* * *
James Moore, PC MP
Minister of Canadian Heritage
and Official Languages
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A6
Dear Mr. Moore,
Please accept the enclosed gift. It's a portrait of you. It is my hope that you will be able to find a place to hang it. Say, in a portrait gallery?
Bringing a portrait gallery to life appears to be extremely complex. Here's my understanding of what has happened, so far. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
1. The Liberal government chose a building for the portrait gallery, right across from Parliament Hill. Work commenced. Roughly $20 million was spent.
2. The Conservatives came to power. They stopped construction.
3. A plan was hatched to move the gallery to Calgary, where Prime Minister Harper has many friends. The government was caught trying to pull this switcheroo. They decided this looked bad.
4. A sketchy bidding process was created. It wasn't exactly transparent - for example, the names of the people on this bidding board were kept secret.
5. When Calgary's bid wasn't ready in time, the deadline was quietly extended.
6. Several solid bids were put forward. For example, Edmonton put forward two bids where the private sector would pay all the bills.
7. All the same, the bidding process was suddenly axed, the bids declared unsuitable, and the project was indefinitely shelved. The announcement of the cancellation was made late on a Friday afternoon to minimize the flack. The excuse given - "economic uncertainty".
8. A few days later, the Conservative government announced an infrastructure spending program to shore up the economy and create jobs. Couldn't the construction of the portrait gallery play a part in such a scheme? Apparently not.
To those of us outside the process, this looks corrupt, incompetent, and bizarre. What is going on? What are you politicians doing? Is there any way to bring you all to your senses? Can I help in some way?
I would really like to see the creation of a portrait gallery. It is my hope this project is not shelved indefinitely. And my craziest dream is that any future work on it isn't quite so Machiavellian.
Please let me know why this process is so convoluted.
Please keep me posted on any future developments.
Please bring the portrait gallery to life.
Sincerely,
Nikolaus Maack
* * *
click photo for a MUCH larger photo.
* * *
If you're an artist, follow my example. Paint a portrait of James Moore and mail it to him, along with a letter suggesting the minister of culture might actually want to support culture. There are plenty of photos of Mr. Moore to work from.
0 comments:
Post a Comment