Is Ottawa hogging our national treasures?

An article in today's Edmonton Journal details development firm Qualico's bid for Edmonton to become the home of Canada's new National Portrait Gallery. This is not really news as speculation about an Edmonton bid has been swirling since the collapse of a proposal to build the gallery in Calgary's new Encana tower. However, given Qualico's  growing determination to see its bid to fruition, perhaps it is time to debate the merits of their proposal. I for one, am torn on this issue.

The former Liberal government had originally planned to build the National Portrait Gallery in Ottawa, which is, after all, the nation's capital. Commentators like Edmonton's own Todd Babiak have pointed out that most self-respecting countries like France or the US tend to build their national galleries, museums, and monuments in their capital cities and that this is where these sorts of national treasures belong.

But I kind of like the idea of having a national gallery in Edmonton. Admittedly, my bias is probably related to my somewhat selfish interest in seeing Edmonton blossom into Canada's new metropolitan city. Nonetheless, I think there is merit to Qualico's proposal.

First, Canada is not like other countries (especially European ones) in that we have a huge and sparsely populated land mass. Canadians are divided by vast swaths of countryside interrupted only briefly by larger urban centers. Thus, it is likely that many people living in Western Canada may never venture out to central Canada to visit our national treasures (especially if our more popular modes of travel--driving and flying--become more prohibitive with climate change). Despite this, we continue to concentrate a vast majority of important Canadian institutions (public and private) in central Canada (namely Ottawa, but to a lesser extent Toronto as well). Perhaps we should spread the love more evenly across the rest of the country?

Second, after having made two recent and short trips to Ottawa I can say that I hardly had time to thoroughly check out the National Art Gallery of Canada, let alone the Museum of Civilization, the War Museum and of course, Parliament Hill.* Perhaps if more of these types of attractions (with the obvious exception of Parliament) were scattered across the country's other urban centres, more Canadians would have a chance to see them and we wouldn't need to spend 2 weeks in Ottawa to enjoy them (not to mention several return trips a year to see temporary exhibits, like the Joe Fafard exhibit currently running at the NAC, which is excellent by the way). In addition, this might be a good way to encourage tourism to other parts of Canada and culturally enrich other cities. Might I dare suggest that it may also help combat regional antagonism and *gasp* promote a stronger sense of Canadian identity in areas outside of central Canada?

Anyways, I haven't made up my mind on this issue and I  am quite curious to know what other people think about the placement of national archives, monuments and museums outside of Ottawa. The National Portrait Gallery in Edmonton, yea or nea?

*if you are one of our 6 regular readers, I'll point out that my trips are extraneous to jk's recent sojourn.

Comments

[MR]

Tough call, I don't really know where I stand on this one either. While it would be nice to see some actual culture in Edmonton, I kind of like the idea of having all of the national tresures in one place. IMHO, it beats trying to travel across the country to see them all.

[Trevor]

That actually sounds like a good function for the new Art Gallery.

[jk]

I can very much identify with the feeling of being "torn" on this one. It seems that the best reason the pundits can come up with to put the thing in Ottawa is that "that's what the cool countries do." That's not too compelling to me. On the other hand, MR raises a good point -- it's nice to centralize for convenience, and also to contribute to a national capital that we as Canadians can all be proud of.

I think you raise a really good point about the need to increase the national visibility out west. We out here don't seem to get a lot of reminders that we're actually part of a country.

Finally, I have to express some skepticism about Qualico being capable of delivering a building worthy of housing such an institution. Unless, that is, we want a National Portrait Gallery with stucco cladding, faux cornices and granite countertops.

[Jewel]

I'm all for spreading the love. Although I don't think that it alone would necessarily draw for someone in say, PEI if they weren't already intending to go there. But as someone who has done a road trip across Canada, it would definitely make me stop at a certain destination if it meant I could check out this museum.

And yeah, Edmonton might be a tourist destination for something other than a Mall, which I'm sure is a plus.

[LV]

I am somewhat suspicious about the pro-Ottawa arguments that have swirled around this National Portrait Gallery debate. I agree with jk that the sheep mentality (everyone else is doing it) is a sorry excuse for an argument. Especially since it is dubious at best. If we look at "national" monuments and heritage sites in other countries, we will find that they are spread out. Take, for example, our neighbours to the south. The Mount Rushmore National Monument, (the home of the "let's carve faces of famous american heroes into the sides of cliffs")is located in South Dakota. NOT Washington, DC. And, the National Portrait Gallery of Norway is being built outside of Oslo in a little town called Trondheim. A quick 1 minute google search found these examples, and I am sure another few minutes would have come up with loads more.

I think, perhaps, we need to get out of this "Ottawa as National Capital" state of reference and begin to look at all of the cultural sites across canada which already indicate that Ottawa does not have a monopoly on Canadian cultural exhibitions. Sure, the Ann of Green Gables heritage site in PEI is not officially called the "National Green Gables Gallery", but it is still considered part of Canada's heritage. Perhaps if we expand our definition of "National Portrait Gallery" we would be more comfortable with locating it outside of ottawa.

(And, as if Edmonton doesn't have enough political and cultural cred as the capital of a province. Eff, if PEI can have 4 senate seats, then Edmonton can have the National Portrait Gallery)

[Ken Chapman]

Classic Calgary hype over substance compared to Edmonton with a community based approach. Calgary announced a National Gallery bid with the new $1B EnCana building as the site but then Encana backed down. Calgary City Hall with great flourish commits $500,000 of tax payer money to launch a bid for the project but can't find a local developer willing to play with them.

Edmonton sees a private developer - Qualico - who independently take a real initiative on this project idea without wanting city or provincial money ($40m is committed to this project by Stelmach) and enters into the bidding game on real terms with real substance.

The cultural tale of the two Alberta cities plays out again...the classic hype coming out of Calgary (all hat no cattle as they say in Cowtown) and the continued quiet substance with real results coming out of Edmonton as an authentic cultural capital.