Canadian Museum for Human Rights

CREDITUNION.MB.CA Co-operativesarebasedonthevaluesof self-help,self-responsibility,democracy, equality,equityandsolidarity.Inthe traditionoftheirfounders,co-operative membersbelieveintheethicalvaluesof honesty,openness,socialresponsibility andcaringforothers. —fromthe����������������-�����������������,���� Manitoba'screditunionssalutethe CanadianMuseumforHumanRights 0 2 C a n a d i a n M u s e u M f o r H u M a n r i g H t s - s u p p l e M e n t t o t H e W i n n i p e g f r e e p r e s s - s a t u r d a y, s e p t e M b e r 2 0 , 2 0 1 4 story continued on next page ➤ Asper says her father wanted Canadians to be educated about our own human rights history — to understand that the rights we have were hard won, and to realize they're fragile and can be lost if we're not vigilant. And he wanted to remind us that we have an obligation to stand up for human rights at home and around the world. While he didn't get to see it, she says the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) fulfils his original vision, with galleries of exhibits that are intended to educate and, ultimately, inspire visitors to think about their own role in protecting rights. "The vision really was education, and the most important part of the vision was a call to action. This was never supposed to be a museum just about the past where you go and learn the past and you leave and that's it," Asper says. "The whole point of the museum was to inspire every single visitor to take personal responsibility for the advancement of human rights here in Canada and around the world, and that vision is completely intact." The son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Izzy Asper was a born entrepreneur. He launched CanWest Global Communications in 1975, starting with one local station and eventually expanding the company to encompass national TV networks in Canada and other countries, as well as 60 newspapers. But he started out as a lawyer, attending law school while his wife, Babs, worked to support them in the mid-1950s. The couple met at Kelvin High School and they both attended the University of Manitoba before they married in 1956. Izzy took up politics, leading the Manitoba Liberal Party from 1970 - 1975, and the couple co-founded the Asper Foundation in 1983. It was the foundation's Human Rights and Holocaust studies program that sparked the idea for the museum. Since 1997, more than 12,600 Grade 9 students from across the country have taken part in the program, which included a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Gail Asper says it was during the trip in 2000 that she and Asper Foundation executive director Moe Levy realized the students were getting a lot of information about American history, but they didn't seem to know much about Canadian history. They suggested that the students should travel to Ottawa, rather than Washington, but they were shocked to discover during an exploratory trip that Canada's human rights history was missing from our national institutions. "We didn't have the Charter of Rights on display anywhere, treaties weren't on display, the story of how women's rights came to be or aboriginal rights were progressed," Asper says. "My only conclusion was that we had to go back to Washington because I felt that was the only option — the only sane conclusion anybody could come to. And that's where the entrepreneurial skills and temperament came to bear. My dad just said, 'No, if this doesn't exist, why don't we create something?' " Fundraising body Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Friends) was established in 2002, and after consultations with aboriginal groups, Japanese-Canadians, gay and lesbian organizations and other stakeholders, the museum project was announced on April 17, 2003, with funding commitments from all three levels of government and land donated by The Forks Renewal Corp. With his entrepreneurial track record, Asper says finishing the job wouldn't have been all that daunting a task for her father. But his death just before a planned announcement in Vancouver of the architectural competition was a stunning blow. "If my brothers Leonard and David, along with me, had not been trained to persevere, to be tenacious, to listen to the mantra that my dad always said that all that it takes to succeed is to be more determined than the people who are trying to stop you — if we hadn't been trained on that kind of education — we would have thrown in the towel probably when my dad died." One of the first public events inside the museum will be a book launch on Monday, Sept. 22 at 7 p.m., for Miracle at The Forks: The Museum that Dared Make a Difference, by Peter C. Newman and Allan Levine, and Asper says the Miracle in the title is no exaggeration. "So many things fell into place just at the right time in so many instances and it kept the project alive. Because we had nothing but obstacles." She says the first of many miraculous moments was reminiscent of the final scene in the classic movie It's a Wonderful Life, when the entire community comes together to help George Bailey. "The country came together and emailed us and called us and wrote letters and sent in donations and everybody urged us to continue ➤ On July 18, 2000, the late Israel (Izzy) Asper set his sights on creating a national human rights museum in Winnipeg. It was an audacious idea from the start, and it became a formidable task after Asper's sudden death from a heart attack on Oct. 7, 2003. After 14 years, the official opening was held yesterday at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on Israel Asper Way. But Asper Foundation president and national campaign chair Gail Asper says it's not the end of the road. "This is just the end of the beginning," she says. "We're just really starting." "The whole point of the museum was to inspire every single visitor to take personal responsibility for the advancement of human rights here in Canada and around the world, and that vision is completely intact." The long journey from vision to reality Rights Thing DOING THE Gail Asper says her father wanted Canadians to be educated about our own human rights history — to understand that the rights we have were hard won, and to realize they're fragile and can be lost if we're not vigilant. And he wanted to remind us that we have an obligation to stand up for human rights at home and around the world. By the Numbers The Canadian Museum for Human Rights contains: asper Foundation president gail asper and executive director Moe levy (centre) tour the MuseuM with architect antoine predock. photo by aaron cohen More than 8,200 donors had contributed $147.5 million as of Sept. 16, 2014. The federal government contributed $100 million. The Province of Manitoba contributed $40 million and the City of Winnipeg contributed $23.6 million. The total cost of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, including the building and exhibits, is $351 million. (Source: Canadian Museum for Human Rights, www.humanrights.ca or www.droitsdelapersonne.ca) photo oF izzy asper courtesy oF the asper Foundation.

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