Around forty newspaper and magazine articles in French and English, a petition, a motion of censure adopted by a majority of federal deputies, appearances by ministers before the veterans affairs committee. And many more.
We can say that things have changed quite a bit in the six months since I wrote last August in a column1 that the Trudeau government unceremoniously dismissed the Quebec team that won the design competition for the design of a monument commemorating the Canadian mission in Afghanistan.
The Daoust team was the unanimous choice of the jury selected by the same government, which, a year and a half after receiving the decision, threw away its own rules and awarded the 3 million contract to the Stimson team, from name of the Alberta Indigenous artist and armed forces veteran at the heart of the proposal.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA
Aerial view of the Stimson team’s concept, chosen by the government, although not winning the competition
Then-Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay advised the shunned winning team – made up of architect Renée Daoust, artist Luca Fortin and former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbor – barely a few minutes before the press conference announcing the coronation of the rival team. The jury suffered exactly the same fate.
The news has raised the ire of the architecture and public arts community, which notes that the federal government is thus torpedoing the credibility of future public art competitions. Opposition parties and public figures have come forward to call for the decision to be overturned.
And then ? And then nothing. The Trudeau government is not moving. He remains in his position. Since six months.
And what is this position? “We made the decision to listen to veterans,” said Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor when she testified before the parliamentary committee on veterans, referring to a survey conducted in May and June 2021. with more than 10,000 Canadians. This survey – in which more than 3,000 veterans of the Afghanistan mission participated – favored the Stimson team.
The minister repeated the same thing in all forums and in all her communications with journalists. Ad nauseam.
The problem is that this explanation, the one and only given by the government, has not held water from the start.
The poll was part of the process of selecting the winning team and was not intended to be decisive. It served to inform the jury in its choices and it was taken into consideration as in all the other competitions which led to the erection of national monuments in recent years.
According to pollster Jean-Marc Léger, the survey, which was not carried out according to the rules of the art, has no scientific value. Looking at the results, we can see in particular that Quebec is clearly under-represented in the opinions expressed2.
Furthermore, if the government was so keen to listen to veterans and their loved ones, why did it abandon a subsequent consultation with the families of Canadians who perished in Afghanistan?
The government also seems to turn a blind eye to the fact that the armed forces and veterans had a lot of weight on the design competition jury. A serving soldier, a military historian who evolved within the armed forces as well as a representative of the families of the missing were among them. A former Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan was also a member of the jury. The three other jurors came from the world of arts and architecture. After deliberating, all these beautiful people came to a common decision.
Should we conclude that veterans who responded to the survey in their living room, with few details about the competition in their hands, are better than those who participated in the entire decision-making process?
It’s terribly shaky.
This story is not just about a monument to 3 million. It is about justice, fairness and transparency in procurement processes.
It is also about the lack of accountability of ministers who hide behind veterans to make people forget that they themselves broke their own rules.
What are they risking? If sued, they are defended by government lawyers, paid by taxpayers. Of course, they could be punished at the polls, but voters still need to remember this issue, among many others, during the next elections.
The saddest part of all this is that the monument that was supposed to commemorate the efforts and sacrifices of the 40,000 Canadians who served in Afghanistan is becoming a monument to government stubbornness and poor governance.
1. Read the original column
2. View survey results
reference: www.lapresse.ca