Prime Minister Harper announces agreement to create the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced that Canada’s New Government has reached an agreement with four public and private sector partners to establish the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.

The museum, which would be the first national museum built outside the National Capital Region, will portray, promote and celebrate the history and evolution of human rights in Canada.

“Rights only flourish in free, democratic societies like Canada, where the principles of fairness, pluralism, and justice are embedded in the history of the country and the values of its people, as well as the laws of their governments,” Prime Minister Harper said.

The Government’s partners in the project are the Province of Manitoba, the City of Winnipeg, the Friends of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, and the Forks Renewal Corporation. The federal commitment of $100 million is contingent on its partners raising $165 million towards the cost of the museum. 

“Never before has there been a collaboration of this scale to develop a national museum, but if ever there were a Canadian cultural institution suited for a private-public partnership, it is this one, because human rights can never be the exclusive preserve of the state,” added the Prime Minister.

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights, the vision of the late I.H. “Izzy” Asper, will be established in downtown Winnipeg at the Forks of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers, which has long been renowned as a place where Canada’s diverse First Peoples traditionally met to resolve their differences peacefully.