Ottawa Science and Tech museum

[Leafless]

Article:

Ottawa Citizen, Fri., April 14, 2006. Sec. F1.

Article titled- " Science and Tech museum poised to move to Gatineau"

Federal Quebec Minister Lawrence Cannon, minister of transport, infrastructure and communities is about to in his own words " I want to exercise my influence to ensure that the future Science and Technology Museum is built on the Quebec side of the river, more precisely in Jacques Cartier Park".

This museum presently sits in Ottawa and is slated for expansion and is part part of the landscape since 1967 and is in Ontario Premier Dalton Mc.Guinty riding.

If this museum goes as planned it will be the second major museum the first being the Museum of Civilization gone to quebec along with many federal departments.

I personally am sick and tired of the rape of Ottawa's federal real estate being stolen and moved to Quebec.

Ottawa is the Capital of Canada NOT Gatineau Quebec and has always been home to Federal entities and Ottawa depends on these resources to provide Ottawan's with employment as a federal government town with federal presence and recogniton.

If this move goes through I will never again vote in another federal election and am telling Mr. Harper well in advance WHY and I encourage others to do so also.

.

[Argus]

Article:

Ottawa Citizen, Fri., April 14, 2006. Sec. F1.

Article titled- " Science and Tech museum poised to move to Gatineau"

Federal Quebec Minister Lawrence Cannon, minister of transport, infrastructure and communities is about to in his own words " I want to exercise my influence to ensure that the future Science and Technology Museum is built on the Quebec side of the river, more precisely in Jacques Cartier Park".

This museum presently sits in Ottawa and is slated for expansion and is part part of the landscape since 1967 and is in Ontario Premier Dalton Mc.Guinty riding.

If this museum goes as planned it will be the second major museum the first being the Museum of Civilization gone to quebec along with many federal departments.

I personally am sick and tired of the rape of Ottawa's federal real estate being stolen and moved to Quebec.

Ottawa is the Capital of Canada NOT Gatineau Quebec and has always been home to Federal entities and Ottawa depends on these resources to provide Ottawan's with employment as a federal government town with federal presence and recogniton.

If this move goes through I will never again vote in another federal election and am telling Mr. Harper well in advance WHY and I encourage others to do so also.

.

I can't say I'm happy about it either, but there are more important things to worry about.

Fact is that as long as Ontario, esp Toronto, continues to back the Liberals the Tories need seats in Quebec, and Cannon is playing the old Quebec game. The Liberals under Trudeau, and then the Tories under Mulroney pushed and accepted the idea that Gatineau, on the other side of the river, was sort of a "co capital" with as much right to the term as Ottawa, in order to appease Quebec. Tens of thousands of jobs were moved across the river to what was little more than a small Quebec burg, and into wildly overpriced office buildings which hugely profited Liberal Party insiders. Now a big chunk of the civil service is over there, and the Liberals have moved the biggest national museum as well as the national archives to Quebec - again to promote this idea that the capital straddles the Ontario Quebec border instead of being in Ontario. They don't even talk about Ottawa as the national capital much any more. They talk about "The National Capital Region".

The idea can't be going over well with local minister Treasury Board head John Baird, but if Cannon has already publicly announced that he will "use his power to ensure the museum goes to Gatineau" then he's either very, very dumb, or he's gotten permission from Harper. The museums, after all, are under Beverley Oda, not Cannon, and I rather doubt she will appreciate him stating the move as a fait accompli when it's technically her decision.

Gatineau remains a backwater burg. Aside from the rather ugly government towers clustered together by the shore, and the French civil servants who have settled over there where the land is so cheap (the English ones mostly return to Ottawa every night, there's really nothing there. If the museum of science and tech moves there attendance will plummet, but this isn't about what is right for the museum, but what is right politically for Lawrence Cannnon, and perhaps for the Tories.

[Slavik44]

Wow, let me tell you if I was going to show the world how powerfull I was, my first choice would be through the relocation of a museam to a place that is a couple of kilometers away. I think a few questions need to be asked. For one, I wonder if this is a situation in which a minister needs to follow the rah rah look at me, I am a bad ass, mode of operation? I also must ask why? It seems utterly stupid, the people of Quebec probably wouldn;t have cared before, but now that this proclamation from Thor the thunder God Cannon has been made, are we not in some way going to piss off or alienate someone? Either the people of Quebec are not going to get the fancy shamncy museam promised to them, or on the flip side if the museam does go to Quebec could we not be pissing off 5,364 people? It appears as if this situation smells of political ineptness, this is perhaps one of those situations where the Conservatives could have afforded to have done something quietly, but I suppose that doesn't play into the hands of Quebec nationalism. That being said I wouldn't get to upset about it, after all its is a museam. A celebration of the past that sustains itself on the dollar of the Canadain tax payer, and in that spirit I cannot think of a better place for this museam to be located then in Gatineau, Quebec.

[Leafless]

Argus

You wrote- " Mulroney pushed and accepted the idea that Gatineau on the other side of the river, was sort of a "co capital " with as much right to the term to appease Quebec".

Mulroney being a Conservative was also a Quebecer and did have to appease Quebec but was totally wrong that west Quebec " was sort of a co capital" as legally Quebec then and even to-day has NO LEGAL RIGHT to any kind of reference as being associated to the capital of Canada Ottawa.

You also wrote- " They don't even talk about Ottawa as the national capital much anymore. They talk about the " National Capital Region".

Well, this is what happens after years of primarily federal Liberal rule with prime ministers all from Quebec who have tried to destroy the rightful fact that it is Ottawa that is Capital of Canada and there is no legal right that can destroy that fact outside of 'an illegal' federal reference to include to-day the city of Gatineau in the province of Quebec as somehow being attached to Ottawa, Ontario the Capital of Canada.

In fact by doing so and fudging official federal statistics by including both cities as a single entity is a total misrepresentation of actual facts and and as far as Iam concerned constitutes FRAUD.

[Leafless]

Slavic 44

You wrote- " This is perhaps one of those situations where the Conservatives could have done something quietly but I suppose that doesn't play into the hands of Quebec nationalism."

That's all the more reason not move a stick more of federal property into Quebec as Quebec nationalism does not jive with federalism as proven by the separtist party that represents Quebec federalism and who as rejected just about every federal inititive to promote bilingualism policies and never even signed Canada's Constitution.

I think it's time Canadian's received the chance to reject or accept Quebec as part of confederation rather than Canada's politicians constantly playing the old constitutional blackmail game at the expense of Canadians. The only thing that will quell Quebec's thirst for independence is a constant flow of tax payers money and more federal powers and this worn out old record guarantees nothing but only more future demands from this self-rightous province.