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The total cost of this long-delayed monument, which is still only just beginning construction , is now estimated to be $7.5 million. With $6 million now coming from the government, this raises taxpayers' contribution to 80% of the total construction costs. (In comparison, the nearby National Holocaust monument received only 50% of it budget from the government.)The most recent boost in federal funding to the anticommunism monument was bestowed thanks to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who -- being long-associated with far-right Ukrainian organizations behind the monument -- bailed out the TTL's project with a boost of an additional $4 million in the government's spring 2021 budget.1 Despite Widespread Public Opposition, Canada's antiCommunism Monument enjoys Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Green-party Support With keen support from the Conservative, Liberal, NDP and Green parties, the so-called "Memorial to the Victims of Communism" is opposed by 77% of Canada’s public (27% ‘strongly’). While only 23% support it at all, only 4% say they support it ‘strongly.".2 So, who is behind this unpopular, government-funded monument? Six of TTL’s nine Board of Directors3 represent far-right East European groups discussed in this issue of Press for Conversion!: • Markus Hess president, Estonian Central Council in Canada executive member, Estonian World Council founder, International Black Ribbon Day Committee (BRDC) chair, Central and Eastern European Council • Paul Grod president., World Ukrainian Congress former pres., Ukrainian Canadian Congress (UCC) activist, Ukrainian Youth Association • Alide Forstmanis former president, Latvian National Federation in Canada treasurer/secretary, BRDC (Kitchener-Waterloo). • Ludwik Klimkowskivice president, Canadian Polish Congress (CPC) (see also) • Teresa Berezowskiformer president, CPC (see also) • Robert Tmejactivist, Czech and Slovak Association of Canada Group donors While the above groups all helped fund the TTL monument, its largest donors are the CPC ($25-$50,000) and the UCC ($25,000). Other donors include the Latvian National Federation in Canada, the League of Ukrainian Canadians (LUC) and LUC Women (see also), and the Lithuanian Canadian Community. |
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Community Donors TTL lists these "communities"6 as its major funders: |
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State Donors |
Ukrainian Canadian* Latvian Vietnamese Polish Croatian Hungarian Czech Korean Estonian Czechoslovak Lithuanian |
$509,000
$211,000 $193,000 $175,000 $144,000 $142,000 $131,000 $100,000 $90,000 $59,000 $41,000 $26,000 |
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|
Country
Canada Hungary Estonia Georgia Taiwan Croatia Czech Republic Latvia |
Donations 4,5 $6,000,000 $130,000 $25 - 50,000 $25 - 50,000 $35,000 $26,000 $22,000 $17,000 |
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| * It was not explained what the TTL means by the "Canadian" community. | |||||||
Extremist Hyperbole: The TTL’s stated purpose is to "commemorate over 100 million victims of Communist terror."7 This exaggerates a wildly-inflated 94-million death toll in the TTL’s far-right bible, The Black Book of Communism, which has been criticized as nonsense by many scholars including Noam Chomsky. Even some of its own coauthors later denounced these figures as absurd. William Blum, a former US State Department staffer turned antiwar author, ridiculed the book’s use by the far-right to spread hateful lies: During his ... election campaign, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi declared that communists in Mao’s China boiled babies to make fertilizer. He defended his remark by citing: The Black Book of Communism, a "history" of communism ... that is to the study of communism as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zionism" is to Judaism, or the collected statements of George W. Bush are to understanding why we are fighting in Iraq.8
Ironically, the jury which selected the designer of the anticommunist TTL monument in Ottawa included David Frum9 (the son of CBC’s Barbara Frum). It was David Frum, who as George W. Bush’s speechwriter, wrote the president's infamous "Axis-of-Evil" speech. Frum however initially formulated this epithet/catchphrase for America’s top enemies as "The Axis of Hate."10 References and notes 1.Joanne Chianello, "Feds to shell out $4M
more on Victims of Communism memorial," CBC News, Apr 19, 2021. 2. "Victims of Communism: Resounding Thumbs
Down on what is considered a wasteful and unnecessary project," EKOS survey,
May 22, 2015. 3. Board of Directors, TTL website 4. "Our Donors," TTL website. (Note: Ranges are from "Our Donors" while other figures, from various reports by organizations, are corrected for inflation and rounded to nearest $1000.) 5. Canada's funding was increased by Chrystia Freeland from $2 million to $6 million in the spring 2021 budget . See Chianello, op. cit. 6. "Tibute to Liberty," Lithuanian Canadian News, Mar.
31, 2020. 7. Tribute to Liberty Newsletter, Winter 2016. http://bit.ly/TTL-16 8. William Blum, "Some Things You
Need To Know Before the World Ends," Anti-Empire Report, April 22,
2006. 9. Design Competition, Tribute to Liberty
website, 2016. 10.
Cail Newsome,
"The
Use of Slogans in Political
Rhetoric,"
The Corinthian,
Volume 4,
2002. (2) " Magnitsky Laws:Waging economic war against Russia Magnitsky Laws, passed in the US in2012 and unanimously by Canadian MPs in 2017, are the brainchild of US-born Bill Browder, a global financier and “dear friend” of Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland. Browder, “convicted of fraud” and “large-scale tax evasion” by Russian courts, calls Freeland the “moral leadership”1 behind his Magnitsky crusade. Browder and his accountant, Sergei Magnistky, created an illegal “tax-avoidance scheme” allowing them and their ultrarich clients to acquire Russian state assets. In the “wholesale pillaging of Russia” in the 1990s, says hedge-fund manager Alex Krainer, several hundred billion dollars were “taken out of Russia, much of it illegally.”2 Krainer is the author of Grand Deception: The Truth about Bill Browder, the Magnitsky Act, and Anti-Russian Sanctions, 2018. While Magnitsky laws are disguised as an anti-corruption “crusade for human rights,” their real goal, he explains, is to “impede the operation of international laws and institutions through which Russian authorities might investigate ... crimes and initiate lawsuits” against those who pilfered Russia’s state coffers. After setting up Browder’s tax evasion scam, Magnitsky was arrested and died in a Russian prison while awaiting trial in 2009.3 Magnitsky Laws have passed in Estonia, 2016; Lithuania, 2017; Latvia, 2018; and in the UK, 2017, and two of Britain's corporate tax havens (Gibraltar and Jersey, 2018). Kosovo, created by NATO after its 1999 war against Yugoslavia, passed Magnitsky laws in 2020.4 Canadian MPs were lobbied to pass Magnitsky Laws by the Central and Eastern European Council (CEEC).5 References 1. Marcus Kolga (CEEC
pres.), “Chrystia Freeland should have remained Minister of Foreign Affairs,”
Macleans, Nov. 21, 2019. 2. Magnitsky Act Comes to
Canada, Oct. 15, 2017. 3. Ibid. 4. Magnitsky Legislation 5. Markus Kolga,
“Canadians call on Parliament to adopt ‘Magnitsky’ legislation,” CEEC media
statement, May 20, 2016. |
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