Proceedings of the Subcommittee on
Veterans Affairs
Issue 6 - Evidence - Afternoon meeting
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 5, 1998
The Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 1:00 p.m. to continue its study of all matters relating to the future of the Canadian War Museum, including, but not restricted to, its structure, budget, name, and independence.
Senator Orville H. Phillips (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Our first witness this afternoon is Bill Vradenburg. He represents a group of tour guides at the War Museum. Please begin.
Mr. Bill Vradenburg, Veteran Volunteer Tour Guide, Canadian War Museum: You have probably heard most of what is contained in my brief. Therefore, I will go through it as quickly as I can and then either answer your questions or tell you that I do not know the answer. That will save time.
I am one of a group of veterans who work at the Canadian War Museum as tour guides. We do not agree with the proposal to include, as part of the planned renovations to the Canadian War Museum, a gallery to commemorate the Holocaust. We do agree that there should be a memorial to commemorate the Holocaust, but it has no place in the Canadian War Museum. We support, most enthusiastically, the plans to enlarge the Canadian War Museum. However, having heard the plans provided by the management of the CMC Corporation, we do not believe that the planned changes will leave enough exhibition space to significantly increase the space available for artefacts, treasures and trophies commemorating the wars of this fading century in which approximately 115,000 Canadians gave up their lives.
As tour guides, we have been shocked and saddened to note, among school-age visitors to the museum -- that is, all school ages, from primary school up to college -- a most deplorable lack of knowledge about our country's outstanding military history. We attempt, therefore, to provide an educational resource for them. We are almost always delighted by the interest they show in Canada's military heritage. This aspect of our approach to the job requires considerable study and research on our part. Ex-soldiers among us must become familiar with both the naval and air force sides of our subjects. The same applies to those of us whose war service background was in one of the other branches of the forces. This is essential to enable us to interpret and explain exhibits.
Today, the existing building at 330 Sussex Drive is able to put on exhibit -- and, this has been frequently stated in these proceedings -- less than 1 per cent of the total of over 500,000 items in the museum's collection. We are told that plans will allow for the entire third floor to exhibit some of the war art collection; the ground floor will house the Holocaust gallery; and the second floor will contain all the exhibits from the South African War, the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War, the Cold War and peace-keeping galleries. Also included are increased office space, a snack bar and large boutique, a 200-seat theatre, additional lecture rooms and a memorial gallery. We believe that these additions cannot possibly leave any display area for the other 99 per cent of the war trophies collection, which will remain hidden from public view. It will remain in storage in the old, crumbling car barns of the Ottawa Street Railway, now known as Vimy House.
The report of the Task Force on Military History Museum Collections in Canada, dated January 20, 1991, recommends, in part, the total separation of the Canadian War Museum, its management and budget, from the Museum of Civilization Corporation. This report makes no reference whatsoever to a Holocaust gallery, and neither did the original appeals for funds for the "Passing the Torch" drive to help this planned expansion, which has received our contributions for the past three years. We have waited nearly seven years to see some evidence of intent to implement the excellent recommendations of this task force report and would urgently recommend early consideration and possible implementation, perhaps in time to coincide with the reopening of the renovated and enlarged Canadian War Museum, presently forecast for the summer of 2000.
For the reasons cited above, we, the veteran volunteer guides, urgently recommend the following: First, that the recommendations of January 1991 task force referred to above be implemented as soon and as completely as possible; second, that the proposed Holocaust Gallery be deleted from the renovation plan for the Canadian War Museum; and, third, that whatever space was proposed for the Holocaust Gallery be used to permit the display of a much increased proportion of the war trophies collection from Vimy House to commemorate all the wars of our past.
That is the end of my formal presentation. Before I take questions, I wish to say this. You see me surrounded by other members of the group for whom I speak. I am proud they accompanied me here today. One of them, Doug Gage, took the trouble, despite a bad leg, to stride around the museum and pace out the floor area for the various exhibits commemorating the wars of our past. The best estimate that we have concerning the space that the proposed Holocaust Gallery will take up is about 5,600 square feet. If you add to that the area where we have displays for Hong Kong, Dieppe and Vimy Ridge, it is considerably less than what they want for the Holocaust Gallery. We would suggest that, in terms of Canada's military history, these are much more important displays. That is just one aspect of it.
I am sure that 5,600 square feet is not enough to adequately commemorate the tremendously tragic misfortune of the Holocaust. Those who sincerely want to see it properly commemorated cannot possibly be content with an area 70 feet by 80 feet. It just does not seem possible. Yet that is what it amounts to if they put it into the Canadian War Museum.
There are other buildings in which a Holocaust Gallery could go, other than a site which only has room for 1 per cent of its own collection. The collection surely is the museum, not the building. As long as the collection, or 99-plus per cent, has to remain in the moulding old car barns, out of public sight, what have we got to show for the 60,000 Canadians killed and the quarter million wounded in World War I; or the 45,000 killed and who knows how many wounded in World War II? For those of us who came home, we feel we are entitled to something.
I have visited war museums in London, Paris, Warsaw and Moscow. I have not had the privilege of visiting the Australian War Memorial, which I believe is one of the finest in the world. What does Canada have? An old archive building which was cast off by the Canadian Archives when our archives were so small they would fit in your grandmother's broom closet.
Honourable senators, we are trying to put an elephant into the hen house and it cannot be done. That is my submission.
Senator Jessiman: How long have you been a guide at the War Museum?
Mr. Vradenburg: The guiding business really kicked off in December or January of 1991.
Senator Jessiman: How many veterans volunteer to participate in guiding?
Mr. Vradenburg: When we started there were a couple of dozen. Now those couple of dozen are not all veterans; some are just keen younger people who are interested.
Senator Jessiman: How do you become knowledgeable about the other services?
Mr. Vradenburg: The museum itself helps a great deal. They have an instructional officer there, but mostly it is self-help. There are navy people; I am ex-navy. There are air force people; I am ex-airforce, too. There are some of the finest army people you could find in the world. We have veterans of Dieppe and D-day among us. We have a couple of MCs, and one croix de guerre. These people know and they teach us.
Senator Jessiman: Would you have been there since the time that the Museum of Civilization took over in 1990 or 1991?
Mr. Vradenburg: It was probably about a year after all that started.
Senator Jessiman: That you started guiding?
Mr. Vradenburg: Yes.
Senator Jessiman: When did you first hear about the fact that there might be a Holocaust Gallery in the War Museum?
Mr. Vradenburg: The present museum has, on the second floor, a staff car that had been used by Hitler, and a glass case with an SS uniform, and close to that some items from a concentration camp. There is a dress donated by a woman which was all she had to wear, nothing over it or under it, no shoes, an awful old grey dress. There is an SS guard's baton or nightstick. There is also the hood which had been put over the head of the commandant from Bergen-Belsen just before he was hanged.
Senator Jessiman: That is what is there now. My question is, when did you hear of this new proposal that they were going to actually use 5,600 square feet for a gallery?
Mr. Vradenburg: About a year and a half ago, to my recollection. We did not hear that it was that size at all. We anticipated, when we heard "Holocaust memorial" that it would be something like this.
Senator Jessiman: When would you have heard that? Who told you?
Mr. Vradenburg: I will first say that we are all Friends of the War Museum, although the president and past-president do not speak for us.
Senator Jessiman: The Friends of the Canadian War Museum is trying to increase the size of the Canadian War Museum, per se. Correct me if I am wrong, but when you got down to collecting dollars, did it not get to the point where they said, "Where can we get the most money from?" The Dutch and the Poles were suggested, they certainly were allies of ours and worked with Canadians, as well as the Jewish community.
We were told yesterday that those who were raising funds through the Friends of the Museum will have some representation and have an exhibit for the Jewish veterans who served. They were directly involved as Canadians. A small piece of the gallery can be devoted to them.
Mr. Vradenburg: I do not think I heard it mentioned that way, sir.
Senator Jessiman: This is what the man representing the Jewish veterans told us yesterday. We thought the people doing the expansions suggested it, but the Jewish veterans said, no, they came to us. They said, if you raise some money, we will put an exhibit in the museum that will remember the Jewish people who actually served, nothing to do with the Holocaust.
Mr. Vradenburg: I expect that may have happened, but it was not us. It might have been our president, possibly.
Senator Jessiman: The Jewish people said they felt they could raise the funds they were talking about. However, unknown to them, the project expanded. I am only guessing, but they may have figured that if they could raise some money for giving credit to those people who served, then how much money could they raise if they were doing it for the Holocaust.
Mr. Vradenburg: We think so, too, but nobody ever told us.
Senator Forest: You mentioned the space that would be taken up for a Holocaust Gallery. We were also told this morning by an architect that even if the whole space of the War Museum was given over it would not be nearly enough. He was recommending that we scrap that idea and go to a much larger building. Has that thought come to you?
Mr. Vradenburg: I have not consulted with my comrades about this, but my personal feeling is that spending $1 million on a glass roof over a courtyard that is already there is not increasing display space by one inch, because they will build a wing along one side of it, that will cut the courtyard down. Then they put fancy gate work across the front, facing the street. That will cut more off of it. So, actually you whittle down the size of the courtyard. As for the glass roof over it, you cannot suspend things from a glass roof. Nor is there a second or third floor. That is not much of an increase.
To our way of thinking, spending millions of dollars on that building is like carefully rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Senator Forest: You would agree that, if it were possible, a larger building with more area around it would be more appropriate.
Mr. Vradenburg: Indeed, yes. In fact, I read in an article by Jane Taber about Senator Phillips, that someone had suggested that perhaps the Connaught Building would be a good choice.
Senator Forest: That was suggested this morning by Mr. Levine.
Mr. Vradenburg: I think that we should keep 330 Sussex Drive for war art and nothing else. There is enough to fill it. Take the Connaught Building. Suitably fitted up, it could take everything from the days of the Vikings in Newfoundland right up to the end of World War I, the whole of the 19th century and everything. Then once that is filled up, we could start filling Building 155, facing that monstrous parade square in Rockcliffe. Think how many cars you could park on that parade square. Building 155 has three floors and a basement. It is a good building. I do not know how much weight the floors will bear. I dare say there are technical reasons against all these ideas. We have the Aviation Museum down the hill, beautifully located, and if you had the modern part of the War Museum in Building 155 at the top of the hill, with the big parking spot, it could also be used for military exercises, Remembrance Day services, the sort of thing we do in the forecourt here. Save the money from 330 Sussex Drive and let it be a war art gallery, and take the Connaught Building for the first half of our military history. It might cost money but it will not cost what the boys at Beaumont Hammel and Vimy had to pay.
Senator Forest: You mentioned, too, the present Holocaust exhibit. You would not have any objections to that going into the Canadian War Museum?
Mr. Vradenburg: No. It seems to belong. However, I must say, on the basis of tours I have conducted, the kids, and others, think the car is cool. It is a pretty impressive car, but they do not have much time for the other exhibits there.
Senator Forest: You spoke about the lack of space.
Mr. Vradenburg: As a Canadian War Museum, 330 Sussex Drive is woefully inadequate My colleagues here would not disagree with that.
Senator Chalifoux: Thank you for your presentation. Were you and your volunteers ever involved in the design of this picture of your group here that is supposed to go in front of Canadian War Museum?
Mr. Vradenburg: I never had a chance to look at it. I have never seen it before.
Senator Chalifoux: Please have a look. I would appreciate your comments. See how happy you all look?
Mr. Vradenburg: I have never seen anyone so downhearted in all my life.
Senator Chalifoux: Do you agree with Hitler's car being in the Canadian War Museum?
Mr. Vradenburg: Yes. I have no objection to that, and I have never heard any of my troops object to it.
Senator Jessiman: Do you know that it was not captured by Canadians?
Mr. Vradenburg: We have heard its story. American troops captured it. We also know that some poor young American GI had been misbehaving, and for duty watch or punishment he was sent out in the rain to guard that car. In the middle of the night, someone slipped him a beer and he decided at some point during the night to take out his trusty revolver to test whether those windows were really bullet-proof. So those holes are not really battle scars. However, the car was actually used by Hitler.
Senator Chalifoux: So you do not really object to its being in the Canadian War Museum?
Mr. Vradenburg: No. The car was German equipment and we were glad to see it.
The Chairman: I have a question about the first page of your brief. You say that galleries regarding the South African War, First and Second World wars, Korean War and the Cold War, plus the peace-keeping galleries would be included.
Mr. Vradenburg: These are galleries that exist today, sir.
The Chairman: But my question is, will the First and Second World wars gain any exhibit space?
Mr. Vradenburg: We cannot see how. Perhaps Mr. Glenney could answer that.
The Chairman: We will be questioning him again tomorrow. To me, these were the two major wars in which the largest number of Canadians served, and I am surprised that we are talking about expanding the museum and not talking about expanding those.
Mr. Vradenburg: I think the majority of the pieces in Vimy House, the 99-plus per cent of our collection, are from the First and Second World wars. Mr. Glenney is nodding to confirm that. Certainly those pieces are out of sight and out of mind. You could build dozens of life-size dioramas with the equipment they have there, and that is what really interests people.
The Chairman: And before you leave, we would point out to you that not one of the service personnel carries a weapon in that painting. They look more like they are surrendering than going into action.
Mr. Vradenburg: It is true, sir. And I have never seen that many service men in any one place, sir, with not a single grin on the bunch of them.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for appearing before us. And again, thank you for the time that you have volunteered to serve as guides at the museum.
Senator Prud'homme: Mr. Chairman, I know that what I am about to say will take a few minutes but I do not think anybody will disagree with me.
In view of the importance of the statement that I am about to make, I will make it both in French and English.
A most important event took place in this country 35 years ago today. It would be wrong not to remind all of us what took place. Yesterday someone spoke about the corporate military memory. I believe that I am part of that corporate political memory. Indeed, 35 years ago today, our devoted chairman, Senator Orville Phillips, was appointed to the Senate by the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker. He has been Government Whip from 1984 to 1991, and he was followed, coincidentally, by someone who has been an attentive member of this committee, Senator William Kelly.
Senator Orville Phillips and I have a certain affinity -- although perhaps not politically -- because, before being called to the Senate, he sat in the House of Commons, having been elected in 1957, 1958 and 1962. He has served Canadians dutifully and, for those who know him, devotedly. I have learned so much from him since my appointment to the Senate as well as when I sat in the House of Commons. He has served this country continuously for 41 years.
As a long-time servant he deserves his pension. I am especially touched by those who serve us so well. I know that Senator Phillips' faithful assistant for so many years, Lloyd Lawless, would have wanted to be here today.
For the record, I would mention a few names. I remember being mentioned by name by someone in the House of Commons in 1953. It was a significant event for me, and it opened a new world.
I would mention by name, Chad Rogers, another of Senator Phillips' faithful assistants. I may say that Senator Phillips never took a chance in that he always surrounded himself with devoted people from Prince Edward Island.
I make this tribute today quite deliberately in the presence of our new generation of pages who serve us in many capacities, and who are here to learn about our political process. As I mention them by name, I would ask them to take a little bow. Their parents should know that their talents are recognized.
I mention Michelle Dust, Alexandre Cloutier, Issie Berich, Gregory Doiron and Michel Thériault. Mr. Thériault's uncle is running for the leadership in New Brunswick and his grandfather was a senator until three years ago. You all remember Senator Thériault. He was afraid of no one. These young people see the Senate at its best, that is, it gives people an opportunity to be heard, as was the case when the question of the educational system in Newfoundland was before us. That was the Senate at its very best.
