Gail Asper's, the out-of-control spending on CMHR

[styky]

Who didn't pay their taxes, again? The Canadian Museum for Human Rights
http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2011/07/wh ... again.html

[styky]

Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Gail Asper's latest revelations about the out-of-control spending on the CMHR


The Winnipeg Free Press is working so hard at being trendy that its forgotten something important---to report the news.

This week they were hyping an appearance at the trendy Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe by trendy millionaire moocher Gail Asper.

News Cafe website:
"Join the Free Press for a (late) Power Lunch with Gail Asper, No. 2 on the Winnipeg Free Press Power 30 list, at the Winnipeg Free Press News Café... Hear the inside scoop from the woman behind the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, one of the most-anticipated projects in Winnipeg's history."

18 people showed up...................http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2011/07/ga ... about.html

[free_life2]

Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Gail Asper's latest revelations about the out-of-control spending on the CMHR


The Winnipeg Free Press is working so hard at being trendy that its forgotten something important---to report the news.

This week they were hyping an appearance at the trendy Winnipeg Free Press News Cafe by trendy millionaire moocher Gail Asper.

News Cafe website:
"Join the Free Press for a (late) Power Lunch with Gail Asper, No. 2 on the Winnipeg Free Press Power 30 list, at the Winnipeg Free Press News Café... Hear the inside scoop from the woman behind the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, one of the most-anticipated projects in Winnipeg's history."

18 people showed up.

Once Gail Asper got her mouth running, she unleashed a series of bombshells, none of which has been reported in the pages of the FP. So we'll do their job instead.

Gail Asper revealed:

* The fund-raising Friends of the CMHR haven't raised a penny in the first seven months of 2011.
* The cost of construction has risen $3.6 million.
* The cost of the museum might go even higher, and Gail Asper doesn't care if it does.
* She expects the CMHR will eventually attract as many as 850,000 people a year to Winnipeg.

- The $25 million hole in the construction budget that was there in December is still there today, and that's after factoring in another $3.6 million from the City of Winnipeg.

The new cost overrun is obviously being plugged by the City. This explains why Mayor Sam Katz spearheaded a city council resolution to kickback precisely $3.6 million to the museum from taxes it will allegedly pay. The CMHR hasn't paid its property or school taxes for two years.

- Host/interviewer Geoff Kirbyson asked as gently as possible whether costs were still rising.

With another year and a half until the museum opens, he said, is there a chance that the fundraising goal might go up even more?
"I can't really say," answered Gail Asper. "I certainly hope not. There's contingency funds.."

No, there's not. The contingency was eaten up two years ago. There's no gravy left.

- Still, Gail Asper patted herself on the back for a job well done regardless of cost.

"I think we're doing incredibly well coming in at $45 million (in construction cost overruns) for obviously what is a really, really complicated building."

- For the first time ever the source of the estimate of tourists expected to visit the CMHR was revealed.

Museum CEO Stu Murray has been claiming its from a study prepared by Manitoba Statistics, but Gail Asper said the number 250,000 came from a museum planning and design company in Toronto.

It took no time to dig up the name of the company, Lord Cultural Resources.

Asper said they told her that the CMHR building in New York would attract two million people a year, but in an isolated city like Winnipeg, 250,000 people was possible.

She said that she not only expects the museum to reach the 250,000 tourists a year mark, but to exceed it by leaps and bounds. Her model for the CMHR project, the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain, now attracts 850,000 people a year ten years after opening, she said.

- Asper inadvertently exposed more than expected about the cozy relationship she has with the Winnipeg Free Press, a close financial and personal relationship that exceeds any ethical boundary between a newspaper and a newsmaker.

It's proof that anything written in the FP about the CMHR is nothing more than propaganda.

In thanking donors to the museum, Asper added
"including the Winnipeg Free Press. The Free Press has been a phenomenal financial supporter. You've given us a lot of coverage. You've also given us major ad space so we can celebrate our victories on the campaign from the Free Press. Thank you very much for all of that. I really appreciate it."

Even Kirbyson, a reporter at the FP, appeared embarassed by the gushing disclosure into how hand-in-glove the newspaper's relationship with Gail Asper is.

But she wasn't finished.

- Feeling among friends, she felt free to engage in the insufferable hubris you expect from the Asper clan.

Kirbyson was setting up a question about how much credit the museum deserved for bringing tourists to Winnipeg when so many other developments are taking place, from the return of the Jets, to a new airport, to a new stadium when Gail Asper interrupted him.

"A new stadium."
"A new stadium," he said, picking up on her reference to the family connection.

"Thanks to David Asper," she said. "David Asper Stadium, I think it should be called."

Say what?

Name a stadium after a failed businessman who scammed the city for $4 million?

