Maintenance cost for Victims of Communism memorial jumps to $1 million
The lifetime maintenance budget was supposed to be around $250,000, but that is now $1 million, National Capital Commission documents show.
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The National Capital Commission is warning that the cost of long-term maintenance of the Victims of Communism memorial has increased four-fold to at least $1 million, according to internal commission records.
The lifetime maintenance budget of the memorial was supposed to be around $250,000, but that has jumped to $1 million, according to documents obtained by researcher Ken Rubin. The NCC documents, released under the Access to Information law, noted that cracks were already appearing in the monument and needed to be repaired.
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“(NCC officials) will look into the maintenance budget that was promised (around $1 million, old MOU states around $250K for the maintenance),” a Dec. 4, 2024, commission document pointed out.
The NCC is working on a long-term maintenance plan for the Memorial to the Victims of Communism which is located near the corner of Wellington and Bay streets. That plan will cover 25 years, according to the documents.
NCC officials have already dealt with some cracks in the memorial, which cost around $17,000 to repair. Other changes for the memorial requested by the Department of Canadian Heritage included a lighting package and installation at a cost of $268,000, the records show.
The monument has been the focus of multiple controversies over its exact purpose, location, size and cost over the past 15 years. The price tag for the project ballooned to an estimated $7.5 million — including $6 million in public funds — from an original budget of $1.5 million.
The cost of the memorial was supposed to be funded entirely through private donations from Tribute to Liberty, the organization behind the monument, but those fundraising efforts fell far short and taxpayers had to foot most of the cost.
NCC spokesperson Maryam El-Akhrass noted in an email to the Ottawa Citizen that $240,000 had been set aside for the maintenance of the memorial over its life. “The initial lump sum of $240,000 is provided to the NCC by Canadian Heritage as part of the MOU for the annual maintenance and lifecycle,” she explained. “Any cumulative costs which exceed the initial investment are absorbed within the NCC’s annual operating budget.”
The annual costs for maintaining the memorial are projected to be less than $10,000, she stated, but El-Akhrass also noted that, “We are still evaluating the overall costs for the non-routine lifecycle interventions.”
The NCC spends around $43,000 annually for maintenance for the National Peacekeeping Monument and almost $112,000 annually for its maintenance of the National War Memorial, according to the documents. The NCC maintains the Canadian Firefighters Memorial at a cost of around $40,000 annually and the National Holocaust Monument at around $43,000 a year.
The Victims of Communism memorial is supposed to honour those who suffered under communism. But concerns have been raised over the years by Jewish organizations and historians that names of eastern Europeans who collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust have been put forward in an attempt to whitewash their past.
In 2021, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center revealed that Roman Shukhevych, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the Nazis and was linked to the massacres of Jews and Poles, was one of those being commemorated. Only after the group repeatedly raised the matter with the department was Shukhevych’s name removed.
But in a Dec. 14, 2024, post on the social-media platform X, Ludwik Klimkowski of Tribute to Liberty responded to concerns the monument was honouring Nazi collaborators. “Let’s stop the nonsense of the Nazi commemoration nonsense perpetrated by Canadian Marxists and the agents of the Kremlin’s regime,” Klimkowski wrote.
Holocaust scholars and Jewish groups have continued to denounce claims that their efforts to expose Nazi war criminals and collaborators are part of some Russian plot or disinformation scheme. The fact that some eastern Europeans played key roles in the Holocaust and supporting the Nazi regime is well documented in history, they add.
In addition, on Oct. 7, 2024, the Ottawa Citizen revealed that a report prepared for Canadian Heritage recommended more than half of the 550 names planned to go on the memorial should be removed. That was because of potential links to the Nazis, questions about affiliations with fascist groups or a lack of information about what the individuals did during the Second World War. As originally planned, there were to be 553 entries on the memorial’s Wall of Remembrance.
The department had already determined that between 50 and 60 of the names or organizations were likely directly linked to the Nazis, according to the documents.
David Pugliese is an award-winning journalist covering Canadian Forces and military issues in Canada. To support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe
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