[Translation]
I am extremely pleased to mention that our Chairman, senator Orville Phillips, is celebrating the 35th anniversary of his nomination to the Senate by the Right Honourable John Diefenbaker. Before entering the Senate, he had been elected to Parliament three times, in 1957, 1958 and 1962. I said earlier that, in life, we must act together. I mention this again for the press.
[English]
I have quite deliberately mentioned this while members of the press are in this room. This is a most important occasion, and I have no hesitation in doing what I am doing today.
[Translation]
It is also a family affair since I talked about members of his staff, Mr. Loyd Lawless and Mr. Chad Rodgers. Since unity is always achieved by building bridges, the young people who watch us work can be confident that the Senate has something to accomplish. I mentioned the names of those young pages and students who work for the senators: Michelle Dust, Alexandre Cloutier, Izzy Berish, Michel Thériault and Gregory Dorion. One day, I am sure they will replace us.
[English]
The Chairman: When I came into work this morning, Chad reminded me that this was an anniversary. I thought that, perhaps, I should be home celebrating, but then I decided that this committee, like so many other committees on which I have served, is too interesting, too enjoyable and, above all, too important to miss.
I appreciate the kind remarks that have been made, and I want to thank all members of the committee for their attendance. I understand Senator Kelly will be with us again tomorrow.
By the way, Senator Prud'homme, that is the last sermon you are allowed to give today.
[Translation]
It took a good French Canadian, proud of Quebec -- you can be sure of that -- and Catholic to mention an anniversary of a good English Presbyterian from Prince Edward Island. Therefore, so that we can show --
[English]
Senator Prud'homme: I give credit to a good Presbyterian, anglophone from P.E.I., who is showing a Canadien francais catholique du Québec a good example. If we would do that more often there would be much less difficulty in this country and in the world.
The Chairman: Colonel Henry, please proceed.
Colonel Shane Henry: It is a pleasure and an honour for me to make this presentation to your committee today.
I do, however, wish to underline the fact that I am appearing today as a private citizen. I do not represent any interests. I make that point because in today's Ottawa Citizen it was noted in the committee agenda that I would be representing a certain organization. That is not the case. I hope that members of the press and media here today will take note of the fact that I am here as A.S. Henry, citizen.
Moreover, knowing the sensitive nature of the topic, I shall be careful to speak only of matters of which I have personal knowledge. I must stress that I shall engage in constructive comment and criticism so as to assist you with your task and thereby arrive at a solution that will provide the greatest value to all Canadians.
I approach my task today with sadness. The failure to provide adequate resources and facilities to display and study Canada's military history is an example of the way in which Laurier's confident prediction about this country's bright future has come unravelled over the past 30 years. Although public apathy has played a role in this unfortunate process, that apathy has also been cultivated and exploited by many well-intentioned but misguided people. I make this suggestion with some authority, as I have studied the process over the past 15 years. I deal with it almost daily in my work as a strategic and defence policy analyst.
I will say, however, that its application to the Canadian War Museum has only become evident to me within the last year and was not triggered by the plan to include a Holocaust display in its premises. The two catalyzing events for me, at least, were the circulation of a questionnaire by War Museum staff -- copies of my reply have been circulated to you -- and the contents and theme of the new peace-keeping gallery which purports to present an accurate account of Canadian military history since 1945.
I am, however, getting ahead of myself. It is first necessary to examine the background against which I am building my case. That background comprises the progress over the past 30 years of the so-called peace movement, although it is more complex than that simple term would indicate. I note that this movement in its larger context can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century in Europe and to a resurgence in Canada in the 1920s reflecting the carnage of the First World War. I have written an article on the way in which Canadian defence policy has been influenced by it, and a copy is attached to my remarks.
More important is the fact that from the mid-1960s onward, the peace movement's aims became much more sophisticated and its modus operandi more clever and effective. This occurred because, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union found it advantageous to support peace movement efforts in the west, not just in Canada. The situation is analyzed well in the book Peace with Freedom by Maurice Tugwell, and I have included a reference to that book in my presentation.
In due course, the peace movement components expanded to include many who were, to put it simply, working towards creating a world Utopia. Leading figures in this campaign included Pierre Trudeau, Gro Harlem Bruntland of Norway, and Olaf Palme of Sweden.
Today we see the results in many fora, from the aims of the feminist movement through gun control to propagation of the idea of so-called common security against non-military threats. An important aspect of the campaign has to do with manipulating history to support campaigns against all forms of violence and aggression. There is obviously an Orwellian tinge to all this, and it is made more serious by the effectiveness of modern communications and the information revolution.
It is no accident that one of the most important techniques passed on by the Soviets was the passage of disinformation through the media. Once misperceptions have been implanted in people's minds, it is almost impossible to dislodge them. As an example of how this applies in Canada today, I refer once again to something I have passed out to you, a recent editorial in The Ottawa Citizen showing how education guidelines in Saskatchewan in fact completely reverse the facts of the Northwest Rebellion.
We now come back to what I fear is happening at the Canadian War Museum. The best way to pursue Utopian aims is to mould the minds of the young, and if references to past wars are removed or cast in a particular light, and strong messages are passed that violence is unacceptable under any circumstances, many people think that progress towards Utopia will occur. The flaw in this reasoning is that no Utopia in the past or future has or will succeed because of that perverse component known as human nature. I once spent a whole year in an undergraduate course studying Utopian schemes and why they failed. Since it is impossible to pull a lever and convert the whole world to Utopia at once, pursuing the non-violence mirage turns the school yards over to the bullies and places nations under the thumb of their more ruthless competitors.
If you think that I am overstating how this is being approached, I refer to the National Film Board project underway to produce a series of videos for distribution to schools in Canada. It teaches that violence is unacceptable and that the only solution to conflict lies in negotiation. This is certainly a preferred outcome, but in all too many cases vital interests cannot be preserved by this means alone. It often becomes necessary to punch the bully in the nose or to go to war against Saddam Hussein.
Now we return to the Canadian War Museum. It is important to present to Canadians the sacrifices past generations have made to maintain our freedom and advance our progress, and to sound a warning to maintain vigilance in the future. In recent years, we have seen numerous attempts to undermine this approach. I need only remind you of the disinformation embodied in The Kid Who Couldn't Miss and The Valour and the Horror.
In this same vein, the questionnaire distributed by the War Museum staff is a familiar tactic of the pacifist movement. By utilizing leading questions such as those regarding museum attendance and emerging public tastes, it will produce skewed results to justify what is already a foregone conclusion.
There is an even more disturbing example to prove my point. Since 1990, we have seen in Canada the rapid growth and entrenchment of the myth of peace-keeping. The aim here is to convince Canadians that Canada has never done anything but peace-keeping and should therefore never participate in wars. This has skewed our defence policy and has had a negative impact on programs to modernize the Canadian Armed Forces. Influential Canadians press home the peace-keeping message through well-publicized projects such as the Canada 21 Council. The current agenda in some quarters emphasizes nuclear disarmament, land-mine bans, and small-arms eradication. While all of these are laudable objectives, they have serious implications if pursued unilaterally.
The Canadian War Museum is a crucial natural resource that could be a strong source to build national identity, pride, unity, plus safeguards for the future. Instead, I fear it is moving towards being a vehicle of propaganda for misguided altruism and pacifism. As I stated at the beginning and in my letter, no better example exists than the peace-keeping gallery. As I state bluntly, that exhibit, while technically well done, propagates and perpetuates a lie. Canada's military history since 1945 was focused squarely on the Cold War. peace-keeping was a peripheral and not always effective activity. However, students have said to me on several occasions that Canada has never participated in a major war. Students now have a basis for proving their case in the Canadian War Museum.
Once again, knowing the almost impossible task of changing something like the peace-keeping gallery once it is in place, I recommend instead a minimum adjustment to the signs and information boards at the entrance to reflect more accurately Canada's post World War 2 military history.
I now conclude by laying before you a number of recommendations to rescue the Canadian War Museum and guide it towards becoming the vital national resource it ought to be.
First, the expansion program must go forward, with or without the Holocaust Gallery. My personal view is that if funding cannot be found elsewhere, then the gallery should stay. But its space ought to be reduced and its content expanded to include other examples of genocide in the twentieth century, including Japanese atrocities and more recent examples in the Balkans and central Africa. As others have stated, there is still a risk that even a smaller genocide display will draw attention away from major military exhibits and reinforce the demilitarization trend. Care must be taken to ensure that this does not occur.
The question of separating the Canadian War Museum from the Museum of Civilization is a tricky one. Anyone who understands bureaucratic politics in this city will understand that there are some advantages to keeping the status quo. It is important, however, to increase War Museum funding and political clout. This could be achieved in part by bringing the Ministers of National Defence and Veterans Affairs into the equation. You may not be aware that museum affairs received a welcome shot in the arm during the short tenure of Defence Minister Doug Young, as a result of his personal interest and commitment.
There is also a need to place high profile persons who are Canadian-War-Museum-friendly on the board of the Museum of Civilization. Along the same lines, the director of the Canadian War Museum ought to be a distinguished Canadian military historian with proven administrative abilities. The names of Desmond Morton and Jack Granatstein come immediately to mind.
Finally, a critical mass of persons with hands-on knowledge of the military needs to be retained on the museum staff. At this time, persons of this sort are now slowly and steadily being eliminated and being replaced with persons not only lacking experience in these matters, but apparently bent on preventing "militaristic" displays and activities which could be seen as "offending the public" by presenting "threatening" images.
The use of code words and slogans of this sort is a trademark of the pacifist campaigns I described earlier. I warn you that you will see more references in the next year or so to so-called attack helicopters when the maritime helicopter procurement project goes forward, because that is how they have been branded by people who do not want to get them. That is a code word and slogan which you will find used very frequently.
I shall conclude as I began, by saying that I am proud to be a Canadian and believe that Laurier's prediction could be brought to fruition in the years ahead. This will only happen, however, if we take firm steps to establish a firm framework of national institutions which reinforce self-worth, knowledge and understanding of our history, in particular our military history. For this reason, let us focus on the forest of the Canadian War Museum and not on the trees of the Holocaust Gallery.
Senator Cools: I wish to thank you for shifting the dialogue into the area of reshaping ideas and values. You used the word "Utopia" and talked about the peace movement. On page 2 of your brief you say:
In due course, the peace movement components expanded to include many who were, to put it simply, working towards creating a world Utopia.
You say later:
...it teaches that violence is unacceptable and that the only solution to conflict lies in negotiation.
You have raised for us the whole phenomenon of demilitarizing military history, or "disarming war", if there is such a phrase. This tendency worries me. It fits into a lot of other issues, such as the "patriarchal society." We could go on endlessly.
As an example, in 1995, we had before us legislation which we called the firearms legislation. The other side called it gun control. That legislation was presented to us with the spin that it would save women's lives. We were told it was a gender issue, that for women firearms was a question of life and death. There was much propaganda and much noise surrounding the issue.
I carefully studied the 1994 data on homicides of women by intimates who used firearms. I discovered that the number of such homicides was 23. Nowhere in all the propaganda could we get an absolute number. It was always 80 per cent of this, or 60 per cent of that, or the majority of, or whatever; never an absolute number. It took me days to find the answer but the number was 23.
That same year, more than 23 babies under the age of 12 months were killed. There was something very wrong, very inappropriate in the information that was being put forward because there was no crisis in the country of women being shot by ex-lovers. Yet the commotion on the subject was enormous. When I gave a government official out west the number of 23, he was flabbergasted. He thought it was an enormous number like 1,400.
When this discussion began a few days ago, I read in a newspaper article quotations from Senator Phillips saying that there was concern that the name of the museum would be changed from "war" to "peace" and that people were suggesting presenting the information without displaying military equipment.
I have many concerns about these issues being presented with disinformation. The human animal is a pretty scary beast. We all become shocked as we grow older and understand more and more the frightful and terrible things human beings do.
Have you any comments to support your assertion of a general trend of revising history, of revising our values in the name of Utopia? Everyone forgets that Utopia, as written about by the authors of those books, was a totalitarian dictatorship.
Mr. Henry: I wish to first point out to honourable senators that I am in favour of a Utopia, were it possible. I am in favour of human progress, I am in favour of taking a reasonable approach to resolving human problems, and I am not in favour of war. However, I am also a realist, in the context of what that term means today. I am very concerned about what I have seen happening in this country over the past 30 years. It has happened to a greater or lesser extent in other western nations as well, but for a number of peculiar reasons, which I discuss in the article I have distributed to you, it seems to have had a greater impact in Canada. For that reason, it will be difficult to turn it around because, once a project like this gets moving, that is to demilitarize the Canadian War Museum, despite all sorts of counteractions it continues to move forward.
You asked for a reference. The best reference I have come across is Maurice Tugwell's book. We must remember that it was published in 1988 and reflected the high point leading toward the end of the Cold War. However, even though the monolithic trend in Canada is over and that segment has fragmented, so to speak, the techniques they learned still exist and are still being used. I cannot think of a better textbook example of what I have been talking about than the success of the anti-gun lobby. I am not happy with what they have done, but I give them full credit for running a remarkable campaign. Remember what I said at the beginning of my remarks. They encourage and preserve public ignorance on the one hand, and then they exploit it. They greatly aided in exploiting it in the revolution in communications and information.
Back in the early days when the Soviets started a campaign of misinformation, they had a technique where they would put stories into Third World news agencies, and they would then appear in the larger world news agencies. As you know, these things get reinforced in the media. When something appears, it gets quoted here and there. Before long, it is common wisdom and you cannot possibly get anyone to believe that what is being said is wrong.
For example, dozens of times over the past few months or years in this country, I have tried to point out that the Somalia operation was not a United Nations peace-keeping operation -- nor was it peace-keeping. Yet, honourable senators, that was so fixated in the public consciousness that the report of the Somalia Inquiry itself refers to it as a United Nations peace-keeping operation. It leads me to believe that they had been unduly influenced by this common wisdom. It is effective.
Senator Cools: It is effective because you say it is an appeal to ignorance. In addition to that, it is also an appeal to people's humanity.
I watch the information that is going out now about peace-keeping and the United Nations. From my point of view, the United Nations is a flawed and terribly imperfect organization.
I once went to South Africa with a UN election observation group. I can tell you that they had enormous difficulty just transporting 90 people from one end of the city to the other. It took an entire day in one instance. I never felt that my life was at such risk as during the period when I was observing that election. I learned a little bit about the UN and how it runs its organizations. Yet, in this country, we are all supporting this United Nations peace-keeping initiative.
Yes, Canada has had some remarkable successes, especially with Mr. Pearson and peace-keeping. However, I cannot help but think that we are going overboard. There is a lot of vanity and a vainglorious attitude.
You opened up the subject matter Doug Fisher was trying to get at this morning in relation to the wider reasons that we are going down these roads.
Mr. Henry: Please let the record show that I am not against the United Nations in principle, but there are qualifications, as you have pointed out.
Senator Cools: No one is against any good or fine ideal.
Senator Jessiman: Senator Cools mentioned Doug fisher. He was a World War II veteran, as was I. He took the same attitude as did I. I served three-and-a-half years as a lieutenant in the navy. When I was through, I was discharged and got on with my life. Although I joined a naval officers' association, I had very little attachment to the service.
People like Doug Fisher and myself are really at fault to some extent. We have not been as active or as supportive as we should have been. Certainly I have not been. It was only with reluctance about five years ago that I agreed to sit on this committee. I was a veteran but I was not sympathetic to veterans as I am now. Your story and Doug Fisher's story should be told again and again.