Are you trying to intimate there would be no new stadium without David Asper?

There were several other stadium plans in the mix, from successful businessmen, and the outstanding question is why the province and Sam Katz (okay, the province, we know Katz is in the Asper pocket) favoured David Asper over the others.

His wacko scheme stunk from Day One and everybody knew it. Now we're stuck with a stadium we can't afford in a location that doesn't want it.

For generations we'll be taking school tax money from children in one end of town to pay for a stadium in another part of town. And David Asper collected $4 million from taxpayers to repay him for a risk nobody but his ego asked him to take.

So the taxpayer is stuck making good on a gamble he made and for that we should name a stadium after him? Maybe it makes sense to Sam Katz.

- And it makes sense to Gail Asper who's now on the gravy train herself. Free travel and accomodations around the world for life, thanks to her position on the CMHR board. She gets to travel and insult all the world's ethnic groups who don't agree with her strident extremist positions on museum content while the Free Press kowtows to her.
Which is why Kirbyson never asked her about her insults aimed at the Ukrainian community of Winnipeg and Canada. Instead, his first question was:

"Did you get Winnipeg Jets tickets?"

http://blackrod.blogspot.com/

[LAR]

Nice of Canadian taxpayers to buy the Aspers a museum.
From Wikipedia:

To date, the Government of Canada has allocated $100 million, the Government of Manitoba has donated $40 million, and the City of Winnipeg has donated $20 million

Imagine all the human rights like food, water and shelter that money could have provided for those in need. I hope Mrs. Asper enjoys her cocktail parties surrounded by pictures of suffering people.

[RedDog]

When was this $100M from the feds initiated? The government won't put a dime into new arenas - and I'm on record as saying I prefer it that way - but why funds for patronage pork barrels like this mess then?

[styky]

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=145411

I tried merging the two but the new system sucks so you'll just have to search it out yourself.

[free_life2]

Nice of Canadian taxpayers to buy the Aspers a museum.
From Wikipedia:

To date, the Government of Canada has allocated $100 million, the Government of Manitoba has donated $40 million, and the City of Winnipeg has donated $20 million

Imagine all the human rights like food, water and shelter that money could have provided for those in need. I hope Mrs. Asper enjoys her cocktail parties surrounded by pictures of suffering people.

Exactly the invisible elephant in the room. While they all impress each other with their importance to each other through the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars that came from people they wouldn't give the time of day to. Meanwhile children mere minutes away from their monster idol won't eat properly again today.

[styky]

Memory becomes a minefield at Canada’s Museum for Human Rights
Ira Basen
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011 6:00AM EDT
It all began with the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

In May, 2000, Gail Asper was standing in line at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., waiting to see the historic document. She was accompanied by a group of Grade 9 students. The money for the trip was provided by the Asper family charitable foundation, controlled by her late father, Izzy, then the chief executive officer of Canwest Global, Canada's largest media empire.

Mr. Asper thought that Jewish children in Winnipeg needed to learn more about the Holocaust. So he conscripted his daughter, a lawyer, to organize trips to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Then he thought the students also needed to know more about human rights, so they added a few more stops on to the Washington itinerary. Which is how Ms. Asper found herself standing in line to see the Declaration of Independence.

“The lineup to see the Declaration of Independence is like a Disneyland lineup,” she recalls, “and we're standing in this ridiculous lineup and I'm thinking, ‘Why are we doing this? What do these kids know about the Canadian Charter?' So I start talking to these Grade 9 students and they know nothing about the Charter, but they all know, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.' So I go back and I tell my dad that we need to make this a Canadian trip.”

The only problem was there was nowhere in Canada to take kids where they could learn about the Holocaust, or human rights, or even see the Charter on display. ...........http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le2135961/

[RedDog]

Not to be outdone, they've decided that perhaps the finest museum in the country, the Royal Alberta Museum and Archives, needs a $340M replacement downtown. Somebody has got to stop this insanity and lavish monument building to large egos with public funds.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/ ... ction.html

[free_life2]

These museums need to be built with contributions from those who want them , no tax dollars.

[RedDog]

Preserving local history and record is one thing that could be considered a community responsibility but this personal ego monument building is getting out of hand. The Provincial Museum in Edmonton is an outstanding facility on a fantastic property with a commanding view of the river valley in a tranquil setting next to Government House in a quiet and historic neighbourhood. They're trying to to tie this in to the new hockey arena/casino/shopping mall project downtown and latch onto associated funding connections. Yuck. This has got to be stopped.

[styky]

Monday, August 29, 2011
The CMHR pulls an Oliver Twist: Please sirs, we want some more - - money.


The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has informed the federal government in no uncertain terms that it can't pay its tax bills to the City of Winnipeg.

