Ottawa recently signed an out-of-court settlement with a team of Quebec architects that was denied a prestigious contract to design the National Monument to Canada’s Mission in Afghanistan.
Sources told Radio-Canada the confidential deal is worth more than $100,000, or at least three times the initial offer made to the team led by Montreal-based architect Renée Daoust in 2023.
At the time, the Daoust team learned it had won a national competition to design the $5-million monument, but that Ottawa would nonetheless give the contract to the group led by Indigenous artist Adrian Stimson.
The Daoust team’s concept won over the jury of the design competition launched in 2019, but the federal government did not award them the contract. (Veterans Affairs Canada)
Bound by a confidentiality clause, the Daoust team refused to comment on the settlement. In a written statement, however, they thanked all those who supported them in their attempt to force Ottawa to change its decision.
“We remain outraged by this process marred by irregularities and reiterate our commitment to the quality of architecture and public art in Canada, and to the integrity of the processes by which public funds are allocated,” said the statement from Daoust, artist Luca Fortin and international law expert Louise Arbour.
The federal government said it awarded the design contract to Stimson because his project was favoured by the families of Canadians who served in Afghanistan, as expressed in an online survey. The Daoust team had been selected by the jury tasked with reviewing submissions.
Jean-Pierre Chupin, an architecture professor and expert in public competitions, said the government’s decision was critically flawed.
“They discredited a complex and fragile competition process that aims to be fair, transparent, representative and therefore democratic,” said Chupin, who teaches at the Université de Montréal.
He said the online survey can be “clearly disqualifiable after a few minutes of analysis,” comparing it to a competition for “likes” on Facebook.
Jean-Pierre Chupin, an architecture professor and expert in public competitions, says the government’s decision was critically flawed. (Frédéric Tremblay/Radio-Canada)
Over 40,000 Canadians served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014, mostly military personnel but also government employees and humanitarian workers. Of these, 158 soldiers and seven civilians lost their lives.
The monument project was initiated by former prime minister Stephen Harper and continued under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.
The Daoust team’s proposal aimed to symbolize the struggle for democracy, incorporating elements reminiscent of Afghanistan’s mountains, the burqa worn by some women in the country and the Twin Towers that fell in New York on Sept. 11, 2001.
The government-favoured Stimson design more directly references the military aspect of the Afghan mission, featuring four helmets and bulletproof vests mounted on crosses at the centre of the monument.
Construction of the monument, as designed by the Stimson team, is scheduled to begin this spring in Ottawa. (Veterans Affairs Canada)
After informing the Daoust team that they would not be awarded the contract, Ottawa offered them $34,000 in compensation in an attempt to settle the matter.
Instead of accepting the offer, the Daoust team went public, garnering significant support and denouncing the federal government’s decision in the media and in Parliament.
Their main concern was that Ottawa would set a dangerous precedent by disregarding its own process for awarding major public contracts.
However, the Daoust team failed to convince the government to reverse its decision. Settlement negotiations began after the blessing of the downtown Ottawa site of the future Stimson-designed monument last fall.
The blessing of the future memorial site took place Sept. 26, in the presence of former minister of veterans affairs Ginette Petitpas Taylor and representatives of the Canadian Armed Forces. (Nicolas Legault/Radio-Canada)
The office of the minister of veterans affairs refused to provide details about the settlement, citing its confidentiality clause.
Spokesperson Wyatt Westover said the Stimson team has “finalized the design contract” with the National Capital Commission, which manages the site where the monument will be built.
Veterans Affairs Canada’s latest budget for the monument is $4.7 million. The federal department says it is currently conducting “a cost analysis to ensure the monument is completed as planned while honouring the service and sacrifice of Canadian veterans, their families and all those who served in the mission.”
The group of Quebec architects that was first selected and then rejected to build Canada’s national monument to Afghan mission veterans is threatening to sue the government if they aren’t given the full contract.
Bloc Québécois MP Luc Desilets, who spent months pressing the federal government on the issue without success, hopes the settlement includes punitive damages for the Daoust team.
He believes the federal government was “caught red-handed.”
According to Chupin, the entire project is tainted by this saga. He fears that Canadians who served overseas will ultimately pay the price.
“This was supposed to be a commitment to veterans, to honour them,” he said. “And now, I think we have dishonoured them.”
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