My grandchildren are always asking about what I did. They are anxious to find out about some of these things. I have been reluctant to tell them, but I think I have been wrong. If no one else will do something about it, personally I will do something with the little time I have left. I think it is important that veterans tell their story and be proud of it. Today, we in Canada enjoy this great freedom because we have participated in wars. Fortunately, we have been on the winning side. Doug Fisher expressed it well, and you expressed it extremely well.
Mr. Henry: I did not go to war, but I was raised during the war. I am pushing 63 years of age. I think we were very remiss in not understanding what was happening out there. We took all this for granted. We thought everyone must know Canadian military history. I learned it in school and in university, not realizing that suddenly it was falling off the edge. Not only was it not being taught, but also there were those who were taking advantage of it.
Senator Jessiman: You are approaching the third group of ages, sir. There is the younger group, the middle-age group -- of which you are a member -- and then there is the group called "My, you are looking well." That is my group.
The Chairman: Colonel Henry, it was very interesting to hear from you and Doug Fisher in the same day. Thank you for appearing.
Senator Chalifoux: Before the witness leaves, I would like to know if we can get a copy of the questionnaire he mentioned in his brief.
The Chairman: We will have to ask the museum for it. If not, we will have to get it through Access to Information. I do not imagine Colonel Henry still has it with him.
Senator Jessiman: You mentioned on page 2 of your brief the circulation of a questionnaire by the staff of the War Museum.
Mr. Henry: That was a very extensive questionnaire.
By the way, I am a member of the Friends of the Canadian War Museum, a member of the Okanagan Military Museum Society, a member of the Lord Strathcona's Horse Regimental Museum Society, and so on. On the one hand, this very extensive questionnaire put out by the Canadian War Museum was laudable in one respect in order to put together a database. However, some of the questions in it were leading questions. Given what I have explained to you in my presentation, certain other questions in there began to cause the alarm bells to ring.
A familiar tactic is that you skew polls by asking motherhood questions, and so on. Then you can go back and say that 70 per cent of Canadians are in favour of motherhood. You can also skew the polls by issuing confusing or otherwise not entirely correct information and then asking questions based on that information.
Two things in that questionnaire bothered me. One had to do with attendance. It is now common wisdom that Canadian War Museum attendance has been plunging every year for the last 10 years. I do not think that is correct. I think that in the past two or three years, attendance went up. However, that must be clarified. This question brought that point out, and I did not think it was correct.
The other thing was that we had to do something because all these other groups, such as women, young people, francophones, and a whole list of people, had a new set of demands that had to be dealt with. I said, "Who says so?" All the people I talked to, some of whom were in those groups, seemed happy and in support of the Canadian War Museum.
Aside from the Canadian difficulty with this sort of thing, there is a movement within the museum community at large to turn museums into theme parks.
The Chairman: Our next witness is a very distinguished gentleman. He is Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto. Some people tell me he is the top academic in Canada. When they granted him that distinction, I am sure they forgot to include Dalhousie University. He is also a recipient of the Governor General's award, a literacy award, and is generally recognized as the top Holocaust expert in Canada. Dr. Marrus, please proceed.
Dr. Michael Marrus, Dean of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto: Honourable senators, thank you for that much too kind introduction. I am pleased to be here with you this afternoon.
[Translation]
I am very grateful to you for having me here this afternoon. I will talk for about fifteen minutes, and you are welcome to ask questions.
[English]
I am happy to speak for a short time and then we can have a discussion about these matters.
I have been associated with the project referred to as the Holocaust Gallery for about six months. I was asked last spring by Dr. George MacDonald to join an advisory group. I now co-chair, with Professor Robert Bothwell, an academic group reporting to that larger advisory committee.
I agreed to join this group because I believe very strongly in the grand conception. I believe that the Holocaust is, as I indicate in a brief outline which I am distributing to you, a kind of benchmark or defining moment for political evil. If you want to know what our civilization is capable of, look at the Holocaust. The confrontation of political evil, given the potential of our civilization, is so important in western societies. We have seen museums devoted to the Holocaust in various European and North American and South American countries. I think that such a gallery would be powerfully in the national interest.
That said, we have arrived at a particular controversy in this country. I wish to turn to that now and to address some particular aspects that are of interest to you. First, one of the aspects of this project that I was most uneasy about at the beginning -- and that I have come to be much more uneasy about -- is the association with the Canadian War Museum. Quite frankly, it seems very strongly to me that the Holocaust is about civilization. It is about modernity. It is about what our society is capable of or other societies are capable of. It does not have to do with Canadian military history.
As the debate has rolled out, we find what are contorted efforts to make the Holocaust part of Canadian military history. Contention has been made that it is important to have a Holocaust Gallery to see what we were fighting against during the Second World War, but the circumstances of the Holocaust were discovered after the war and are only fully being appreciated in our own time. We have seen references to the liberation of camps in which the overwhelming majority of Jews and others murdered during the Holocaust were liberated by the Red Army in Eastern Europe.
Finally, there is a point which is insufficiently appreciated. The original intention was to have a Holocaust Gallery as a museum and as a memorial. How can one have a memorial inside another memorial, with two different focuses of attention? A memorial is a complicated and emotional enough structure without complicating it by putting memorials to two different themes together under one roof. This is the first observation which I would make as I share my views now with many others.
Second, and perhaps more controversially, I am very uneasy about those who are in charge of this project, which I strongly support; and those whose motives are unimpeachable. I am uneasy when I see those who are in charge concluding agreements with particular community groups -- evidence of which we have had earlier this week -- even when the community groups happen to be the Jewish community. I find this troublesome because I think such a museum is not a political matter to be negotiated with particular groups of Canadians. That is, if it is worth doing at all in the national interest or in all of our interests as such, it demands a higher level of professionalism than is normally found in these kinds of political discussions. This should not be a project that pits groups of Canadians against each other, for example, veterans, Jews, Ukrainians, and many other groups. By concluding different agreements with different groups, one is almost guaranteed to have a project that divides rather than a project that brings people together.
Third, it is important to have a Holocaust Gallery with the highest degree of professionalism and historical and museological expertise. Here, too, I think that the Canadian War Museum, esteemed institution that it is, simply lacks the kind of professional expertise and experience, which is difficult to acquire, to mount such a project. In order to advise our larger advisory committee on this very matter, this academic committee to which I referred was organized. Our widespread view is that we have to go to authorities outside the country. However, there are a good number of people in this country. It was in that pursuit that the Canadian Museum of Civilization organized or helped to sponsor -- I was the co-organizer with Professor Bothwell -- a consultation last Sunday that brought a number of experts from the United States together with Canadian experts and museologists to discuss how one creates a proper museological representation of the Holocaust. This is a very difficult task, however.
Let me conclude by making two positive points. First, it will involve a great deal of debate and disagreement. We should not be surprised that they exist around this highly emotional and difficult subject. In this morning's New York Times, there is a story about deep divisions in Germany today over how best to memorialize, commemorate and represent the Holocaust. In every country that I know of where there is a successful exhibit -- and there is no more successful one than the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., -- it did not just happen. It took several years of intense debate. Very importantly, what emerged was not a museum that was negotiated with any particular committee, but a national museum, an independent museum, established under the authority of the United States federal government.
It will take time to have this debate, and I think it is important for groups to be brought into the project as the debate rolls on.
I have already alluded to my final point: It should be a national effort. This is not something for the Jewish community. This is something for all Canadians. As such, it is extremely important that other victims of National Socialism find their place in this museum. There was something particular and unique about the Jewish victimization under National Socialism, but we must never forget that there were other victims as well. Handicapped persons, homosexuals, gypsies, East European nationalities, Soviet prisoners of war, and so many others were terribly victimized.
To get all of this in focus, to do it right, to balance the particular and the universal, are very difficult tasks. I have to say this to my political friends: They are best done outside the political arena, and by professionals working over a very considerable period of time, with widespread consultation. But in the process of depoliticizing this exercise, of constructing a national project, of bringing Canadians together, it seems to me we have gotten off on the wrong foot. We have done this, in part, by focusing on the War Museum as the locale. I think and hope that we will be able to overcome this difficulty because -- and I close with this -- I think the project really is worthwhile.
Senator Jessiman: As co-chair, have you been advising the persons who run the Museum of Civilization of this?
Mr. Marrus: We have met once as an advisory committee in Ottawa. We have had several consultations on the phone, and the e-mail on the subject is very lively. I hope, to respond to your question directly, that we are at the beginning of a much more intense period of consultation.
Senator Jessiman: I hope that you will tell them what you are telling us today.
Mr. Marrus: I would be delighted.
Senator Jessiman: We will be seeing them tomorrow. We know that you are one of the co-chairs advising them. You have heard, as have we, all the representatives of the veterans and the Jewish community, those who are just as interested as yourself and ourselves in a Holocaust exhibit or a museum of genocide victims. Almost without exception everyone has said it should stand alone, and that it should be something worthy of this great country of ours.
It is true that some of those who have come before us from the Jewish community have said that if the War Museum is the only place we can put it, then let us put it there. That is not the answer. It is not the answer for remembering the Holocaust, or remembering those who were eliminated by genocide, and it is not going to be anything of which Canada can be proud. I think we should do our very best for that kind of a museum, and we should start to improve and make worthwhile what we have for the veterans. I hope you agree.
Mr. Marrus: Absolutely, senator. You put it very well.
Senator Forest: You spoke of the unease you have felt throughout this process and the controversy. I think I can speak for all the members of this committee who have felt the same. You have said it probably should not be settled in the domain of the politicians, and I think we all agree that it is unfortunate that it ever got to this point, to us. Certainly, now that it is here, we are hopefully hearing from everyone and will be able to help the process of resolving the issue so that, as Senator Jessiman said, not only the War Museum, but also the Holocaust museum, will be well attended to.
That is all I wanted to say: As you have felt, so we have felt. However, we are in this situation now and we hope that we will be able to help everyone involved to resolve the problem.
Mr. Marrus: I appreciate your saying so.
Senator Cools: You said something very profound. You said the entire project got off on a wrong footing by focusing on the War Museum. To the extent that you are a historian with considerable years of study in the field, I would like you to comment on three things.
First, could you comment on the mythology or misunderstanding that has grown up around the Canadians' role in liberating the camps? You just said that it was mostly the Red Army.
Second, could you comment on the fact that most of the veterans, the troops, the armed forces in the war, had no knowledge of this ugly thing happening until the evil faced them in the latter days of the war?
Third, I am a Liberal and I feel pretty strongly about my party. I also understand politics and the phenomenon of holding people together in the face of adversity. I consider Mr. Abella's attacks on Mackenzie King unnecessary and unwarranted. I have not had a chance to say this yet. I think the term that is used quite often is "the anti-Semitism of Mackenzie King." So I wonder if you could comment on that. If you are uncomfortable with the third point, I understand.
Mr. Marrus: The second point is about knowledge.
Senator Cools: Yes. Veterans will tell you again and again that they did not know about the Holocaust. One of the terrible things about the Holocaust -- and you put it beautifully when you called it the benchmark or defining moment in the drama of good and evil in this century -- is that remarkably few people knew about it.
Mr. Marrus: We do not have all afternoon, and it would take me most of the afternoon to answer your question. As a professor, you know where I am likely to head. I will try to be very brief.
Your first question regarded the liberation of the camps.
The murder of European Jews -- murder on a kind of industrial scale, using industrial processes, killing as many as 10,000 people a day systematically -- was done in camps in Eastern Europe. These camps were destroyed the most part by the Nazis for before the arrival of the Red Army. In some cases, Majdanek and Auschwitz being the most important, the camps were actually captured intact.
Part of the objective of the Nazis during the Holocaust was to remove this kind of killing from the scrutiny of even the German witnesses who would see and would get the idea of what would be happening if these camps were in the Reich itself. Therefore, they moved them off to the east and transported Jews from France and Belgium and the Netherlands, that is in Western Europe, all the way across Europe in order to murder them there. That is where the Holocaust took place.
Nevertheless, at the end of the war, the Nazis moved people back from these camps, packed them into camps in Central Europe together with other political prisoners. What the Western Allies discovered -- British, Americans, French and some Canadians, too -- were these camps in Central Europe: Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and so many others. In those camps there were horrible things to be seen, and it was kind of a revelation at the time, but those were not the camps where the mass murders had taken place on the kind of scale achieved in Eastern Europe.
Of course, there was liberation of the camps by Western Allies, but they were not the camps where this greater part of the massacre took place.
The second part of your question about knowledge and what was known in the West, in Canada, and in European capitals about the murder of European Jews is very complex. On the one hand, you can find articles in the New York Times that talk about hundreds of thousands of people being systematically murdered. From the summer of 1942, you can find those articles. However, what we know is that there is a great gap between knowledge and understanding. One can read things in the morning's newspapers and forget them very quickly or not really internalize them. The murder of people on that scale was simply inconceivable to almost all rational observers.
Some people got it. By the way, among those who seem to have had the most imagination to put the story together was none other than British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a man of great historical breadth and imagination. Churchill got it, as we say, but most people did not. That is why there was such a shock in 1945. That is why Eisenhower was so shocked and invited the world's press to come and film these camps in Central Europe. It is a complex question that cannot be answered easily, and that is the best I can do in very short order.
As to your third question, regarding Mackenzie King, I think the sad truth is that anti-Semitism was a kind of an unspoken assumption in wide sectors of society. I do not believe for a moment that Mackenzie King was a kind of anti-Jewish activist, not at all. He shared with so many in the culture, in the civilization, the anti-Jewish and, I should say, the anti-black and anti-ethnic sentiments that I think were widespread and which were in the air that people breathed.
I am not a great student of Canadian history and I think that, in the end, the historians must debate this issue out, but I think we really forget sometimes how far we have come from the days of a half a century ago. I think we have come for the better. What I fear, sometimes, is how fragile all of this is and how reversion under some terrible circumstances can be quite precipitous. It is the kind of work that a gallery such as this would do that I think would provide barriers against that reversion.
Senator Chalifoux: I have two points I should like to clarify. When we talk about racism in those days, racism in Canada was very prevalent with all groups. I can remember at home we were not allowed to speak French. My father spoke French, my mother spoke German, and we spoke Michif, but we were not allowed to, we had to speak English. That was one issue with the aboriginal groups.
The reserves at that time were like concentration camps. People were put in them, numbered, were not allowed out without permission, and were not allowed to have visitors, but that was at that time. As you so significantly point out, times have changed.
In the military, I can remember that one of our soldiers was not allowed on the parade square because he was black. The rest of the battalion got together and said that they would not go on the parade square. It was quite prevalent. I was brought up in front of the commander and asked why I was chums with the black wife of a soldier. At that time that was the way it was. Things have changed and slowly we have grown, I hope.
You say that politics should not be involved in this matter. I think politics does have a place here, particularly when you have one segment of bureaucratic society making decisions on behalf of the general public without consultation and negotiation. The Senate to me has always been a body of sober second thought. Without this Senate and this committee, our public and our people could not have been heard.
Those are a couple of points I wanted to make.
[Translation]
Senator Prud'homme: Senator Chalifoux expressed my feelings quite accurately. Nobody could talk better about that issue of racism, silent or active.
What she said also applies to my people. I believe in a French Canadian people, and in aboriginal peoples. I am a federalist, but I have not forgotten my identity. I don't mind being friends with everybody, but when you're friends with everybody, you end up being friends with no one. What you're saying is comforting. I'm not even a member of the committee and I've been here all week.