And the CMHR says in its latest annual report that it will have no money to cover its utility bills once it opens.

From the 2010-2011 annual report:

"The Museum will be seeking the government's approval to augment the operating funds already committed by an amount sufficient to cover the required property tax (PILT) payments and to address ongoing pressures of inflation in operating, maintenance and capital repairs."

Translation: The CMHR has a plan.

The government should give it more money to pay its outstanding bills.

Much more than the $21.7 million a year that's budgeted.

Then everything will be alright.

oh, and if the museum doesn't pay its tax bill in 2012 for the third year running it goes up for a tax sale.

In Winnipeg that means the City takes ownership of the property unless the taxes and penalties are paid in full within a year. Does Salisbury House need another restaurant?

And the museum's electricity bill alone is expected to be huge. The CMHR is already signalling to the government, and the public, that its not your father's kind of museum. It runs on electricity.

"The CMHR is a new kind of museum; an "idea" and "dialogue" museum that relies heavily on technology to deliver the stories, videos and digital "artifacts" that visitors will engage with both on site and from around the world. The Museum's unique IT requirements have necessitated greater investment than anticipated in earlier estimates. In 2010- 2011, the Museum invested in network equipment — the first of the required information technology infrastructure. Further expenditures for servers and storage are planned for future years."

Oh, and it looks like the CMHR won't be able to raise the money needed to finish building the "iconic" structure. Can the government help with that too?

Two years ago the museum board of trustees confessed they were $45 million short on the construction funding. Since they claim the private fundraising arm of the museum, Friends of the CMHR, has raised pledges of another $10 million, leaving them still $35 million in the glue with two years to the opening date.

Their chance of raising that money is equal to Gaddafi's chance of resuming power in Libya. But there's always hope, isn't there? Here's how the CMHR annual report presents that hope as of March 31, 2011:

"The Friends of the CMHR has committed to raising the additional $45 million, in addition to its original contribution, from the public and private sectors."

See? The "private" sector will raise money from the public sector, aka governments and government agencies like Manitoba Hydro. They'll get the money from taxpayers, then Sam Katz and Greg Selinger can claim the funding from "private" donors justifies even more spending from the public coffers.

Among the red flags in the annual report is the suggestion that CMHR CEO Stuart Murray did his best to mislead the federal cabinet about the museum's plans and exhibits.

The issue arose when the Ukrainian Community complained that the CMHR was actually a Holocaust museum in disguise, with the rest of Canada's ethnic groups being relegated to second class status by having their stories relegated to a 'Mass Atrocities' gallery which lumped all the world's genocides and mass murders in together while the Holocaust story got its own exclusive gallery.

Federal Heritage Minister James Moore was questioned on this point in April by Winnipeg Free Press columnist Dan Lett, who wrote:

"(Moore) said he had been told no final decisions on museum content had been made and that no one subject would be getting permanent status. "There will be no permanent exhibits," Moore said. "That was very clear from Stuart Murray and the board."

The Jewish Post followed up on the Lett story and carried this note:

"However, on April 11 after Lett’s article had been published, Moore’s acting communications director James Maunder told The Globe and Mail: “No final decisions have been made on any permanent exhibits, or if there will be any.”[emphasis added (in the original)]."

And yet, the CMHR '10-'11 annual report says final decisions had already been taken.

"Over the past fiscal year multi-departmental teams — in-house human rights experts and exhibit designers — compiled and then translated this extraordinary raft of research, scholarship and public input into distinct exhibit-design plans. These meticulously crafted plans will now ultimately serve as the blueprints that fabricators will use to bring the Museum's inaugural exhibits to life."

"Included in these new blueprints are detailed 3D models that map out where in the Museum each exhibit will be built and specify the materials to be used. With this critical foundation in place, elevation work, graphic design, information visualization and media and technology design can now commence, setting the stage for the exhibit construction and carpentry that will begin next year."

Was the board deliberately misleading Parliament? It wouldn't be the first time.

The CMHR even rewrites history in its report to hide the fact. It wrote:

"Prior to spring of 2008, cost estimates for the Museum building were based on a very preliminary design. From spring 2008 onwards, engineers and consultants were engaged to advance the Predock design so that more accurate cost estimating could be achieved."

****
"On February 11, 2008, the Government of Canada introduced legislation in Parliament to create the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and the bill was passed by a unanimous decision of the Canadian Parliament. The amendments to the Museums Act received Royal Assent in the early spring of 2008 and came into force by Order in Council on August 10, 2008."

What the CMHR board left out was reported in The Black Rod in May, 2009, in a story headlined "CMHR to Politicians: We Lied. So, Whatcha Gonna Do?"

continued at...........http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2009/05/cm ... atcha.html

[Darren]

Who cares. Ditch the stinkin' mess. What right does Canada have to build a Museum of Human Rights? Unless, of course, that's where they're planning to put what's left of ours.

