ignatieff says on BBC panel (news.nationalpost.com)