You said you were Jewish. It is extraordinary that I hear about certain things; it is normal in fact. I've always said so. It's possible to say so without being accused of all of Israel's sins, as we used to say in Quebec. So you're helping me because I don't often have allies when I want to talk about certain things. In my case, I could mention the Middle East situation: bringing intelligence to the debate and understanding everybody's rights doesn't take anything away from the others.
You have touched on two points and it is on those two points that I would like to have a brief conversation with you, with permission to continue our dialogue over the phone or otherwise.
Mr. Marrus: Sure.
Senator Prud'homme: You say we shouldn't get the War Museum mixed up with the other issue we are discussing here. You agree with me.
[English]
That is what people seem never to have understood about me. I know Western Canada better than many members of the House of Commons. I have been there over 280 times both as a member of the House of Commons and the Senate, to the most remote places.
I like this country and I like the variety of "Canadas" within Canada. I know the sensitivities that exist, and I recognize that we are sometimes hypocritical. Many years ago, the true division was not between French and English; it was between Protestant and Catholic. We have always chosen to pretend the issue was one of language. However, that is not the debate for today.
Canada is unique. It is like an extension of the United Nations. Immense groups of people from all over the world are creating a new identity. I spoke last night to 400 people of the Muslim community where the majority of Liberal members were present. Paul Martin gave a speech. The audience came from all over the world. Our situation is unique but fragile. Any particular issue could explode overnight between different groups who do not wait for explanations.
The diversity of our country is one of the reasons I am attending these hearing this week. Perhaps we should hear from witnesses as controversial as Ernst Zundel. Others may not want to hear from him, but I would like to take the first crack at him.
Having said that, you, as a prominent person, believe a Holocaust exhibit should be separate exhibit. Perhaps you can convince some people whom we have been unable to convince.
I am very distressed by a press release in which Mr. Abella is reported to have said that it does not matter what we do; this is how things will be done. To me, that means the idea is not dead at all.
The return of the Senate next week marks my 34th anniversary of service. I am familiar with these behind-the-doors deals. People have the right to know, and that is the purpose of these committee meetings. The press may be saying, "Oh, there goes Prud'homme again." The press never called on me when I was elected, and I was elected 10 times in my district.
[Translation]
Mr. Marrus: I admire your sense of humour. I repeat that the confusion between the War Museum and the Holocaust Gallery serves no one. I think the Holocaust is an issue of civilization, not of the Canadian military tradition. I agree with you that the links between us are very fragile.
[English]
I am saddened that this issue should have arisen in this particular way, dividing us rather than bringing us together. However, at the same time, debate over these matters is normal. I consider my friend Irving Abella to be a colleague, one with whom I disagree from time to time. I have confidence that, as the debate rolls out, the better arguments will win. I am very eager to pursue them.
The Chairman: Dr. Marrus, from your remarks, it seems there are two debates going on, one on the expansion of the War Museum and another on the establishment of a Holocaust Gallery or museum. You said the American Holocaust Gallery was established after lengthy debate. I am assuming that you anticipate more extensive debate before there is a Holocaust museum in Canada.
A friend of mine in the Jewish community tells me that such debate is important because it would be unfair to the memory of the 6 million victims if the museum or gallery is not properly planned. Should the expansion of the War Museum be delayed pending full debate on what would constitute a proper Holocaust memorial?
Mr. Marrus: Mr. Chairman, I am not in a position to suggest what is best for the Canadian War Museum. I have listened to my colleagues who are responsible for that institution, and I have listened attentively this afternoon to veterans who donate their time to this very important facility. It is for them to decide what is best for the Canadian War Museum. It is for me to worry about how best to present the Holocaust. In my brief, I have tried to express my best sense of what that gallery should look like.
I do have one general observation which applies not only to this project but to much of life. If a project is worth doing, it is worth doing right. It is worth taking the time, even extra time, to ensure it is done right.
We now have Holocaust museums and galleries all over the world. I have visited them in Warsaw, in Prague, in Berlin, in London, and in Washington. There exist many others that I have not seen. We need to see the best around the world, and we need to think how we can provide a Canadian-added value and do it right here. However long that takes, we should devote the time to it. I would hesitate to interrupt or to load down that process with another task of addressing the problems of the Canadian War Museum.
The Chairman: You would have no objection to the Canadian War Museum proceeding with expansion plans while this debate continues?
Mr. Marrus: Of course not.
The Chairman: I find myself disturbed by Mr. Abella's remarks which were repeated on television last night to the effect that, if no satisfactory alternative site is found, then the museum should honour its original commitment and place the memorial in the new War Museum.
To me, that conveys an attitude of no flexibility: "Unless I get what I want, it is going in the War Museum." Do you agree with that attitude?
Mr. Marrus: I come back to my original conception. To me, it must be done right. An event of this scale cannot be subsumed in a gallery devoted to the Canadian military tradition. We are speaking about something entirely aside from that institution in terms of its impact on civilization and society. It just does not work. I have come to the view, somewhat reluctantly, that this cannot work. I do not see it.
The Chairman: After that answer, I think I will be prepared to forget Irving Abella and remember Dr. Marrus.
Mr. Marrus: Perhaps I should close by saying that my colleague Irving Abella has strongly held views. I think they are sincerely expressed and meant. It is an issue for free debate. In the end, I am always optimistic that I will be able to persuade him otherwise.
The Chairman: Dr. Marrus, I can see why you are the top-ranked academic west of the Quebec border. We were honoured and privileged to hear you this afternoon. I am sure that the Senate, in some form, will be involved in future discussions on the Holocaust memorial, hopefully separated from the War Museum. At that time, I hope we can have the benefit of your views again. Thank you for attending this afternoon.
Before we begin with the next witness, I have received a copy of a brief from a friend of mine, Tony Little, RCAF, Prisoner of War Association. We had hoped to be able to hear him. Unfortunately, we do not have time. However, I should like to table the brief and have it form part of the record of today's proceeding.
Senator Cools: I so move.
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Mr. Halayko, please proceed with your presentation.
Mr. E.W. Halayko, National President, Armed Forces Pensioners and Annuitants Association of Canada: I am the chairman of the Armed Forces Pensioners and Annuitants Association of Canada, an association of over 22,000 registered members who are veterans, retired members of the armed forces, or military widows. I am also a veteran of the last war, having served overseas from 1939 to May 1945 in the United Kingdom, Sicily, Italy, and Northwest Europe. I remained in the Canadian army after the war and retired in 1969. With me is my vice-chairman for military widows, Mrs. Helen Rapp, who is also a veteran of World War II and a volunteer at the Canadian War Museum. Mrs. Rapp is the widow of Frank Rapp, a permanent soldier who served overseas from 1939 until 1945 and later remained in the post-war military. I give that long introduction to show that we are veterans and have a definite interest in the Canadian War Museum.
The first time I heard that the expansion of the Canadian War Museum was to include a Holocaust Gallery was at the 1997 annual general meeting of the National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada. To say that I was shocked would be an understatement. We have always believed that the War Museum was for a war museum and not for anything else. During my entire service in the war, at no time was there any indication of the systemic killing of peoples by either the Germans or the Japanese. It was not until April of 1945 that the German atrocities were being discovered and publicized. I was in Europe when we got these newspapers showing the photographs. What is now being called the Holocaust had nothing to do with the Canadian war effort, nor caused any Canadians to volunteer to serve their country at that time.
The Canadian War Museum is supposed to be a heritage memorial dedicated to the feats performed by Canadians serving in the military since Canada was discovered. It was Canada's heroes, her veterans, who in the past two centuries made Canada. Canada was eventually made out of a war, and Canada was truly born at Vimy Ridge, and again showed what a great country it had become when 1 million Canadians volunteered to fight and die for their country and democracy during World War II. If it were not for those volunteer citizens, this hearing would not be taking place today and the two official languages would be German and Japanese.
We Canadians deserve something better than the current War Museum. It should be a stand-alone corporation, preferably under Veterans Affairs Canada, with its own budget and a huge increase in capacity.
Our War Museum is a much larger part of our history and Canadian culture than the Canadian Museum of Civilization. It is the mismanagement or the management of the umbrella Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation which is degrading the importance of our Canadian War Museum. The suggested War Museum Corporation would naturally assume responsibility for all the regimental museums across Canada.
It is being said that every capital in the western world has a Holocaust museum, including a Holocaust wing in the British War Museum. That is not absolutely correct. Elements of the British army liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp on April 15, 1945. It is that liberation, which was part of the British army's accomplishment, that is being displayed. We Canadians did not liberate any camps, so we really have no direct connection with the Holocaust.
People who are opposed to the use of the Canadian War Museum for other than the home of our military artefacts have been accused in the press of being anti-Semitic. That is a red herring used by some of the proponents for the misuse of the museum to have this gallery put in there. I personally believe that, if part of the Canadian War Museum is devoted to the Holocaust Gallery, it will probably take over the importance of our War Museum. That, I think, will create an anti-Semitic reaction which is completely wrong and unnecessary. It is creating a problem that we do not need in Canada.
If a Holocaust memorial museum is necessary in Canada, then it must be separate from the War Museum and funded by those who want such a separate edifice. If we need a museum to depict man's inhumanity to man, supported by the taxpayer, such a museum must include all slaughters by man from day one, those by Genghis Khan, those committed during the Inquisition, those by the Japanese, all genocides, Stalin's efforts, those by the Khmer Rouge as well as what is happening in Africa right now. However that is another debate. This debate is on the Canadian War Museum.
I have canvassed a good number of people in the last few months on this issue, including veterans, Canadian forces retirees and ordinary civilians, including two survivors from a German slave labour camp, and no one has agreed to or is in favour of having a Holocaust Gallery or memorial as part of our Canadian War Museum.
Before I answer your questions, I will ask Mrs. Rapp to speak on behalf of military widows.
Mrs. Helen Rapp, Vice-Chairman, Armed Forces Pensioners/Annuitants: I appreciate this opportunity to state my views on the intention of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation to place a Holocaust Gallery in the expected expanded space of our Canadian War Museum. I do not agree with this decision, although I am a friend of the Canadian War Museum. I am a Canadian war veteran -- having served four years in the Canadian Women's Army Corps -- the widow of a veteran and the sister of two soldiers who served overseas. I am very proud of the part my family played during and after the war.
I feel strongly that there should be no Holocaust Gallery in the Canadian War Museum, and that it should stand alone. I am also a guide at the museum because I feel so strongly about educating our young people about the horrors of war and reminding older people who seem to have forgotten the price Canadians paid to keep this country free.
I believe that the story of the Holocaust should be told, the story of the thousands of people killed in concentration camps; not only Jews but also mentally and physically disabled people, the old and the feeble, political opponents of Hitler's regime, and those who he felt did not measure up to his idea of a super race. However, that story should not be told in the Canadian War Museum. It belongs in a museum of its own. The Canadian War Museum tells the story of our military history and our heritage from the beginning. We had nothing to do with the Holocaust or liberating concentration camps.
In my three years as a veteran guide at the War Museum, I have never been asked about the Holocaust. Our tours are about what the people of Canada and, in particular, our armed forces, did during the war to help win the war and about the price we paid for doing our duty. If the Holocaust Gallery must find a home within the CMC corporation, its places is in the Museum of Civilization. In that location we could tell the story of Hitler's philosophy and politics, and the results. It would be another historical example of man's inhumanity to man in our so-called "civilized" world.
Senator Forest: Although we may have previously heard your theme expressed, it is always good to hear it from a personal point of view. It is an honour to have with us a woman who is a volunteer and veteran of the Second World War.
You mentioned that none of the people you have guided have asked about the Holocaust. Have you found interest in the display that is there?
Ms Rapp: The younger generation has heard of the Holocaust. We do talk about it, but not in any great detail. It is part of the overall picture of the horrors of war. We stress what the Canadians did, our military history and our heritage.
Senator Forest: Quite rightly so but, should the Holocaust museum be at another location, would you still consider it appropriate to have that small Holocaust exhibit in an expanded War Museum?
Ms Rapp: Oh yes. It is part and parcel of the war, but that was not what we fought for. It is very important that everyone know about the Holocaust, but it was not only the Jewish people who suffered. That has to be demonstrated.
The problem at the War Museum is that our space is very limited. We have only a small section to exhibit the entire war history. Our tours are quite short, but, if interesting questions arise, we may spend longer at one display.
Senator Forest: I have been in the education field for a long time. Do you find that the Canadian children of this generation do not have the same knowledge of Canadian history that we had in our day?
Ms Rapp: I studied British history at school. We learned very little Canadian history.
Senator Forest: Here in Canada?
Ms Rapp: Yes. I am a Canadian. I was born in 1925 and went through both the French Catholic system and the protestant system as my family moved around. We learned mainly British history. I studied French history in university. However, I am interested in history, so I have read a lot of Canadian history.
Senator Forest: Were you present here today when an earlier presenter mentioned that even if the Canadian War Museum had all the space of the expanded museum, it would still not be nearly enough?
Ms Rapp: That is true. We are always acquiring more artefacts. People are giving us mementos because the younger generation does not know what to do with them. We find that there is now more interest as a result of television and books. As well, the schools are now teaching Canadian history and, specifically, what we did during the wars. We are trying to improve the knowledge of our young people. On Remembrance Day, veterans go to the schools. I was invited by my granddaughter. My granddaughter asked her mother to tell her about the Second World War.
My daughter said, "Well, ask Grammy; she knows all about it." Kelly phoned and asked if I would come out to her school. I asked if it was a show and tell, and she said yes. I had one of the French guides, Nelson Langois, come out because it was a French immersion class. I am French Canadian originally but have more or less lost my language. These were grade 10 students, and it was interesting to watch how they finally relaxed. The girls asked more questions than the boys, but then the boys asked a lot, too. They came up to us afterward because we brought our albums. There was a steel hat that Nelson had on board ship. Questions were asked, and they wanted to come to the museum. They wanted to know how they went about doing that.
Senator Forest: When my daughter asked me to go out to the school, it was because they were discussing the abolition of the Senate.
Ms Rapp: I had two brothers who went to war, and I felt that maybe I could do something as well. I lied about my age, and it took me a while to accommodate that one year.
Senator Chalifoux: It is a pleasure to have you both here. I have noticed you listening intently to the proceedings of the last couple of days. Was your organization ever consulted by the museum trustees or anyone regarding this issue?
Ms Rapp: No.
Mr. Halayko: We were never consulted. The first I heard of this issue was at the annual meeting in October of the National Council of Veteran Associations when Mr. Johnston spoke to us. The reaction was negative all the way around, including by a representative from the Jewish war veterans. Even he said no way. He wanted a Holocaust Gallery, but not as part of the War Museum because they are two entirely different things. One is man's inhumanity to man and the murder of millions of people. On the other side, we were there, we were killing -- it was either kill or get killed -- but we were fighting for democracy. One gets emotional over these things sometimes, but it is an entirely different thing.
I am Ukrainian. Ten million of my forefathers were starved to death by Stalin. We do not have memorials to them, but we should remember them. Where should that go? It should go in a museum devoted to what man can do to man.
A military war museum is a military museum. I have been to a lot of museums around the world. Some of them are pretty poor, particularly the ones in Egypt. Some of them are great, like the British war museum and the American museum. I think we should have a good one, not a two-bit museum.
Earlier today over coffee I said that we are looking for a place. Senator Forest just mentioned the abolition of the Senate. Hey, we should move the museum in here. We would have lots of room.