[styky]

This should be accompanied by violins playing
Hmmm They don't mention anything about getting up to date with their property taxes. I know if I don't pay mine for 2 years they can take my property. Hmmmm.



Human rights museum will engage all of Canada


By Nicki Thomas, Edmonton Journal September 20, 2011
EDMONTON - The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is going to give Canadians a generation of “active, informed and engaged citizens,” said its leading campaigner.

“You’re going to have students who will never not vote; students who understand their responsibilities as citizens. They’re going to get more involved in civic life,” said Gail Asper, the national campaign chair for the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Once construction is complete on the building on the shores of The Forks in Winnipeg, an annual travel grant aims to bring 20,000 students from across the country through its doors.

The national museum was envisioned by the late Izzy Asper, whose foundation sent thousands of Canadian students to human rights institutions in Washington, D.C.

Seeing the trips’ impact on students, Asper sought to create a distinctly Canadian experience.

His daughter was in Edmonton Monday night discussing the museum’s progress at a reception hosted by PCL Constructors. The Edmonton-based construction company is building the 21,154-square-metre architectural feat of curved steel and glass, topped with a 100-metre tower named for hope. The $310-million project is being funded through a partnership between the three levels of government and the private sector, which is contributing $150 million.

So far, 6,600 donors from across the country have contributed $130 million, Asper said. That includes $11 million from donors in Alberta, among them the Alberta Teachers’ Association and PCL, which along with its employees, has donated more than $1 million, said CEO Paul Douglas.

“This is a very noble cause. Our people feel so proud in being able to get behind something so significant,” he said.

The museum will highlight Canada’s human rights’ story, from indigenous rights to the Famous Five to the internments of Canadian citizens, as well as international history from the Holocaust to the Rwandan genocide. Once complete, it will be the first national museum built outside of Ottawa in 40 years, said its president Stuart Murray, who called it a “game-changer.”...................http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/Huma ... story.html

[styky]

Brodbeck: CMHR burning through cash

By Tom Brodbeck ,Winnipeg Sun

First posted: Monday, November 21, 2011 08:14 PM CST
Well that didn’t take long.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg isn’t even open yet and it’s already projecting to blow its maximum federal operating grant of nearly $22 million this year.

The Harper government committed up to $21.7 million annually to pay for the facility’s ongoing operating costs once it’s open. It’s a big chunk of change. You could almost run a community hospital with that kind of dough.

A 'NEED'

The doors aren’t even open on this palace and museum brass say they’re already planning to spend the full $21.7 million in 2011-12, according to the Crown corporation’s most recent annual report.

“For the fiscal year 2011-2012, the museum is limited to and forecasts a need for $21.7 million,” the annual report says.

Right, a “need.”

And just to be clear, this has nothing to do with the construction of the museum. The $310-million museum is being paid for by the three levels of government and by the private sector.

The $21.7 million was supposed to be the cost of running the place. They’ve already reached that limit and the first visitor hasn’t even walked through the door yet.

That’s in part because they’ve already hired 50 full-time staff as of March 31 to work in their temporary office — including people working in “research and archives, new media, exhibits planning, human resources and aboriginal relations,” the report says.

And they’re adding more staff this year. The museum says it plans to hire another 35 full-time staff “to continue development of exhibitions, programs and web and social-media offerings.”

That’s code word for “growing the government bureaucracy.” These guys are already empire-building.

The museum also forgot to include the cost of property taxes in its original business plan (payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, actually, because it’s a Crown corporation).

That and just a general “need” for more tax dollars is why museum brass say they plan on hitting the federal government up for more operating cash.

INFLATION

They want taxpayers to bail them out — again.

“The museum will be seeking the government’s approval to augment the operating funds already committed by an amount sufficient to cover the required property tax (PILT) payments and to address ongoing pressures of inflation in operating, maintenance and capital repairs,” the report says.

That “inflation” in operating costs will include a union contract the museum is expected to sign with staff that will no doubt include rich government salaries, top-notch benefits and indexed pensions.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada has been affirmed as the union representing non-management staff at the museum.

This thing is off the rails.

I can’t imaging how the Harper government could in good conscience increase the museum’s operating grant when the Tories are still struggling with a massive multi-billion deficit.

I’m amazed museum brass — including CEO Stuart Murray who’s been traveling all over the world on the public dime — would even have the gall to ask taxpayers for more operating cash given the federal government’s current circumstances.

Regardless of the merits — or lack thereof — of building a massive, expensive national human rights museum largely with taxpayer dough, this thing is now officially way out of control.

It’s time to rein these guys in and say “enough.”

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/11/21/b ... rough-cash