KEVIN MENZ
Associate News Editor

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was in Saskatoon on Sept. 9 to announce that the federal government accepted the University of Saskatchewan’s request to rejuvenate the Diefenbaker Canada Centre. Through the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, the federal government will provide $1.3 million for the project out of the $2.65 million that the project is eligible to receive from the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund.

The announcement was strategically scheduled on the 50th anniversary of the Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker’s implementation of the Bill of Rights, which calls for “the recognition and protection of human rights and freedoms.”

“Diefenbaker believed that all Canadians were equal before the law,” said Harper.

“He believed in freedom and that the essence of freedom was that law abiding citizens should not suffer arbitrary intrusions into their lives from their governments. Therefore, the Diefenbaker Centre serves a profound national purpose as keeper of this noble inspiration.”

Michael Atkinson, executive director of the Diefenbaker Canada Centre and the U of S Graduate School of Public Policy, provided details about the project plans.

He stated that arranging the rejuvenation project’s announcement was a difficult process.

“First of all, we needed to get the funding so we could actually complete the project by the end of March,” said Atkinson. “Second, we had to get the prime minister to agree to come and to celebrate with us the 30th anniversary of the building and the 50th anniversary of the Bill of Rights.”

The project must be completed by March because the government’s Infrastructure Stimulus Fund has a March 31st deadline on all projects. Harper could not provide a definitive answer as to whether the deadline will be extended.

Regardless of timing, having the funding is something that Atkinson is very pleased about. He noted that because the federal government is not providing all of the funds for the project, the ISF funds will likely all be used before the March 31st deadline. This means that the university would pay the remaining project funds.

“The School of Public Policy is here [in the Diefenbaker Canada Centre] and that is a major reason why the university was willing to put up its portion of the money to improve the academic space, which includes building an interior classroom event room, seminar rooms and meeting spaces.”

Aside from a much larger room at the Centre’s gallery for the curator to organize exhibits, “the biggest investment of all is a new HVAC system ­­— heat, ventilation, humidity and air conditioning,” said Atkinson.

“In order to keep bringing in exhibits, we need to have gallery and museum space that meets contemporary standards. Right now we just don’t have that.”

While Atkinson notes that this funding “is strictly infrastructure money,” he hopes that it will bring in more people and funds and result in a larger operating budget.

“I’d love to have additional operating funds because our plan for the Diefenbaker Centre is to, yes, enhance the physical climate and quality but also to bring in some leadership programming aimed mostly at high-school students. We want to be able to, for example, spend some time on teaching people about Constitutional history and give them a chance to participate in model United Nations and parliaments and things like that, which I feel very confident Mr. Diefenbaker would be very pleased about.”

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image: Lesley Porter