Senator Chalifoux: This morning we heard about the possibility of using the Connaught Building. I must apologize. I am new in the Senate and have not been to the War Museum, but I have heard that it is one of the worst war museums in the country.
Mr. Halayko: I do not know the building. Fortunately, I come from London. Although I lived in Ottawa for five years, I could not get out of here fast enough. Ms Rapp may know more about that building.
Ms Rapp: Is this the old national research building on Sussex Drive?
The Chairman: No, it is generally known as National Revenue. I point it out to my guests and say, "Here is where they collect your taxes." At least that is where the bureaucrats sit.
Mr. Halayko: Given our history, surely we are entitled to a new building. We are talking about the nitty-gritty. We want a war museum. How we go about it should be left to the experts. Surely we are entitled to a proper museum built for the storage of our military artefacts -- guns outside, maybe the piece of a submarine inside, and so on.
We should have a proper war museum with facilities for all the artefacts, starting from the Indian wars when they were killing one another, all the way through history to today. This would be a war museum as compared to something which more or less represents the political slaughter of peoples. This is going on right now in Africa.
Senator Chalifoux: The aboriginal nations never shot and killed each other.
Mr. Halayko: Maybe the history I read was wrong. I am not sure.
Ms Rapp: They did not have a confederation to stop the fighting against each other.
Senator Chalifoux: Not in Canada, but that is another story. I will educate you on that part of Canadian history some other time.
You would like a brand new building.
Mr. Halayko: Yes. The veterans and the people who stayed in Canada and made the bombs, and so on, deserve something. This is Canadian culture and Canadian history. Unfortunately, it is not taught enough in the schools.
When my great grandchildren see me, they say, "What are those things?" "Those are medals." "What is a medal?" "It comes with popcorn," and I let it go at that.
Senator Chalifoux: How would you fund this new building? Where would the money come from?
Mr. Halayko: I suggest that it come right from the taxpayers.
The Chairman: You say the suggested War Museum Corporation would assume responsibility for all the regimental museums scattered across this great country of ours.
Mr. Halayko: Yes.
The Chairman: You just said you came from London. Do you think the RCRs will give up their museum in London.
Mr. Halayko: I did not say they should give it up. We have two museums there. They would be under the umbrella, so they would not have to go, cap in hand, as associate members to the association saying, "Hey, give us a couple of hundred bucks for the museum." This way you would be able to coordinate all the displays.
In the RCR museum, we have some signals artefacts that rightly belong in the signals museum. Much of this could be coordinated and kept at a regimental level with some of the other stuff thrown in to increase interest in the museum. All of these regimental museums are kept by old soldiers, and one of these days there will not be any of us left to keep the museums going. They will then fall by the wayside. That, too, is part of our history.
The Chairman: I agree with you on funding and guidance, but I should like to see the control remain with the regimental associations.
Mr. Halayko: I would not agree that they take over holus-bolus, but that there be a supervisor at the top saying that they are not getting enough funding or they want to buy something. Recently the provost's association wanted to buy a jeep and have it refurbished, which they did, but it came out of the associate members' pockets. Where is it sitting? It is sitting in the wrong place. It is sitting in the General Motors museum in Oshawa, whereas it should be in a proper military museum.
The Chairman: Thank you for your presentations. Our next presentation is from Mr. Gordon MacDonald, National Vice-president of the War Amps.
Mr. Gordon MacDonald, National Vice-President, War Amputations of Canada: Thank you, honourable senators, for allowing me this opportunity to present this submission from the War Amputations of Canada. Today I am representing Mr. Laurie Raspberry, the National President of the War Amputations of Canada, who cannot be with us today due to a prior commitment. I am a member of the National Council of Veteran Associations. I have been a member of the War Amputations of Canada since 1945 and I believe I am able to represent this proud organization.
Senators, I have asked our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Clifford Chadderton, and our association's solicitor, Mr. Brian Forbes, to join me.
The War Amputations of Canada is not in accord with the presentation made by the Canadian Jewish Congress to the Senate subcommittee on February 4, 1998. It is noted that Professor Irving Abella of York University presented a brief in which he stated that the Canadian Jewish Congress would not be opposed to a "free-standing" Holocaust museum in Ottawa. In our opinion, however, his position was equivocal. In his submission he stated that, if such a site cannot satisfactorily be identified and provided, however, the Canadian Jewish Congress would still respectfully urge the Government of Canada to honour its original commitment and place the Holocaust Gallery in the new Canadian War Museum as planned.
This still leaves us with the possibility that the Canadian Jewish Congress is in support of the position of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. We cannot, therefore, consider that the position of this organization would offer an opportunity for effective conciliation, and it would not be satisfactory to the members of our organization.
To get to the point, Professor Abella has assured the Senate committee that the primary objective is still focused on including the Holocaust Gallery in the Canadian War Museum. It appears to us that, despite the conciliatory comment of the Canadian Jewish Congress regarding its possible espousal of a "free-standing" museum, his comments about the primary objective being a Holocaust Gallery in the War Museum indicates there is only a slight possibility of any other option than that put forward in the announcement by the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Our next point is with regard to the appointment of the Honourable Barney Danson. We are pleased to respond to the announcement in the media, apparently originating with Heritage Minister Sheila Copps, to the effect that the Honourable Barney Danson would be appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Civilization. Mr. Danson is well-known to our organization. He is a proud Jewish veteran and a former Minister of National Defence.
The announcement indicated that Mr. Danson would act as a mediator in the current dispute. This would be acceptable. This might be regarded, however, as an attempt to subvert the role of the Senate committee.
Allow me to pause here, Mr. Chairman. Many of these questions have been before you for the past few days, and I should like to pause here to inquire whether you have comments or questions regarding what I have said so far.
Senator Jessiman: The appointment of Mr. Danson really does have to be clarified. I understand that he has been appointed to the board. I now understand that, last October, the board itself appointed some of its own members to be advisors to the whole Board. There was a vacancy on the board and Mr. Danson has now been appointed as one of the 11 members of the board itself. He has also been appointed to the five- or six-member advisory committee and he may be the chairperson of that subcommittee of the board. However, as an arbitrator, he has no more power than any other member. The subcommittee will play only an advisory role. It will be interesting to see what will happen because, although it has been published that he will be an arbitrator, unless he is given some role other than a member of the board itself and a member of the subcommittee of the board, he will have no power. I have read the bylaws, and that subcommittee will act only in an advisory capacity. Hopefully he will be given other powers or further appointments. Perhaps someone can tell me more about that.
Mr. Cliff Chadderton, Chief Executive Officer, War Amputations of Canada: First, we have no alternative but to suggest to this subcommittee that the appointment of Barney Danson might well be viewed -- and certainly in the media it is being viewed in this way -- as an attempt to derail what this subcommittee is doing. I have stated before, and I will state it again: This is a very important subcommittee. Today, all Canadians are watching what this subcommittee is doing.
Senator Jessiman: You are referring to the subcommittee of the Senate, not the subcommittee of the board.
Mr. Chadderton: Yes. I could not help commenting on the fact that right in the middle of these deliberations -- and some of us have spent five and six months getting ready for them -- there was such an announcement from Sheila Copps. In her press release, she said that one of Mr. Danson's key roles will be to chair the advisory committee of the Canadian War Museum and to counsel on all matters related to the Canadian War Museum.
First, why does this announcement come when this committee is holding its hearings and attempting to provide a solution? Second, when I appeared before you as chairman of NCVA, I raised the point that this advisory committee was suspect because there are two former generals on it and a former colonel, none of whom have battle experience. The people in control are Madam Claudette Roy, Mr. George MacDonald, and, of course, Mr. Joe Geurts, who are all on the parent board. That is what we were dealing with when I appeared before you on Tuesday. Now, between Tuesday and today, the Minister of Canadian Heritage has appointed another member to the parent board, and that is Mr. Barney Danson.
This whole debate has been going on since November 1. Barney Danson's first public pronouncement was that he was in full support of placing the Holocaust Gallery in the War Museum. He was brought to Ottawa, and he certainly had discussions with George MacDonald. I am quoting Barney Danson, who is a long-time personal friend of mine. He went back and wrote a letter to The Toronto Star, which was published and is in the material that you have, in which he said that on second thought he had come to the conclusion that the Holocaust Gallery should not be placed in the War Museum.
I would gather that because he is on record as saying he does not want the Holocaust Gallery in the War Museum, we as veterans are supposed to consider that he is one of us rather than one of them, if I can put it in those terms.
I believe that in appointing Barney Danson and in using words like "mediator" and phrases like "counsel on all matters related to the Canadian War Museum," they are placing Barney Danson, former Minister of National Defence, D-day veteran, as I am, who landed with the Queen's Own Rifles, in a very difficult position.
I do not think we can discount the fact that he is Jewish, either. He is very proud of it and often mentions it. That is just throwing one more element into this witch's brew.
Senator Jessiman: He will need to be appointed to something more than what he is appointed to because if he is just the chairman of a subcommittee of the board, or a committee advising the board, he is only one member of that committee. He cannot control it, unless he is appointed with some power.
Mr. Chadderton: He is one of the nine or ten members of the board of trustees. He may well have been appointed because, as the NCVA pointed out on Tuesday, there were no members of the board of the Canadian Museum of Civilization who had any expertise in military matters. But now Barney Danson is a member of that senior board.
Senator Jessiman: He can be out-voted. The present board may decide that they will soften the public statement that we have received. That statement became public because we received it by fax, someone read part of it and it got into the press. We finally read it into the record. It is a statement by the Canadian Museum of Civilization, although three other members are named in it: the Jewish Congress, the Jewish veterans and the B'nai Brith.
In that statement they say that the Museum of Civilization, the top organization, is not changing its mind. They will be before us tomorrow. They may change their mind, and let us hope they already have. The government above them has softened to some extent by putting Mr. Danson on their board in an advisory capacity. But if he is going to be an arbitrator, which one of these submissions said would be satisfactory -- and I think it was yours, sir -- then my guess would be, from all the testimony we have heard and that he will be able to read, he will certainly not put this Holocaust Gallery in the War Museum, if he has the choice.
Mr. Chadderton: If the Canadian Museum of Civilization intended to gain a headline right in the middle of these hearings, they did it. It made me wonder what we are doing here. Mr. Abella started off yesterday by saying he would be happy with a free-standing structure. But then he came back and said that if that cannot be achieved, he wants the government to keep to its original commitment.
Instead of having our national president read the rest of his brief, we raised these items because we felt they were too important to let go. This will be one of the last veterans' organizations to appear before you.
Senator Jessiman: I hope you are here tomorrow.
Mr. Chadderton: I have been here all week and I will be here.
The Chairman: Perhaps I misunderstood you. Did you say that one of Mr. Danson's first statements was that he was in favour of placing the Holocaust Gallery in the museum?
Mr. Chadderton: Yes, he did. That was stated in a letter to The Toronto Star.
The Chairman: Then all I can say is that he makes Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus look very easy.
Mr. Chadderton: In my discussions with Mr. Danson, I came to the conclusion that he did not know about the veterans' groups' opposition to the Holocaust Gallery. Once he knew that, then he said, "I must retract, change my position," and he wrote an extensive letter to The Toronto Star, in which he said, "As a Jewish veteran I am very proud of our military heritage and I think that the Canadian War Museum should tell that story. But if we are going to have a Holocaust Gallery it should be some other place."
Senator Cools: As a supplementary to Senator Jessiman's question, I believe that you are reading from a Minister's press release. Does the press release actually say what the task of Mr. Danson will be? That is unusual.
Would you please read it into the record?
Mr. Chadderton: Yes, please read the first two paragraphs.
Minister of Canadian Heritage, Sheila Copps, announced today -- February 6 -- that Honourable Barnett J. Danson had been appointed to the board of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
The date is February 6.
Senator Jessiman: That is tomorrow.
Mr. Chadderton: Yes. If you want to know how I got it, please ask my communications expert.
Minister Copps said that one of Mr. Danson's key roles will be to chair the advisory committee of the Canadian War Museum and to counsel on all matters related to the Canadian War Museum. The advisory committee was announced by Adrienne Clarkson, chair of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, on November 24, 1997.
The Chairman: I am sorry, Senator Cools, but I will point out that we have ten minutes left in the time allocated to this group. They are not half-way through their brief yet. You can either ask questions or let them complete their brief. I would prefer to have them complete their brief.
Senator Cools: Please complete the brief, but just work it in, because we spent a lot of Monday morning hearing about the arm's-length relationship between the Minister and the museum.
Mr. Chadderton: May I just point out, Mr. Chairman, that our vice-president has said that he will not present the rest of the brief, as you have it in writing.
Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, I should like to request our association's solicitor, Mr. Brian Forbes, to follow through, since he has a point to make.
Mr. Brian Forbes, Executive Director, War Amputations of Canada: Mr. Chairman, we, among other veterans' organizations, and all other interested groups, hope to place this matter before this Senate subcommittee for some sort of resolution, some form of direction, some kind of finding that could be helpful to the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.
All of a sudden, in the midst of this process, we see a mediator appointed. That is the language used, a "mediator." We are not sure amongst whom the mediator must mediate. A number of groups are interested. It would be a monumental task to mediate the issue.
We have asked this Senate subcommittee to make findings, to direct. We find it incredulous that the Canadian Museum of Civilization has now appointed a mediator. We use the word "subvert." Your role has been subverted, in effect. We feel, and you may as well, that this particular interjection in the very first week of your hearings is somewhat offensive.
You will be in a position tomorrow to ask those questions of the representatives who will be attending here, but, speaking as a lawyer, I think the concept of mediation is a different concept from coming before a parliamentary body, such as the Senate, and asking for your assistance to solve a problem.
The Chairman: Before proceeding, may I request that someone make a motion to include the rest of this witness' brief in the record.
Senator Prud'homme: Mr. Chairman, I so move, and would you kindly included the press communiqué dated February 6.
Senator Jessiman: It is difficult to read. I believe it should read February 4. This particular release does not refer to a "mediator" but to governor of the board and chair. There is another press release that refers to "mediator." We should also obtain that release and have it included in the record. I do not know how the government can appoint a chairperson for an independent body.
I have just been handed the Ottawa Sun clipping, dated February 4, which states in part:
...the government has appointed former defence minister Barney Danson, who is also Jewish, to the civilization museum's board to mediate the dispute.
Both these documents should form part of the record of today's proceedings.
Senator Prud'homme: As a Canadian I am getting quite tired of these announcements that include racial descriptions. What is the necessity to add such a description? Mr. Danson is a long-time friend. He has always prided himself in being a good Canadian who happens to be of Jewish faith. Why do we hear these announcements right in the middle of a very important hearing when the Senate is hearing witnesses? That does not mean we agree or disagree. At least we are giving you time. That is what the Senate does best. I will repeat it even if people disagree with me, the press or otherwise.
It is as if someone is shooting at us via the back door. First we hear about a communiqué of four paragraphs. We did not know what it was about or from whom it came. It did not unbalance us at all. Now there is another press communiqué right in the middle of the week. What is the game now? I will say more tomorrow. It is like a child being caught with his hand in the cookie jar and trying to get out of it.
Mr. Chadderton: Mr. Chairman, we look upon this as an insult to this subcommittee. We also cite it as an example of the difficulties we have been facing. The last time we spoke officially to anyone representing the Canadian War Museum or the Canadian Museum of Civilization was on December 18 and prior to that, November 4.
Given that Barney Danson has been appointed the chairman of this advisory committee, I trust that you will be able to clarify tomorrow whether we will have direct access to him as chairman of the advisory committee. If he must report back to the board of the Museum of Civilization, then his appointment will cause even more confusion than we have now.
