'The adventure of a lifetime' - Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

By: Carol Sanders and Mary Agnes Welch

Posted: 09/20/2014 1:00 AM | Comments:

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Gail Asper holds a basket of stones from the four corners of Canada — and one from Lower Fort Garry — following Friday's opening ceremony. Photo Store

Human rights and emotions were on display at the official opening of Canada's newest national museum Friday.

Demonstrators turned out to express their right to free speech. Dignitaries hailed the Canadian Museum for Human Rights as a beacon of hope for things to get better. The 400 invited guests were a who's who of Manitoba -- with former premier Gary Doer and former Winnipeg mayor Glen Murray in attendance. Other than Gov. Gen. David Johnston, national leaders -- such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former PM Jean Chrétien -- were noticeably absent.

The national anthem attracted a big-league singer. Ginette Reno -- who performs the anthem before most NHL games in Montreal -- belted out O Canada before the Winnipeg crowd.

First Nations elders Clarence and Barbara Nepinak gave the museum their blessing in their mother tongue. A First Nations drummer and singer in traditional dress followed, as guests and dignitaries clutching unopened umbrellas sat in the bleachers under threatening skies. Métis elder George Ducharmes said a prayer asking for help so "we can walk in peace."

Inuit elder Levinia Brown lit a flame and blessed the building as those in attendance bowed their heads.

Outside the security perimeter, aboriginal protesters with Idle No More and Palestinian-Canadian demonstrators denounced a lack of basic human rights for their people.

On stage at the ceremony, as Johnston rose to speak, the grey skies opened as did a wave of umbrellas. Johnston said the museum is a place that will inspire the promotion of human rights.

"It will help us in our continuous struggle for human rights and what still must be done." It's a place all schoolchildren should visit, said the grandfather of 11 who said children will be "enticed" by its innovative digitized exhibits.

"We are bringing a dream to life," said Heritage Minister and Winnipeg MP Shelly Glover as the rain fell. Glover joked it was God's way "of baptizing us."

She saluted the late Izzy Asper, who championed the idea for the museum, and his children Gail, David and Leonard who saw it to fruition.

The museum will demonstrate "our values with both pride and conviction," said Glover. Canada has had its "dark" moments but learned from its mistakes, she said. The museum can and should share that experience, reflecting the good and the bad, she said.

"We live in the greatest country on the world," said Glover. She, along with Premier Greg Selinger and other speakers, thanked Prime Minister Harper for his role in making it a national museum. That status gives it operating funding, which a museum that cost $351 million to build needed to become a reality.

Museum CEO Stuart Murray, who has weathered much of the criticism of the museum's cost and content, said it would continue to attract controversy, and it can be no other way.

"Not all of these conversations will be easy. We accept that, but we will not shy away," he said. "Impassioned debate calls our attention to struggles that have not yet had enough."

He said the museum's stories are meant to highlight average people who were not born heroes nor sought glory, but who nonetheless changed history.

The speeches were interspersed with music, including performances by the Tenors, local fiddler Sierra Noble and Winnipeg pop singer Maria Aragon.

Gail Asper received a standing ovation after she paid an emotional tribute to her late father Izzy Asper and all those who made his vision of 14 years ago a reality today, building a "beacon of hope" on a gravel parking lot by The Forks.

"It pains me my father and mother are not here to join us."

Gail Asper, president of the Asper Foundation, ran one of the biggest fundraising campaigns in Canadian history to get the museum built.

"I was privileged with the adventure of a lifetime," she told the crowd. "This is for all of you."

Wilton Littlechild, a lawyer, former MP and now an Indian residential schools Truth and Reconciliation commissioner, said indigenous people were left out of the original United Nations human rights declaration and still some states refuse to recognize indigenous rights.

What he did not say was Canada voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 and only endorsed it three years ago after significant lobbying.

"While we've come a long way, we have a long way to go," he said.

Instead of cutting a ribbon, the museum chose to place four stones collected by Parks Canada staff from the four corners of Canada that were placed in a large, compass-like medallion in front of the door. The stones were from Cape Spear, N.L., Point Pelee, Ont., Pacific Rim National Park in British Columbia and Grise Fjord in Nunavut. A fifth stone from Lower Fort Garry was placed in the middle by young Emily McIvor, originally from Sandy Bay First Nation.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 20, 2014 A6

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