Statues
By Eric Dowd
(Editor: Following is column I normally would email to you on
Friday Sept 2, but there is a chance I will be away from the legislature
that day.Thanks)
Toronto
– Do we really need so many statues and monuments -- or are there more
useful ways of expressing gratitude and affection?
The
Ontario government is spending $1.8 million on a new monument in the
grounds of the legislature to honor veterans of war and peace-keeping.
Premier
Dalton McGuinty said at the ground-breaking ceremony it will help keep
alive memories of their heroism, bravery and sacrifices in defence of
freedom.
The
memorial will include a 30-metre-long granite wall etched with scenes from
Canada’s war history and texts illustrating them, and paved seating
area, where it is hoped people will come and reflect.
The
monument was promised by the former Progressive Conservative premier Ernie
Eves in the throes of an election and continued by McGuinty’s Liberal
government.
A
statue and wall of honor that commemorates fire fighters killed in the
line of duty, built with the help of a donation of $500,000 from the
province, was unveiled outside the legislature in June.
A
memorial to police killed on duty was constructed earlier outside the
legislature with $675,00 donated by the Conservative government and some
Liberal MPPs want a workers’ memorial built there to honor those killed
in their jobs.
Toronto’s
Jewish community also is asking the Ontario and federal governments to
help build a 25 metres high, $5 million memorial to Jewish war veterans in
a Toronto suburb and next to an existing Holocaust memorial.
These
are thoroughly worthy causes and those who gave so much should be
remembered. But there already are cenotaphs built to commemorate those who
served in wars in Toronto’s city centre and suburbs and many
communities.
There
also already are memorials to others scattered around the legislature
building and few know they are there.
They
includes statues of Queen Victoria; King Edward VII, John Graves Simcoe;
Ontario’s first lieutenant governor, William Lyon Mackenzie, a leader in
the struggle for responsible government; and several premiers.
Governments
have renamed existing buildings in the legislature complex after former
premiers including John S. Macdonald, James P. Whitney, Oliver Mowat and
Mitchell Hepburn, which preserves their names, to some extent anyway,
without costing new money.
McGuinty
recently renamed an office block the McMurtry-Scott Building, after two
noted attorneys-general, one Conservative and one Liberal.
Governments
also have built or helped build edifices and named them after luminaries.
A Conservative government built a centre near Dorset to help studies in
natural resources and named it after premier Leslie Frost, although the
Liberals recently ordered it closed.
Government helped build a research centre to find cures for illnesses such as heart disease and strokes at University of Western Ontario, and named it after premier John Robarts.
He also is remembered through the fortress-like Robarts Library at University of Toronto and once commented good-humoredly `it’s the ugliest building in the city and it has my damned name on it.’
Two
rival groups are arguing whether to name an existing stretch of a highway
west of Toronto after Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone,
who lived in the area, or Joseph Brant, a respected Mohawk chief.
Highways
also have been named after others, including the Macdonald-Cartier
Freeway, commemorating two giants of history, and James Snow Parkway,
after a former Ontario transportation minister.
A
sports arena in Toronto has been named after Larry Grossman, a former
Conservative opposition leader, who died of cancer at 53 and would be
pleased because he was passionate about sports and coached kids’ hockey
there
A
park in eastern Ontario was named after a police officer stabbed to death
and the local chief called it aptly `a living, growing, honor.’
When
a 10-year-old boy was killed recently on a field trip, his family
established a scholarship and basketball court at the school in his name.
Could
Ontario’s most traveled highway be renamed Veterans Highway or funds to
honor police who gave their lives used to help educate their children –
it would be a way of remembering them usefully every day.
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