Full Article:

Portrait of a Country

Published: Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Ottawa Citizen (also Calgary Herald)

We have learned (not from official proceedings in the House of Commons but through the media) that the Portrait Gallery of Canada is being scrapped, at least in Ottawa. Instead, the powers that be more than hint that it will be housed in a private corporate building in Calgary.

Trying to separate rumour from fact on this file, an NDP MP discovered that "access to information" means direct access to documents but not necessarily to content. The requested paperwork detailing the purported move of the Portrait Gallery of Canada to Calgary is almost completely blacked-out -- as if state secrets are at stake.

Why? What are the ramifications of these new portrait gallery plans? Why are we not allowed to know the details of this alleged deal between our government and Calgary's Encana Corporation?

I don't deny that Calgary is a superb city. It is even one of the great cities of Canada. It is more than highly capable of representing the unique creative impulses of its citizenry, its region and its province. But Calgary does not have the mandate of a national capital. Nor does Toronto, Montreal, St. John's or Winnipeg. Over and above being dangerous to individual artifacts, moving the Portrait Gallery of Canada is "nationally incorrect." This decision, if decision it be, renders regionalistic a national museum. No city should abscond with or (unilaterally and without consultation) have offered to it a national institution.

The art in the portrait gallery (the historic and cultural property of all Canadians) cannot be dispersed on a whim or be perceived as a private building's classy decor simply because the owner of that building offers the federal government money. Since when have our visual historic documents been up for grabs (for lease, purchase or gain of any kind) to the highest bidder?

In philanthropic terms the "generosity" of Encana Corporation's donation appears questionable. In art-value terms, the $30 million offered is a pittance, as the amount is less than the value of a dozen of our portrait gallery's most cherished possessions. As it stands, the face value of the amount of the Encana "donation" is sorely diminished in that it abets the cavalier dismissal of Canadian tax dollars already spent on the original portrait gallery project. The corporate largesse, therefore, would be more genuine had it been offered to defray the costs of the already-under-way gallery. If Encana's intent had been pure it would have been satisfied (as so many caring philanthropists before) with the portrait gallery naming a section of the institution the Encana Wing.

But why should the Portrait Gallery of Canada be in Ottawa? Because Ottawa is a capital, and capitals have a national responsibility. A capital is a selected geographic environment that houses the main governmental structure of a unified group of varied peoples. And worldwide, all major symbols of a nation's achievements and individual greatness are celebrated in museums and galleries in a national capital. In more human terms, a capital is tantamount to being a town square where everyone from the different surrounding streets and boroughs gathers to be awed by their own kinship and to celebrate before the world that which makes them united.

No province or city in any part of this great country should trump or water down the capital of Canada in this mandate. Nationally and internationally, Ottawa is the symbolic centre of our Canadianism. Ottawa is to Canada what Paris is to France, London to Britain and Washington to the United States. Without a capital a country becomes nothing more than a collection of squabbling regions with less and less commonality to keep them linked.

We must stop seeing Ottawa as a municipality like all others. It is not. Love it or hate it, Ottawa the capital is the symbol of the grandeur that we are in Canada and the collective will to thrive that we share. If we fail to perceive our capital in this way, we Canadians will very quickly lose much more than a museum. We will lose our sense of balance and place.

In the end, any and all unilateral decisions to divide us (by vengefully stripping the capital of its symbolism) serve only to widen the gap between our regions and to erode the soul of one of the greatest democracies in the world. It is therefore crucial that the symbols of our continuity and unity not become mere scraps in the wind.

After 40 years painting portraits in Canada and internationally -- striving to be the best cultural ambassador that I can be -- I find it disgusting that the powerful and historically significant statements of my profession are being used to divide my country.

Am I exaggerating the importance of this unilateral and belligerent decision? I don't think so. Are the concomitant political backroom games being played with our "visual historic documents" that dangerous? Definitely. Does culture weigh that much in the survival of Canada? I can only answer this question with another: Are Canadian unity and the symbols of our identity still important to us? If they are, we Canadians should say so and stop this move, along with the numerous other decisions that suddenly exist before our eyes without parliamentary approval.

But if we no longer consider the Canada our ancestors created important, then we should be honest enough to tell our children that we don't give a damn about our past, we don't care about our present, and we could care less about their future.