Re: re: NPS Competition
The Toronto Sun *shrug*
Mon, December 11, 2006
The statue of Sir Winston Churchill at Nathan Phillips Square has been deemed 'relocatable,' which is one thing the great leader is not
By JOE WARMINGTON
Sir Winston Churchill might have had something to say about this.
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat," he once said.
Yes, they'd be more careful with talk of relocating the Churchill monument at Nathan Phillips Square if the rough and tumble leader were alive today!
But this is 2006 where a leftist Toronto city council constantly begs Ottawa for more taxpayers' dough yet plans an unnecessary $40-million "revitalization" of the square which could see the removal of one of the greatest figures in the history of the free world.
In the process, a stunning monument to Churchill -- one which has stood for 30 years at the southwest corner of Nathan Phillips Square -- may well be in jeopardy. In a glossy, colour brief encouraging bids for designs, there is a possible travesty in the making: the tribute to Churchill has been deemed "relocatable."
Let's just say right now such an indignity won't be carried out without a fight. As the former British prime minister himself said, "We shall not flag or fail.
"We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight in the fields and in the street, we shall fight in the hills, we shall never surrender."
We didn't. But some just don't seem to get it.
In supporting the redesign even editorial page editor Rob Granatstein wrote "roll Winston Churchill to elsewhere in the city. What does he have to do with Toronto anyway?"
How about freedom?
"He meant everything," said Arthur Bishop, the 83-year-old author, historian and WWII Spitfire pilot who has a picture of the legend with his flying ace father Billy Bishop above his desk. "Without Churchill rallying Britain, it very well may have fallen. This is disgraceful."
Toronto, as we know it today, might not even exist.
To be fair, a decision to remove the monument has not yet been made but the competition says it can be. What kind of people erect a monument and later take it down? This isn't Iraq! It goes against the purpose of enshrining a person in the first place.
RELOCATABLE?
The winning design, to be announced next February, does not have to include Churchill and two other "relocatable" sculptures, the Roman Column and the Sundial. Strangely, Henry Moore's abstract, The Archer, has secured "not relocatable" status.
"Why is that one is not to be moved but the one of Churchill can be?" asked Hal Jackman.
The former lieutenant governor of Ontario doesn't think either should be touched. "My father paid for both," he said of the late Henry R. Jackman who dedicated the Churchill memorial in 1977 -- 12 years after Churchill's death in 1965 -- with the idea it would be there forever.
Ironically David Crombie was mayor then and three decades later is on the selection committee, which includes Michael Ondaatje, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, Frances Halsband, Eric Haldenby and Dinu Bumbaru.
Jackman, who was not aware of this competition, will now pay attention. "My father (a WWI vet and an MP during WWII) was a great admirer of Churchill," he said. "No one has ever talked to me about this. My father made an agreement with the city. This would be breaking that agreement."
Whatever is decided, they'd best not count out Churchill, who in 1941 told Canada's Parliament, "(Germany's) generals advised France's divided cabinet: 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken. Some chicken. Some neck.'"
Some stupidity they are even considering this. And some injustice if it happens. Bishop, who has seen his own father's stellar reputation attacked by anti-war zealots, agrees there will be resistance. "I am so sick of these left-wing yahoos," he said. "It just gets so ridiculous. They just want to make themselves heard."
They'll hear plenty if they lay a hand on the man we should be forever thanking for all our freedoms.