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Parks Canada can resolve the Champlain monument issue without offending anyone. It should donate the monument et al. to the City of Orillia as a goodwill gesture.
The gift could be described in bureaucratic speak as being made in the spirit of reconciliation with the people of Orillia. Parks Canada clearly underestimated public sentiment.
One need only read the comments published in OrilliaMatters to appreciate the anger and resentment caused by Parks Canada’s harebrained idea that the monument can be “reimagined”.
Art can be physically altered after its creation, but not without harm. One could reimagine the Mona Lisa with a happier smile, or the Venus de Milo with arms.
Both could be altered to satisfy those reimagining’s but they would be substantially diminished, no longer the artist's creation, nor art.
The committee’s decision is deeply flawed. Parks Canada should ignore the recommendations from a committee some of whom had never seen the monument. That’s rather like inviting people who missed the trial to sit in as jurors to help weigh the verdict.
Alternatively, the monument could easily be reimagined without a single change. In the ‘spirit of reconciliation’ the tiny minority of visitors with status cards could reimagine the monument and see it as Chief John Bigwin, Chief Big Canoe, their councillors and Chief Ovide Sioui did when the monument was unveiled.
They saw the depiction of their people as being both strong and accurate.
Unfortunately, that would require an effort at reconciliation by the First Nations. That will never happen.
To date, their idea of what qualifies as being in the ‘spirit of reconciliation’ is a one-way street.
Douglas H. Brown
Orillia
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