The Canadian Museum for Human Rights: The Cathedral of Canadian Exceptionalism

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, was completed in 2014, but it faced numerous criticisms soon after its opening. Located on Treaty 1 territory at The Forks, the museum's construction was controversial due to the significant excavation that took place without consideration for the needs or desires of the Indigenous population it materially affected. Despite these limitations, Erica Lehrer, author of Thinking through the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, believes that the museum holds the potential to catalyze critical thinking and spark necessary debates about human rights, their limits, and their violation, serving as a focal point for discussions about social justice and historical memory. However, the author of this paper disagrees with Lehrer's framing, viewing the CMHR as a state-funded monument to colonialism and exploitation that presents a nationalist view of Canada as a beacon of freedom and democracy while ignoring the settler-colonialist violence that was required for the museum's construction.

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is the first national museum dedicated to human rights’ evolution, celebration, and future. The exhibits at the museum are designed to educate, engage, and inspire visitors to learn about human rights, both past and present, and to take action to promote respect for human dignity and equality for all. Or at least, that is what you are supposed to take away from the museum's exhibits and architecture. The sad reality of the museum’s existence is that it is a federally funded and operated museum that does not serve the people of Canada in their ability to think critically about Canada’s role in the adverse outcomes of human rights abuses. The museum emerged as a significant icon of historical and cultural politics that Canada’s former Conservative government, under Stephen Harper, created through the building, reshaping, and funding (and defunding) of national cultural institutions across the country, including museums, monuments, and public archives. The Conservative government created a structure with no connections to Human Rights, only business and nationalistic endeavour. It filled the highest rungs of the organization with corrupt career politicians such as Stuart Murray, who was directly responsible for significant amounts of the abuse reported on by Harris. The museum, under Murray and his successor John Young, faced growing criticism for how it racially discriminated against BIPOC staff and how management refused to look into serious accusations of sexual assault and harassment. The museum has gone through many changes since its inception. However, these changes are primarily aesthetic and only serve to continue the adoration of the settler colonialist state of Canada. Lehrer even acknowledges this early on in her article by stating, “[This] museum dedicated to dialogue and debate about the capacity for human atrocity…but [it does not] challenge how our own cultural beliefs and political systems may be bound up in the suffering of others.” The CMHR is a beautiful building built with luxurious imported materials and technology that serves as a shrine for nationalistic indoctrination of a globalist, liberal worldview that Canadians are expected to view uncritically from an exceptionalist perspective. 

Wrapped in a glossy finish that is visually engaging, the CMHR is a consumerist and exploitative facility to those who are directly affected by its construction and existence, such as the people of Shoal Lake 40 who had their land destroyed to provide water for the City of Winnipeg. One of the themes that architect Antoine Predock used in designing the facility was the Indigenous theme of ‘healing waters,’ which the people of Shoal Lake 40 were able to capitalize on politically. Shoal Lake 40 had been under a boil-water advisory for decades, and the museum opening allowed for the band members to put on their exhibit on their land called Violations that welcomed visitors to see the island and its vulnerabilities firsthand, complete with a brochure, website, and Facebook page. Lehrer views this as a positive because after 100 years of Shoal Lake 40 dealing with their land being sundered to allow fresh water to flow to the city, the CMHR was the spark that got their voices heard. However, this is not entirely true, the connection between the museum opening and the band getting fresh water for themselves could be made, but in the opinion of the author of this paper, a seven-year gap between the opening of the museum and the band getting fresh water makes this argument tangential at best and outright sinister at worst. It should not have taken a national museum opening up in the band’s backyard for them to get fresh water.. While the museum acknowledges that the facility's water comes directly from Shoal Lake 40 in the CMHR’s land acknowledgement, doing so directly contradicts Lehrer’s argument. Lehrer views this act of sparking discourse as an inherent good that outweighs the patriarchal aspects of the creation, construction and exploitation inherent in the museum and exhibits. 

