Water park may open opposite Canadian Holocaust museum

Controversy is escalating in Canada over a proposed water park that may someday open next to a museum partly focused on the Holocaust.

Antoine Predock, the architect behind the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, sent a letter to Winnipeg city councilors last week protesting the possible water park, saying it “risks trivializing” the area. “It seems to me that this site is destined for a higher civic purpose than a water park,” Predock wrote, referring to a proposed 50,000-square-foot complex that would house both the park and a hotel opposite the museum.

A city council vote on the issue in April was postponed, and no new date has been set for the issue to be decided.

Even if the water-park controversy is resolved, other challenges remain for the museum, which has encountered a lengthy history of problems despite itself still being under construction. The long-simmering brainchild of now-deceased Canadian media mogul Israel Asper, the museum has exceeded its original budget by tens of millions of dollars since building began in 2009. Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper reports that most of the building’s exterior is completed, but that it may take years to fill the inside because of funding shortages.

Last year, debate erupted over proposed content for the museum, which was intended to include 12 galleries, one focusing on the Holocaust and another on the history of Canada’s indigenous peoples. Critics have alleged that the allocation of space gives short shrift to other historical genocides and injustices, with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Canadian Polish Congress, among others, asking for a review of the plans.

An opinion article published last year in the country’s National Post called the controversy “an embarrassing ethnic war,” and predicted the museum would be “turned into a convention center and casino a few years after it opens.”

Organizers hope to begin welcoming visitors to the museum next year.