Senator Prud'homme: Sir, you are a man of great ability. You have answered your own question. Do you expect tomorrow that if we ask that question they will say no? To better defuse what we are trying to do, they will say, "Of course."
Mr. Chadderton: Sir, I also know Barney Danson. Right now I do not know if he has any terms of reference. If Adrienne Clarkson tells you tomorrow that veterans organizations and other interested parties will have direct access to Mr. Danson, then that is a commitment that will help us and help Mr. Danson immensely.
Senator Prud'homme: I regret that people have put a very esteemed friend and colleague, Barney Danson, in such a hot spot. He is damned if he does and damned if he does not. It is so expedient.
Senator Cools: When the department officials were here, Senator Prud'homme and I questioned them about the meaning of the "arm's length" relationship. As I suggested then, perhaps we could hear a witness on the Financial Administration Act and the so-called arm's length relationship.
Mr. Chadderton says that someone has been appointed to mediate a dispute. An appointee to the board of the museum or to the advisory council has been given a particular task, a particular order, a command or whatever. There is nothing arm's length about that.
Perhaps we should look at that act more carefully. I will have to reflect on that a little. As a matter of fact, I have just sent for the Financial Administration Act.
Senator Forest: We must be careful to differentiate between what the news release said and what a press clipping says.
Mr. Forbes: Mr. Chairman, you heard the NCVA presentation on Tuesday. Mr. Chadderton made the comment and the recommendation that the decision-making process with regard to the Canadian War Museum requires a great deal of re-evaluation. We now have ostensibly one veteran of some repute -- Mr. Danson is an outstanding Canadian -- among many others sitting on an advisory group of a board of trustees. I am not sure that he carries as much weight under the constitution of the Canadian Museum Corporation as is necessary. We have asked the Senate to consider whether the entire structure of decision-making as it applies to the Canadian War Museum should not be reassessed. We have talked about Veterans Affairs having a role. We have talked about the board being comprised of qualified people who have expertise and knowledge with regard to Canada's military history. Those are fundamental questions with which we must deal. To inject an individual who may be very well intended and maybe as outstanding a Canadian as we could find is a very difficult assignment, and I am not sure it really addresses the fundamental issue.
We are dealing with more than just this issue. What about next year when there is another issue brought forward, or five years from now? How does the structure respond to those issues? I would suggest that in our recommendations as suggested on Tuesday we have attempted to deal with that, not only with respect to the present controversy but also with regard to all issues affecting the War Museum.
Senator Forest: Mr. Forbes, you referred to an autonomous board for the War Museum rather than it being an affiliate.
Mr. Forbes: I think it is fundamentally important.
The Chairman: Thank you for your presentation.
Our next witnesses Colonel Brian MacDonald, retired military officer. Welcome, Colonel MacDonald.
We would ask you to highlight your brief and then give us some time for questioning.
Colonel (Ret'd) Brian MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, I shall attempt to highlight my brief and then to dwell on one or two of the points which I think are most critical.
I share, as all sensitive Canadians do, a very deep concern about this extraordinarily divisive and, in my view, completely unnecessary controversy. I believe it fans the flames of anti-Semitism and demonizes the veterans of this country. Both of those are outcomes that I view with terrible repugnance.
Beyond that, I think there is a more philosophical impact -- which I should like to address more fully. It seems to me that this controversy is threatening the ideal of military service in Canada.
I have had the very great pleasure, on four separate occasions, of laying the wreath in Guelph at the memorial which sits outside the John McCrae house in that city and then participating in the remainder of the civic ceremonies, including the address to the John McCrae Legion prior to Remembrance Day and to the Guelph civic ceremonies on Remembrance Day itself. You may understand that I have found this an exceedingly moving experience, and I have taken very great care in the framing of those addresses to try to find a meaning which is deeper than simply the meaning of sacrifice but rather the meaning and purpose that lay behind that sacrifice. I think that this is, perhaps, the dimension that we need to dwell upon more fully.
One of those occasions immediately followed the period of the Persian Gulf War and our Canadian participation in that. On that particular address, I found myself moving into a consideration of the two great medieval philosophers of the church who have dealt with this concept and thought in my view best upon the concept of the just war, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas.
In those addresses, I tried to put our participation in the Persian Gulf War within the framework of the just war articulated by St. Thomas Aquinas who, as you know, sets three conditions for the just war: the condition of just authority, the condition of just cause, and the condition of just intention.
I argued that in the case of the Canadian participation in the Gulf war, in terms of just authority, we had not only our own national authority but also the authority of the United Nations resolutions, the nearest thing that we have at this point to a world government, however limited it may be. Second, in that particular case, the condition of the just cause was so clearly evident that there would be very few people who could attempt to argue against it other than the public affairs specialists of Saddam Hussein. It was a monstrous crime of invasion of a weaker neighbour and a series of atrocities carried out not only upon military personnel but also upon the civilian populace of all ages and of both genders. Third, I argued that it was clear that when we examined the actions of the coalition during that particular war, we saw that the condition of just intention had been fulfilled. There was no attempt to extend an imperial sway. There was no attempt to go beyond the bounds of the United Nations resolution. Once the objective had been achieved and the forces of Iraq had been hurled out of the tiny country of Kuwait, the coalition forces stopped.
I argued, then, that in that context the actions of the Canadians who were participating in that war were such that it could be viewed as meeting all of the conditions that Aquinas sets out in the just war. By extension, I will argue that all of our Canadian wars, in fact, have been just wars. We have never gone to war for imperial profit. We have always gone to war on the basis of attempting to right a wrong, to stand on the side of good in the attempt to bring affairs back to the status quo ante.
On that basis, I come to the comments that Shane Henry has made with respect to the Canadian peace movement. In the long years that I was the director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, I perhaps have had much more direct contact with the peace movement than Shane has, and I recognize that the members of the peace movement hold different views than mine. Nonetheless, it is possible for us to exchange ideas and to learn from each other. This is certainly my experience in being invited to a very large number of events that they had organized. Indeed, I presented a paper at a science for peace conference in June of last year, a paper which came from my book published last year entitled Military Spending in Developing Countries, How Much is Too Much, which had flowed out of work that I had done for the Canadian International Development Agency. In those exchanges of ideas, we have taken different points, but nonetheless we have listened to each other. We have listened to each other's arguments, and we have attempted to respond to those arguments and to go away to perhaps rethink one or two of our positions.
I believe that the goals of the peace movement are worthy. I believe that they make an important contribution. I believe that we would be the poorer without their participation. However, by the same token, I would argue that the concept of there being a just peace in this world is a concept that has yet to come to fruition. The horrifying acts of genocide that we have seen in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia and in Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo remind us that we are very far indeed from that state of human perfectability that is the necessary precursor of a true state of universal and just peace.
Let me cite St. Augustine, whom I have ignored to this point. As St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us in the Summa theologica: Hence Agustine declares that the passion of inflicting harm, the cruel thirst for vengeance, a plundering and implacable spirit, the fever of turmoil, the lust for power and such like, all these are justly condemned in war.
I think, honourable senators, that it may very well be in the future that Canadians will be called once again to take up the arms of a just war and to make the same sacrifices, although perhaps not in as great numbers, as Canadians have made before.
Therefore, we come back to St. Thomas Aquinas' famous comment that peace is not a virtue but the result of virtue. It is this search for the virtue that is the necessary precursor to peace that is the fundamental purpose for which Canadian military people made the sacrifices that they made in wars of the past.
I believe that we should, in the Canadian War Museum, be focusing not simply upon Canadian military heritage, the interesting artefacts that are there, the acts of bravery, the acts of courage and the acts of sacrifice, but that we should also be focusing in the War Museum upon that fundamental truth that lies behind the ideal of military service, that fundamental truth of the just war.
It is in this particular frame and context, therefore, that I believe that it would be a mistake, both philosophically and strategically, to leave the management and administration of the Canadian War Museum in any hands other than those of persons who themselves deeply believe in the concept of the just war.
I applaud the announcement of the appointment of the Honourable Barney Danson to the board of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation with particular responsibility for the Canadian War Museum. I know Mr. Danson personally, and his career exemplifies all the qualities that I believe to be necessary and suitable for the oversight of the ideals represented in the Canadian War Museum.
However, I agree with the remarks made in the previous discussion that he is still one voice and one vote on that board amongst many others. He is in the minority. The preponderance of that board will still be composed of those individuals who either actively participated in or acquiesced to the decisions that have been responsible for this grievous national controversy. While I have every confidence in the prudence and judgment of Mr. Danson, I regret that I must say in conscience that I cannot say that of the other members of the board of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Accordingly, therefore, I believe that the management and administration of the Canadian War Museum should be transferred from the Department of Canadian Heritage to the Department of Veterans Affairs, a department whose fundamental philosophic world view, I submit, is far more consistent with the principles of the just war. I further believe that Mr. Danson would be an admirable choice to be the first chairman of the board of governors of the Canadian War Museum reporting to Parliament through the Minister of Veterans Affairs.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. MacDonald. I would point out that St. Francis of Assisi also said that there was such a thing as a just war. The museum may have forgotten that point. You have done a service in reminding not only this committee but the museum that there is such a thing as a just war and that peace comes from just wars. Thank you very much for that.
Senator Jessiman: Are you familiar with the report of the task force that met for seven months in 1991?
Mr. MacDonald: No, I have not seen that report.
Senator Jessiman: One of its recommendations in 1991, which I have read into the record a number of times, was that the Minister of Communications -- but that could be substituted by the Minister of Veterans Affairs or the Minister of National Defence -- introduce legislation to establish the Canadian War Museum as a separate museum with its own portfolio.
Mr. MacDonald: I would agree entirely with that position. I say nothing against the characters of the individuals who are members of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. However, I am not convinced that their fundamental philosophic world view is one that agrees with the concept of the just war. I believe that the peace movement, for example, is a valuable and necessary part of the Canadian debate, but I believe that war is too serious a matter to be left in the hands of the peace movement.
Senator Prud'homme: It is good to see you again, Mr. MacDonald.
Do you believe that the War Museum should stand on its own two feet?
Mr. MacDonald: Yes.
Senator Prud'homme: The consensus seems to be that there should be a memorial to the Holocaust but that it should not be at the War Museum.
Mr. MacDonald: That is what I believe.
Senator Prud'homme: It could be in the Canadian Museum of Civilization or it could stand be completely independent.
Mr. MacDonald: Yes.
Senator Prud'homme: If it is to stand on its own and be federally funded, do you expect that other groups of our exploding multicultural society will want to be included in it?
Mr. MacDonald: On Sunday last, I presented a paper at a conference in Toronto organized by the Asian community there. The conference was devoted to the remembrance of the Japanese Holocaust. My paper was entitled "The Japanese Holocaust and Canadian Heritage". In that paper, I argued that we have seen, since the 1960s, a profound change in our immigration policies which is gradually having a profound impact upon our demographic structure. I pointed out that, for example, there are now more Chinese Canadians than Ukrainian Canadians, according to Statistics Canada. There are more Filipino Canadians than Greek Canadians. I argued in my paper that we must understand and accept that, as each of these new Canadians enters the country from different areas, they bring a different strand to our national heritage mosaic.
At that conference, there were two Filipino Canadians who participated in the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Hong Kong veterans have been accepted as part of our Canadian heritage. I put it to you that, through their participation in the Bataan Death March and the participation of many Chinese Canadians in such horrifying experiences such as the rape of Nanking, these too are now part of the Canadian heritage.
If in the construction of a national publicly funded memorial we were to exclude them, then I think we would be storing up very great tribulations for the future. We are, in effect, saying that there are first-class citizens and there are second-class citizens.
When I was in Shanghai, I negotiated the joint research agreement between the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies and the Beijing institute. As part of the first delegation which I led there, I delivered a paper in Shanghai at the Institute for International Affairs. Whilst I was in Shanghai, I was taken to the spot on the Bund where that famous symbol of institutional racism stood, the sign that said, "No dogs or Chinese allowed."
Senator Prud'homme: I saw it.
Mr. MacDonald: At the conference on Sunday, I said there is no place in Canada for a sign of that nature, which I firmly believe. I do not wish to see on any of our national institutions an exclusion of Canadians of whatever hyphenated version they are, because they are now fundamentally "dehyphenating" as their children grow up and their grandchildren grow up, and their great grandchildren marry my great grandchildren. We are all Canadian. I think we must be very careful to not commit the offence of exclusion.
Senator Prud'homme: Would it be possible to get a copy of your speech on Sunday.
Mr. MacDonald: I would be happy to give that to the clerk.
Senator Anne C. Cools (Acting Chairman) in the Chair.
The Acting Chairman: I was very touched by your citations from St. Augustine and from the Summa theologica. We are now slipping into an era where it is not proper to cite these individuals any more.
Senator Forest: That is not correct.
The Acting Chairman: Well, I do a lot of public speaking, and there are many places where you cannot cite them.
You quoted Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine -- the just war, the just cause, the just intentions. You also made reference to St. Augustine's concept, the lust for power, the libido dominandi. You also made reference to another libido, the libido to hurt other people. Could you build on that a little bit more? We have heard a lot about racism and anti-Semitism, and we have heard about genocide. There are many racists and prejudiced people in the world, but not all of them go around killing other people. At some point in time, one must differentiate between prejudice and murderous activities and then genocidal murderous activities.
To the extent that you have raised these important concepts, could you explain a little bit more about the lust of human beings to hurt others.
Mr. MacDonald: Let me return to the citation of such thinkers as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. I have an undergraduate minor in philosophy, and to my knowledge it is still permitted in philosophy to study those thinkers. We cite them not as Christian theologians but as philosophers.
With respect to the much more substantial question, I have given this whole area much thought and indeed expressed some of those ideas in the paper I delivered in Toronto on Sunday. In the development of an institution to memorialize all of the holocausts, perhaps we should be looking now at an institution which does not simply stop at being a museum, but rather has built into it a very powerful research institution so that the museum is there as the artefact which poses the problem. The real focus of the institute for the study of genocide should be to focus specifically on the questions that you have raised.
The greatest single cause of war we see at the moment is not the traditional 18th century search for resources, territory or new subjects. Those are easy enough to buy. Rather, it is the institutional hatreds of groups of people for other groups of people. If we were then able to somehow diffuse those, we may at the same time understand that perhaps pre-emptive military action prior to the event might be the most appropriate exemplification of the principle of the just war in the present.
For example, I have argued on national television that when the first Serb battery opened fire on the city of Vokovar, had a half wing of Tornadoes put 25 tonnes of ordnance on that Serb battery position, many thousands of people would be alive today. We would never have seen the spectre of horrified Canadian troops in Serbia seeing children literally nailed to the side of a building.
Had General Dallaire been given the forces he needed and the authority to act pre-emptively when he warned the United Nations headquarters of the situation and what needed to be done, then we could have prevented the genocide that took place in Rwanda.
Sometimes the just war argues for preventive military action and the use of preventive deadly force. These are the sorts of philosophical and operational issues that might be dealt with in such an institute.
The Acting Chairman: Those are the issues we will have to face in the near future. As the world unfolds, the issue will be whether human beings can live together. Dr. Marrus said earlier that the union of peoples is fragile. We will have to discuss this issue much more. Everyone forgets that the atrocities in Rwanda were conducted during the presence of great peace-keeping forces.
Thank you for your presentation.
Our next witnesses are representatives of the Canadian Association of Gulf War Veterans.
