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Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Jason Kenney to speak at Tribute to Liberty event; should a monument to liberty be built with tax dollars?
Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, is speaking tonight at an event hosted by Tribute to Liberty at the University of Toronto. Tribute to Liberty is a non-profit organization whose mission is to establish a memorial in Ottawa to the victims of the crimes of communism and to educate the public about these crimes.
At first glance it seems like a great idea, and I'm sure Kenney is supportive.
Kenney recently returned from a trip to Kiev to mark the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor, the 1932–33 famine-genocide in Ukraine that occurred as a result of Joseph Stalin’s collectivist agriculture scheme.
As for the Tribute to Liberty memorial, let's hope this group follows the lead of Calgary entrepreneur Bob Lamond. Lamond spearheaded the erection of a monument to free market economist Adam Smith in Edinburgh, Scotland with only private money. After all, why turn a tribute to liberty into tribute to big government?
Ah, but, sadly, that's exactly what's happening here.
As it stands, the organization has taken the profoundly misguided course of appealing to the federal government to finance and build this memorial:
“Ambassadors and their delegates from 14 countries have written to the Prime Minister calling for the creation of a memorial,” says Philip Leong, Chair of Tribute to Liberty. “We hope to build on that broad international endorsement with comparable support from Canadians coast to coast to coast.”
Take your commie scheme somewhere else, Leong.
Posted by Matthew Johnston on December 10, 2008 in Canadian Conservative Politics | Permalink
Comments
While I agree that government should not be funding it, the problem is that the government continues to fund all kinds of white elephants, such as the so-called HR museum. I would therefore much prefer that there be NO government (understand we tax payers) funding of any of these.
Posted by: Alain | 2008-12-10 5:44:07 PM
The government should not be funding anything to do with liberty, as they are obviously anti-liberty and pro-control. And as Alain says, its just one item on a huge list of things the government needs to get its tentacles out of.
Posted by: JC | 2008-12-11 7:05:24 AM
While Minister Kenney does support our project of having a permanent memorial built in Ottawa to the Victims of the Crimes of Communism, there will be no public money going toward having the memorial built. We are raising funds in the private sector for this important and much-anticipated project.
Alide Forstmanis, Tribute to Liberty Board Chair.
Posted by: Alide Forstmanis | 2009-02-02 4:52:38 PM
Thank you very much for this clarification, Alide.
I misunderstood the content of the press release and should have verified the information.
How does one support this important project?
Posted by: Matthew Johnston | 2009-02-02 5:18:51 PM
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