Knelman: Bumps in the road for Human Rights Museum
No one ever said that building a hugely ambitious, stunningly iconic and scarily expensive museum for human rights in Winnipeg, of all places, was going to be easy.
And when news of turbulence, obstacles and awesome new challenges were revealed in the final weeks of 2011, it was interpreted by willing naysayers as a potentially fatal blow for what had seemed to them from day one as an impossible and preposterous dream.
Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I’m still a believer in the ultimate success of this unique project.
My prediction: After years of surmounting overwhelming roadblocks, the museum will open in 2014. And if all partners play their proper roles, this will turn out to be an inspiring triumph not just for Winnipeg but for all of Canada, letting the world look to this country as the global centre in the near-universal struggle for human rights.
With luck, we will be able to look back at the end of 2011 as the low point in the struggle of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to be born — and to the early months of 2012 as the time of the great turnaround.
Ottawa is a veritable treasure trove of activities, and has an especially impressive collection of museums. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be all that expensive either. General admission to the Canadian Museum of Civilization or Canadian War Museum,
The Liberals say Mr. Ignatieff was about to comment at a news conference at Quebec's Museum of Civilization where Mr. Harper had just launched the Year of India in Canada 2011 with the High Commissioner of India to Canada. “After the PM spoke,