(Ottawa) The federal government changed the final design choice for a proposed monument to Canada’s intervention in Afghanistan, but Ottawa did not consult veterans to see if they felt the situation warranted a change .
The monument is supposed to “honor the commitment and sacrifice of Canadians to help rebuild Afghanistan,” according to its vision statement, but the government rejected the first design chosen by a jury and chose another option.
The decision was taken after the Taliban took control of the country
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs has already studied the issue, but just before Christmas, Conservative MP Blake Richards, frustrated by the lack of answers from the government, introduced a motion to order the government to hand over more documents to explain its decision.
More than 40,000 Canadian soldiers and hundreds of civilians and government officials served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014. The government announced plans to build a national monument to the mission in 2014 and a competition was launched in August 2019.
In November 2021, a jury chose the Daoust team’s design. The latter described her lace-shaped stone wall as referring to “a vision of the world through the magnified pattern of a burqa, a view opened by the axis of democracy”.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY DAOUST LESTAGE LIZOTTE STECKER
Aerial view of the concept imagined by the winning Quebec team of the competition, the Daoust team
This selection took place three months after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, which led to radical changes and a rollback of women’s rights.
Shortly after the selection, government officials began to question internally whether this vision was still relevant.
In the end, the government chose a different option. Last June, Lawrence MacAulay, then Minister of Veterans Affairs, announced that the monument would instead be designed by Indigenous artist and armed forces veteran Adrian Stimson, with a more soldier-centered proposal.
Documents submitted last fall to the Veterans Affairs committee show plans were made to consult with families of fallen veterans, but they never happened. They also say the government warned it could not overturn the jury’s choice and re-award the $3 million contract without risking legal action.
A month after this warning, the government was considering doing so.
The government will not answer questions about why the consultations were not implemented, citing attorney-client privilege. A Department of Veterans Affairs spokesperson said this week that it decided to instead rely on feedback from an anonymous online survey conducted on the five finalist designs in May and June 2021.