Mr. Luc K. Levesque, Canadian Association of Gulf War Veterans: Honourable senators, as President of the Canadian Association of Gulf War Veterans, I am continuously following media reports in which veterans are concerned. The recent debate over whether the Canadian War Museum should allocate space to commemorate the Jewish Holocaust has certainly raised the interest of far more than veterans organizations across Canada. I have decided to become involved primarily in support of Mr. Clifford Chadderton, whom we all know has been a vocal and strong supporter of veterans in this great country of ours. Mr. Chadderton has devoted his life to key issues that affect the outcome of veterans in Canada. Without his insight and intuition, many veterans organizations throughout Canada would not exist today.
By stating our opinion and concerns over this controversy we are being prejudicially labelled as anti-Semitic or told we have callous disrespect for the historic relevance of the Jewish Holocaust. This is an absolute outrage to the thousands of men and women who have ever worn a military uniform. I have yet to hear one veteran group in Canada who is not in support of a Holocaust Gallery. We simply believe that such a gallery would be better suited in the more appropriate setting that traces the civilizations of mankind, such as the Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Canada had no military or direct connection with the Holocaust. Atrocious as this historical event was, it does not reflect our Canadian military heritage. Our Canadian military heritage lies in the battles and theatres of operations in which we as Canadians have participated in the past and as we will in the future. The Canadian War Museum should concentrate its efforts on the basis of Canadian military involvement. If the Canadian War Museum is to allocate space for the Jewish Holocaust, then they should also allocate space for the past and present holocausts: Yugoslavia, Algeria, Ethiopia, to name a few. What happens when these holocaust survivors want space allocated in our Canadian War Museum?
The logical and politically correct location for this gallery would be the Canadian Museum of Civilization. I stand to be corrected but in the U.S. where there are Jewish Holocaust galleries, is it not a fact that a person must be over the age of 14 before they are permitted to view the displays in this gallery? What impact will this have on the younger generation of Canadians that will be educated in our schools on Canadian military involvement but will not be able to see the relics of these Canadian battles firsthand until they reach the age of 14?
I remember as a child our schools would take us on tours of the Canadian War Museum to help bring the message of the sacrifices paid. There were never any restricted areas in which we were not permitted to enter out of fear that certain images would offend us. Will we impose these restrictions on our children? The answer should be an overwhelming no. The War Museum depicts the battles that Canadians have participated in, whether it be in both world wars, Korea, the Persian Gulf or peace-keeping operations. These are the battles and theatres of operation for which Canadian men and women should be honoured. The events that took place during the Jewish Holocaust are not appropriate, nor is it a proper representation of this chapter of our proud and distinguished military history.
In summary, the Canadian Association of Gulf War Veterans supports the efforts of the National Council of Veteran Associations, Mr. Clifford Chadderton, and other veterans' organizations across Canada. We believe the Canadian War Museum should not allocate any space to the Jewish Holocaust, as this would not be an appropriate location for such a memorial to such a terrible injustice to humankind. This reflection of our opinions does not make us prejudiced.
Ms Louise Richard, Canadian Association of Gulf War Veterans: I am a registered nurse and a Gulf War veteran. I just wanted to make a few comments about the Canadian War Museum. I went through it this Tuesday out of curiosity and to get a feel for the whole situation. I was quite disappointed with the museum as a whole, to tell you the truth. I know we are here about the Holocaust victims and survivors, but the War Museum as it is now does not depict what happened to our own veterans.
I will just read you textually something I took off of a plaque that talks about the Gulf War in the museum, just for your own interest, and then I will give you my comments:
The Gulf War
On January 17, 1991, after weeks of air operations and a sea blockade, the U.S.-led coalition launched an assault and crushed the enemy's force in southern Iraq and in Kuwait. Although Canadian participation in the actual fighting was negligible, vital logistical and medical care were provided by various elements of the Canadian Forces.
Such as Luc and I.
Decades of neglect and underfunding prevented our forces from participating in a high-tech war. Canadian service personnel, having suffered no battlefield casualties, were back home by April, 1991.
They say that basically, the logistics and the medical branch took part in the Gulf War. On Tuesday, when I went through the Gulf War exhibit, I saw nothing that reflects the medical branch. That, in bold, is on the wall. So although we are talking here of millions of dollars, I think some money should be allocated to refurbishing what we already have there, pulling out the artefacts that are lying in warehouses to tell about what has been going on in this country for our own people, our own heroes and veterans, about which we know basically nothing. We do need to highlight those individuals who sacrificed their lives or, in the case of Gulf War veterans, are dying a slow death from so many undiagnosed illnesses. Although we may not have suffered actual battlefield scars on the theatre of war, those scars are appearing now. They may be invisible to the human eye, but it does not negate the fact that some are very, very ill, and many have died.
That is my statement. We need to upgrade what we already have in our own museum.
Senator Orville H. Phillips (Chairman) in the Chair.
The Chairman: This committee has discussed the problems of the Gulf War veterans with the department on a number of occasions. A few of them have had their Gulf War syndrome recognized in special circumstances but unfortunately not as many as we would like. I think we are gradually making progress on it. Thank you for pointing out to us that all you got was a small, very unfavourable plaque. You feel the same way as I do about the plaque on the role of Bomber Command in World War II.
Senator Jessiman: You may have said it, but did you tell us how many people did participate in the Gulf War? I know that a couple of our destroyers were close by, and there were some in the army and the air force who served.
Ms Richard: In total, 26 aircraft from the Desert Cats participated actively in the ground war, along with three ships and battalions from the RCR, the Van Doos, the Royal 22nd Regiment, and the Canadian Field Hospital.
Senator Jessiman: Is any of that mentioned in the museum?
Ms Richard: The Cats, the ships and the field hospital, yes.
Senator Jessiman: Do they give the numbers?
Ms Richard: All they state is what I just said now.
Mr. Levesque: You were saying that Gulf War syndrome was being recognized. I am not aware of any Canadian veteran who is being given a DVA pension under the term "Gulf War syndrome" or "illness". They will not recognize it. That is according to the head official at the Gulf War clinic at NDMC in Ottawa.
Just a note on Gulf War veterans, Canada is the only country of the allied force that participated in Desert Storm that did not give participants veteran status. We are just considered participants in a special duty area, whereas every other country is giving them veteran status. It does not make any sense, because it was a war.
The Chairman: I am quoting the report from the Deputy Minister.
Senator Jessiman: You say there are some?
The Chairman: Yes.
Ms Richard: As it stands now, sir, the Pension Act has never been amended to include the Gulf War as a war. It is still associated by special duty area, which means that veterans do not have benefits or any kind of allowance.
Senator Forest: One other presenter mentioned those same types of difficulties. I did not realize it applied to the Gulf war. He talked about the different status.
Ms Richard: The problem is that in the Gulf War, many of the people who served were very young. About 4,500 participated in the Gulf War. As it stands now, we know that over 2,000 of the 4,000 members who served are out of service. Many got out when the force reduction plan came in, when the feeling was take your money and run. Many young soldiers are not medically trained. Very few of us are medical people. They are gunners, people on ships. They are not highly educated soldiers. All they know is that they are not the same people now that they are back from the war. Everyone has labelled them malingerers or says it is all in their head when physical things are actually going wrong. Instead of trying to continue a career and making something of it, they chose to get out because they realized their health was going downhill. They chose to take that little package of money in the hope of getting a civilian career, but now they are seeing that they cannot work on the civilian street either. Now many of these soldiers who served proudly and loyally the Armed Forces and this country are on welfare.
Many have died, many have committed suicide. I get at least five phone calls a week from people who want to end their life because this government is not even acknowledging what happened in the Gulf War seven years ago; and now that the conflict in Iraq is stirring up again it is devastating for soldiers.
[Translation]
Senator Prud'homme: In fact, I know you both understand French. I found your testimony very moving. I want you to know that it is very moving to hear you tell those truths that many people don't want to hear.
When that decision was taken in Parliament, I voted against the motion, but I lost. It wasn't easy, but not for the reasons that have been mentioned. If I remember correctly, we used to talk about the Gulf War, not the Gulf expedition. When it suits us, we say "Gulf War" and then we change our mind and say it's a small supplementary service. We have a responsibility.
It reminds me of a story. Let me say this very seriously. There was this very old lady who helped me out in politics 40 years ago. I always called her "mother". She was marvellously witty. One night, I had to introduce her to a crowd on her 80th anniversary. I was very pleased. Then she took the mike and said: "Yes, his mother, when it suits him." She was saying that in a most friendly manner.
Canada is always bragging at the United Nations. I'm proud of my country, of the peace-keepers and the Nobel prize, but when it's time to take care of the guys wearing the blue helmets, we don't seem to think it's important. I regret it and I want you to know it, and I'm not the only one here.
I'm not in charge of the Senate's publicity. I've been a member of Parliament for 30 years. You can come to our hearings. If we hadn't been here, nobody would have heard you. As always, the bureaucrats would have decided everything between themselves. And we would then have been presented with a "fait accompli".
If you make the mistake of opposing that extension, you're accused of all kinds of sins, of all kinds of evils, and if you say nothing, you're told: "See, everybody agrees." Is that what you think?
Mr. Levesque: Yes.
Senator Prud'homme: Because some people woke up, you're here. I'm not a member of the committee, but I found the subject so important that I've been here all week. We must not get the War Museum mixed up with what has become almost a central issue: the Holocaust. On that, your answer is yes.
Ms. Richard: Yes.
Senator Prud'homme: If it were to be done, it should be elsewhere. I won't ask you to elaborate on where that elsewhere should be. I foresee all kinds of other difficulties. When you talk about horrors, you can't classify them as horror number one, horror number two, horror number three. I think it's what Mr. Abella has said and I disagree with him.
[English]
What book did he write?
Senator Cools: None Is Too Many.
[Translation]
Senator Prud'homme: It doesn't have to be millions. I agree. But one Black African is too many; be it in Rwanda or in Bosnia, one is too many. I think everybody could buy that. We don't have to count the numbers; it has truly been a terrible horror. You may have parents who served in Asia, where there were terrible horrors. The museum should reflect that.
You have friends in the Senate. What you came to tell us has not fallen on deaf ears.
[English]
Senator Chalifoux listened attentively. It did not fall on deaf ears. I know Senator Forest is the same. If Senator Cools decides she is going to take on some people -- you do not know her yet but you will. It is the same with Senator Jessiman and Senator Phillips.
[Translation]
You know he is celebrating the 35th anniversary of his nomination to the Senate today. He doesn't cost anything to the state. Nobody talks about that; we hear only about salaries. There aren't many people here who cost a lot to the state.
Ms. Richard: We neither.
Senator Prud'homme: Let's become allies, then. You have friends here, so don't hesitate.
[English]
Ms Richard: We need all the help and direction we can get, sir.
The Chairman: Our next witness is Mr. Cedric Jennings, who we are going to hear by telephone.
While that is being prepared, I would like to give Mr. Albert Lawrence, MC, an opportunity to make a brief statement. Mr. Lawrence proposed to the Southam Commission that the National Research Council building on Sussex Drive be the site of the War Museum; in view of the presentations here of the last couple of days, it would be interesting to hear Mr. Lawrence.
Please proceed.
Mr. Albert Lawrence, MC: Before I get into the question of the location of the Canadian War Museum, by coincidence last night I had a small dinner party for two friends from out west, and one of their children and his wife, and one of my children and my wife.
The conversation got around to the fact that I was being allowed to come here today to say something. The two children of my friend, the son and his wife, are both university professors in their 40s. They are Canadian, of course, living in Ottawa. She said, "Why all this fuss about the Holocaust and the War Museum?" I said, "Well, I do not agree with it." My friend, who is my age said, "No, I do not agree with it either." This young professor said, "But you went to war for the Holocaust; you knew about the Holocaust," and I was flabbergasted and I said, "We did not know about the Holocaust." I was a lieutenant, just 21 years old, and fairly bright. I served in Normandy and I was wounded a couple of times. I knew what was going on in the Pacific, in Russia, and on all the fronts, but until the first death camp was liberated, there was not one word about what turned out later to be called the "Holocaust". Of course, by then we could nothing about it.
One young professor in his 40s asked whether we could have bombed them. I told him that would have been self-defeating so far as the Jewish inmates were concerned. He said that we could have bombed the death ovens or done something. As you can imagine, I changed the conversation because this conversation was at a dinner party and I had to exercise some restraint.
I witnesses the incredible ignorance of two university professors, one in English and the other in math. I do not know whether they would have been different had they been historians.
I heard someone say just a moment ago that this was a just war. That is interesting. People like myself went to war because Hitler said it was his way or no way. My father went to war because it was the Kaiser's way or no way. The idea of fighting an unjust war never crossed our minds. It was our war. That was the end of it.
The question of whether the Holocaust museum should be part of the War Museum is simply a question that divides itself entirely on the words "give" and "take." All human beings have their lives taken from them at some point or another. There is another small, special, phenomenal group of human beings in history who gave their lives willingly, a most peculiar thing for human beings to do. We only have life, and to give it up is a crazy idea. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the Hutus slaughtering the Tutsis. It has nothing to do with the Holocaust, essentially, and whether we would have or could have done something about it. If we knew that everyone in all of the Stalinist Gulags was to be killed, would we have gone to war? We would have wrung our hands, but we would never have sacrificed a life to try to stop all the horrors of all the Gulags.
If the present War Museum, that sad little building on Sussex Drive, were refurbished and turned over as a museum for the Holocaust in the "mile of history," alongside other monuments of Canadian significance, then I think that the place for the War Museum might well be the National Research Council building. It is a beautiful site. It is a handsome building. It has lots of land. It has lots of space. It is on the "mile of history." Significantly, it is across from the Department of External Affairs' building which signifies our impingement on world events as, generally speaking, our war history has been an impingement on world events.
Behind that building is beautiful bluff which could accommodate tanks, armoured cars, artillery pieces, the chairman's Halifax bomber. There is also an auditorium for documentaries and movies. Over a period of time it could be filled. I have mentioned this to Mr. MacDonald of the museum and to Mr. Suthren, the acting director on leave. They smile when I make this suggestion to them because that would be heaven from their point of view. However, I do suggest to this committee, as I would suggest to Parliament and to the Canadian public, that something monumental would not be amiss.
Our buildings do show something of what we value. You can be holy without a cathedral, but cathedrals are beautiful buildings which show what people valued over the centuries they were built. The Greek temples demonstrate what those people felt and valued. This building inspires Canadians. Our Canadian Museum of Civilization building shows that we value learning. Our art gallery shows that we value learning and art.
There is nothing amiss in a fine building like the National Research Council building being used by the War Museum to show that we value our wartime experience as Canadians.
It is a question of priorities, not of dollars. What priority do we put on the memory of those who are serving and who have served, and on their impact upon our national story?
The Chairman: Have you been able to locate the brief which you presented to the Southam Commission?
Mr. Lawrence: I have not found the brief, sir. I found only the response to a questionnaire that they sent out.
The Chairman: We will ask our researcher to try to locate it.
You mentioned the facilities around the National Research Council. However, you omitted the idea of having a naval vessel on display out front.
Mr. Lawrence: I am unnerved by being on my feet, as it were. I am retired and not used to being in front of any kind of forum.
Senator Prud'homme: You would fit in very well with us.
Mr. Lawrence: I knew these buildings when the senators were much younger.
The Chairman: You are referring to one senator.
Mr. Lawrence: When I was much younger, the senators were much older. I used to play with Cairine Wilson's kids along these corridors and also with the kids of Claire Moyer, who was clerk for many years. The senators get younger, and this year I would be disqualified for being a senator because of old age.