In the Canadian Journeys exhibit, visitors can experience stories from eighteen different communities around Canada. Over two thousand participants helped create this massive attraction, and the prompt to those participating was, “What stories come to mind when you think of Human Rights in Canada?” The museum answers this question by utilizing many of these individuals’ stories and experiences, covering topics such as Family Leave, the Winnipeg General Strike, Temporary Foreign Workers and many more. Canadian Journeys looks at the broader context of human rights in Canada, including the country's laws and policies that have shaped its human rights journey. The exhibit highlights the role of government, the courts, and civil society in promoting and protecting human rights in Canada. Visitors experience these stories in bite-sized anecdotes with little context given to what connects them and what the viewer is supposed to take away from them, other than Canada is doing its best. The author of this paper views Canadian Journeys as one of the exhibits with the closest connection to what Lehrer references when they say, “the clearest single idea the total museum communicates is one of a singularly heroic Canada: a safe haven and international arbiter of justice.” Viewers see how Canada of the past dealt with some of the terrible things that have happened. One such instance is that of the Winnipeg General Strike. Instead of invoking class dynamics, capitalism and exploitation that could be connected to our modern reality, viewers are implored to look at how bad things were and how they are today. What is not shown or explicitly laid out is oftentimes more important than what is actually being shown, especially in a medium that serves as a propaganda tool for nationalist exceptionalism.

Indigenous Perspectives is a flashy exhibit but has been the subject of controversy throughout its existence at the museum. A giant woven basket turned into a multimedia theatrical display features a video of Indigenous activists fighting for their human rights to water, land, and security is the main attraction for the exhibit. The video shows countless references to water and its importance while the building that the video is being shown in relies on waters from stolen land taken from the same people it claims to give a voice to. The inherent contradictions within the presentation of the exhibit and where it is being exhibited cannot be understated. The museum lies on land desecrated by the state that now holds this display. During the excavation of the land in preparation for construction, over 400,000 artifacts were found, some dating back as far as 1100 CE. While the exhibition presents itself as a cultural, artistic rendition of resistance, the museum’s history and parts of the presentation raise a cause for concern. Tricia Logan, a former Indigenous content curator, reported being instructed to take out the word "genocide" from display materials and to limit coverage of Indigenous hardship while she was employed at the museum. This occurred while Indigenous communities were involved in creating content for the gallery. When viewed in conjunction with former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's statement at the 2009 G20 summit that Canada doesn't have a history of colonialism, it raises questions about the immediate appeal of the gallery, which focuses on conventional, attractive themes like arts and crafts and spirituality instead of addressing the historical and ongoing marginalization and conflict with the Canadian government. It can be argued that the Conservative government of Harper used the museum and the display to deny the ongoing genocide of First Nations people in Canada.

In conclusion, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is a state-funded monument to colonialism and exploitation. It presents a nationalist view of Canada as a beacon of freedom and democracy while ignoring the settler-colonialist violence required for its construction. The museum's focus on a liberal worldview, lack of critical examination of Canada's role in human rights abuses, and disregard for the needs and desires of Indigenous populations limit its potential to serve as a focal point for discussions about social justice and historical memory. The evidence suggests that the museum's potential to catalyze critical thinking and spark necessary debates about human rights and their violation is limited by its lack of critical examination of the exploitation that allowed for its construction and its focus on a nationalist exceptionalist view of Canada. 

Micah Dewey

References

Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Virtual Tour. Winnipeg: Canadian Museum for Human Rights, 2023. Presentation. Accessed February 7, 2023.

Canadian Museum for Human Rights. "CMHR Releases Important Archaeology Findings: New Light Cast on Historic Role of The Forks." Canadian Museum for Human Rights, 2014. Accessed February 9, 2023. https://humanrights.ca/news/cmhr-releases-important-archaeology-findings-new-light-cast-historic-role-forks.

Harris, Laurelle. REBUILDING THE FOUNDATION External review into systemic racism and oppression at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Harris Law Solutions, 2020.

Lehrer, Erica. "Thinking through the Canadian Museum for Human Rights." American Quarterly 67, no. 4 (2015): 1195–216. https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2015.0076.