Senator Prud'homme: You must know that there was only one woman in the Senate then. There are now 28 women. I think we should strive for 50-50. I again publicly suggest that Prime Minister Chrétien take that into consideration.
Mr. Lawrence: She had seven children, and I used to play with three or four of the younger ones. These corridors were great fun. It was a very open building in those days, and you did not see all these security people everywhere.
The river is a gorgeous site, and this may be extending it too far, but the river could have in it a destroyer, a frigate, or a submarine. They could all be brought here.
Senator Jessiman: We had two Canadian flotillas of motor torpedo boats.
Mr. Lawrence: They could bring them here.
Senator Prud'homme: How could you bring them here?
Mr. Lawrence: You could bring them by truck. You could do the same thing with a submarine. You might bring a frigate. You would have to dismantle a destroyer in some way and bring it in pieces, but you could do it. It would be there for generations. You could have a naval display.
Senator Prud'homme: You are the only one to mention this. I see the museum people busily taking notes. You must have excited their minds too. You said why not use the research building as the new site and turn over the old one for the Holocaust Gallery. That is an interesting proposal. However, would you extend that to say that the War Museum would become the Holocaust Gallery? Should it be solely for the Holocaust, or should it play the major role but also be used for the other things? The tragedies are ongoing. Could it be a place where humankind is reminded that the world has not changed and that we did not learn our lessons from the Holocaust?
Mr. Lawrence: I do not know, nor do I feel qualified to discuss that, because I am not Jewish. I would answer your question only with great trepidation. If I were Jewish, I might feel about a Holocaust memorial the way, as an ex-soldier, I feel about the War Museum. There are boundaries about that experience that are quite definite, and a Jew may have that feeling. It would be beyond me.
Senator Prud'homme: So it must be difficult for Mr. Danson, then.
Mr. Lawrence: I would be interested in how Mr. Danson, as a Jewish ex-serviceman, would feel.
The Chairman: Thank you for your presentation. I was particularly impressed when you mentioned that these two 40-year-old professors were asking what it was all about. We obviously have an age problem there. Again, thank you.
Honourable senators, we will be moving to a phone call with Mr. Cedric Jennings. You have received his brief, and you have also received a copy of the remarks he will be making beforehand. When we go to question him, due to the lateness of the hour, please, no counter reports, no sermons, just questions. Mr. Jennings, please proceed.
Mr. Cedric Jennings: I thank the honourable senators for the opportunity to present a written brief to you and to discuss it now. I intend to touch only on a few points and then, if you wish, discuss it with you and answer any questions you may have.
I wish to say a quick word about my motives. The views I have expressed are my own. I represent no one, nor am I acting for anyone. I have formed these views as a result of much research and writing on the Canadian War Museum and from feedback from stakeholders, particularly veterans. I care very much about what the Canadian War Museum has done in the past and could still mean to Canada if it is salvaged from the present debacle, and hence the title of my brief, "The Debacle of the Canadian War Museum."
The nub of my brief may be summed up in four points:
Abuse of the heritage, rather than the history, concept, overturns the traditional, correct mandate of the Canadian War Museum to commemorate and illustrate the acts and sacrifices of our soldiers, sailors and airmen. I see gross manipulation of our history ahead in the impoverished interests of political correctness. I have already quoted Dr. Desmond Morton, the noted military historian, and I would like to quote one paragraph from a letter I received from him this morning. He wrote, "I suppose everyone is involved in heritage to a degree, controlling the kinds of memories ensuing generations will be allowed to have, and even Lowenthal as a historian confesses that historians are not exempt, nor are they, per se, accurate, but they should be held to a higher standard than those who need to extract large sums of money from other people to stay in business, like advertisers and museum operators."
As you know better than I, the War Museum controversy is intensely divisive. It has set Jews against veterans in a zero-sum game and may drag Asian Canadians and other communities into the same kind of conflict. It will damage unity and race relations right across our nation.
Essentially, the follies and the weaknesses of the plan are driven by fundraising and a search for another group of potential donors. You have heard evidence of this crass behaviour. Either by design or ineptitude, an uproar of dissension has been created and pervades your inquiry yet. The whole plan amounts to a sharp shift in the direction of the War Museum's mandate to a new revisionist heritage vision. It is destructive of the War Museum's purpose.
I have presented to you evidence of perhaps our most distinguished military historian's view of this trendy operation. If it is further pursued, our proud military heritage will take on an entirely new direction, one far from the truth we knew. Our war dead, in some sense, will have died in vein. This smacks of Dr. Josef Goebbels, Hitler's chief of propaganda.
In the welter of debate and news coverage in the media, it is with regret that I suggest to you that there have only been two pieces of substantial good news.
The first is the existence of this Senate committee and the searching questions it is posing about the disinformation and inaccuracy which has centred about this disastrous piece of sleight-of-hand. You have a formidable task, honourable senators, to bring the truth out of all of this.
The second piece of substantial good news is the appointment of the Honourable Barrett J. Danson as, in effect, an ombudsman for the War Museum on behalf of the public interest and Canada's military heritage. If anyone can ride herd upon and straighten up this tangled debacle, it will be Barney Danson, assisted by your findings.
I would respectfully remind you, honourable senators, that this hurtful and destructive controversy was created by public servants, those museum bureaucrats who tried to jam through their ill-conceived schemes with minimal consultation, misleading guile and a maximum of arrogance. I have watched them at it with horror.
This morning, The Toronto Star carried an unsourced editorial saying that the federal government will soon unveil plans for a stand-alone Holocaust Gallery. Will it cover other genocides besides the Nazi Holocaust? If not, other victim ethnic groups will be very unhappy, especially those who suffered under the Japanese, who held a conference on the Japanese Holocaust this last weekend.
Despite this last-minute, unconfirmed report, I am certainly not yet optimistic about the outcome of this sorry affair, even with the weight of legislators and Parliament that you represent, the experience and integrity of Barney Danson, and now, at the last minute, this unsourced information about a free-standing Holocaust Gallery leaking out. And, mark you, the War Museum remains a fall-back option for the location. There is plenty of wiggle room.
Rather, I am with Clifford Chadderton, another combat soldier and notable philanthropist, as well as a leader of veterans. I simply cannot trust the people at the Museum of Civilization, neither their motives nor their judgment. Arrogant and guileful as they are, they have been revealed as having their own thinly concealed agenda to pervert our history. I find their past actions shameful and unbecoming public servants.
I believe that it will take the full political will of the Government of Canada to curb and re-direct these out-of-control bureaucrats who will also try to depict a different military Canada than really existed, if they can, and impose it on future generations. I find their behaviour and their intentions highly suspect. I find what I see deplorable.
Personally, I will continue to do all I can to stop the manoeuvres of these people. But with much more weight than a single individual, I hope you, honourable senators, and Barney Danson will be able to halt the manipulation, the misinformation and stop this deceptive nonsense in its tracks.
Senator Jessiman: On the second page of your brief, Mr. Jennings, you write:
The second piece of substantial good news is the appointment of Honourable the Barnett J. Danson as, in effect, an ombudsman for the War Museum.
So far, one paper has said that he is to be a mediator, but an official release from the government says that he has been appointed to the board of the Canadian Museum of Civilization and is also the head of an advisory board to that larger board. He will only be one member of five or six. They, themselves, are only advisory to those who sit on the board of the Canadian Museum of Civilization and will have to report to those who have already made the decision that they prefer this location for both the War Museum and the Holocaust Gallery.
We are meeting tomorrow with the chairman and the director of the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Perhaps they will straighten us out. How was it reported where you were, sir, as to his appointment?
Mr. Jennings: First, your understanding of the news reports is perfectly correct.
Second, I have a copy of the official news release from the Minister of Canadian Heritage. It does say that Barney Danson will be a member of the board of directors of the Canadian Museum of Civilization and has been appointed or is being appointed chairman of the advisory board of the Canadian War Museum.
The word I used, "ombudsman", was a figure of speech because I believe he will be an ombudsman, but there was no such mention in the news release.
Senator Cools: At the bottom of page 1 of your remarks and point number 3, "Driven by fund-raising", you write:
Essentially, the follies and weaknesses of the plan are driven by fund-raising and a search for another group of potential donors.
Could you amplify on that for me, please?
Mr. Jennings: The history of the fundraising campaign at the Canadian War Museum is a checkered one. It originally focused on the general public and corporations. The fundraiser suggested to his client that if they offered a carrot, they could approach the Jewish community as another potential donor. Apparently that is what happened.
Senator Cools: Do you have absolute proof of this?
Mr. Jennings: I have a letter in my possession which describes that, yes.
Senator Cools: It is, I think your word was, unsavoury. Essentially, what I understand from the evidence is that someone conceived that this enormous tragedy, and the resonance with which it sounds in the hearts of so many people, could be used as an amazing fund-raising tactic, knowing and understanding at all times that many Jewish people are generous, responsible and very civic minded.
Mr. Jennings: They are indeed.
Senator Cools: There is something about all of this that I find unsavoury.
Mr. Jennings: Senator Cools, if I may interpolate, I believe it to be on the record from a number of Jewish organizations that they were approached by the museum. They say they did not approach the museum.
Senator Cools: That has been said quite clearly actually. Some of the words were to the effect that they did not lobby the museum at all.
Mr. Jennings: I think it was the idea of the fundraiser.
Senator Cools: I have no doubt. I am just building evidence, as they say.
You talk about an attack on our military heritage, the new revisionist heritage vision. That is the manipulation of history. A witness earlier today referred to the communists' use of disinformation. Could you amplify on that just a bit more for me?
Mr. Jennings: There are a number of examples of the revisionist approach. First, manikins dressed in SS or Wehrmacht uniforms have been disarmed.
Second, a new brass bas-relief which is planned for the front door of the new museum has a list of Canadian warriors, some in uniform, some not; not one of whom is armed.
Third, it is common talk that when the former director general of the War Museum appeared at a board of directors meeting in Royal Canadian Navy uniform -- which is his right as he was a serving officer and has now been honoured with the honorary title of captain, equivalent to a high rank, for his services to military history -- his appearance was thought to be vulgar and militaristic. Need I say more, when someone is reported to have said that the uniform of our country is militaristic?
Senator Cools: Mr. Jennings, I read about that in a newspaper article. It has not been placed before us as testimony directly. You have now done that.
Mr. Jennings: Yes, ma'am, I have, and I have been told this story over and over again by reputable informants.
Senator Cools: Thank you very much. I may come back to you on this individual in the future.
Senator Forest: Mr. Jennings, you have made very clear your feelings with respect to the Canadian War Museum, and I think we would agree with them. What would be your position on a Holocaust museum situated at a different place, in a different venue, away from the War Museum?
Mr. Jennings: May I answer that in a slightly roundabout way by telling you an anecdote about myself at the age of 17 and a half? I was a copy boy, not much more than that, on a national Sunday paper in Britain when the first 11 by 14 photographs from Belsen came in by air from our correspondent photographers. I laid them out on the pictures table, as was my duty, and the whole newsroom gathered round and asked me what they were. I read the captions on the back which had been written by our photographers and reporters, and a great many of my fellow journalists burst into tears. I tell you this anecdote only to indicate that the Nazi Holocaust, the Shoah, has been in my life since I was almost a child, little more than a child.
My own view is that the Nazi Holocaust and the other terrible holocausts of World War II, such as the Japanese Holocaust which my family suffered under, because I am Asian-born, should be honoured and remembered in a museum of genocide in Canada, because many Asian Canadians and Caucasian Canadians suffered under these holocausts. I believe you heard from John Thompson this morning of all the holocausts that have existed. I entirely support and would work for a free-standing genocide or holocaust museum in Canada, but I would not support it being part of the War Museum when we have such a dearth of space and dearth of budget to display our remarkable military history.
Senator Forest: Thank you, sir. You have certainly captured the thoughts of many of the people who have been here to speak with us.
Mr. Jennings: Thank you senator.
[Translation]
Senator Prud'homme: My question is very difficult, so I will ask it in English since you are so courteous. I noticed you have an accent, but your French is excellent. I've read your whole brief. I've read them all. I must say I was very enthusiastic about what I was reading until I arrived to the third paragraph on page 10.
[English]
You said that consideration should be given to the funding, design and construction of a Canadian museum of genocide in a major population centre in Canada. You felt that, for obvious reasons, bearing in mind anti-Semitic tendencies in Quebec, Toronto would be a prime site for consideration, given its large multi-ethnic population. In Canada's largest city and its environs, such a museum could be viable. On second thought, would you not have preferred not to have written that sad statement about Quebec?
You are making yourself almost a replica of what I have been fighting for many years, including with Mr. Abella, who was quoted almost repeating the same by Mr. Douglas Fisher.
It is difficult for me not to take issue with you on these two lines, though I was in almost full agreement with the rest of your testimony, in particular, the portion of your brief where you say "consideration should be given" because at least you making a proposal. However, recently, a survey was conducted and they concluded that there was more racism in Toronto. Could you respond to that?
Mr. Jennings: I would be delighted to respond. You are perfectly correct, it is an extremely delicate matter. "Tendency" is a very small word. I would gladly concede that, to the best of my knowledge, and I have lived in both Toronto and Montreal, that there may be an equal amount of anti-Semetic tendencies in Toronto. I am not a scientist, so I cannot measure the relative anti-Semitism in any place. If you wish me to say that there are anti-Semetic tendencies everywhere in Canada, I will gladly do so.
Senator Prud'homme: I cannot ask you comment on anything you do not know about. I am only expressing the view that this is a terrible debate that is currently going on in Quebec.
Mr. Jennings: I understand that, sir.
Senator Prud'homme: You know I exploded yesterday. I am quite fed up with people trying to analyze the past by singling out French Canadians.
You must remember that French Canadians did not control immigration in the old days; and you must remember that French Canadians did not control any banks. Neither did they control the Rideau Club or any of the private clubs.
I am sure you would also defend those who are close to you. This concept of the French Canadians of Quebec being anti-Semitic is being perpetuated. Perhaps you would prefer to amend your testimony to exclude that certain line. I would be delighted if you would ask to do that.
Mr. Jennings: Senator, I lived in Montreal for 10 years and as you can hear, I speak French badly. However, I am something of an expert on the history of French Canada. For example, I helped to prepare and organize David MacDonald Stewart's resurrection of la compagnie Franche de la marine, Canada's first soldiers. I am quite well aware of the history of the French Canadian people before the conquest and after the conquest. I admire and respect the French Canadian people of Canada. I say that with all my heart.
Senator Prud'homme: I believe you.
The Chairman: Mr. Jennings, one brief question: Did you follow the hearings of the Southam Commission?
Mr. Jennings: No, sir. I was first a member and then executive director for only a very brief period. I did not follow it from the inside, as you might think. I followed it from the outside.
The Chairman: Was there at any time a suggestion by the Southam Commission that a Holocaust Gallery be considered or placed in the War Museum?
Mr. Jennings: Senator, I do not believe so, however, I am not qualified to answer that question definitively. It should be addressed to a long-time member of the commission, or indeed to Mr. Southam himself.
I was not present at very many meetings before I discovered that my services were required as a senior clerk and not as a full member of the commission. My abilities as a clerk were inadequate and my knowledge of military history, military reenactment and military museums would be of no use in a clerical position, so I resigned. However, to the best of my knowledge, the matter of the Holocaust Gallery in the War Museum was never raised.
The Chairman: Thank you for your presentation.
The committee adjourned.