Canadian Museum of Human Rights
You have to hand it to Winnipeggers. They are a unique and fascinating bunch. They endure unbearably hot summers and extremely cold winters. Even though they tell me things are not as extreme as they used to be, I can tell you personally that they still are, or so it seems to me. I was there just a few weeks ago and it was 34 C, in the shade. I was also there two winters ago and it was – 30 C in the sunshine. It gets so cold that it literally takes your breath away when you walk. On top of all that there are large mosquitoes to put up with during hot summers. A couple of summers ago I saw a young man walking downtown with a giant mosquito drawing on his t-shirt with the words: Provincial Bird of Manitoba.
The thing is, Winnipeg has great stamina and it is as Canadian as it gets anywhere. Everything about it is Canadian. In terms of people; there are many who are bilingual, in fact I would suggest that many are trilingual given the rich history of French, English and Métis. There are many other ethnicities and everyone gets along just fine. There is nothing more Canadian than seeing all manner of people and hearing all kinds of Canadian dialects at a Tim Hortons in the ‘Peg.
Just to the east of Winnipeg on the Trans-Canada highway is small sign (if you blink you miss it) that tells you that you are at the geographic, east-west centre of the country. It is said that the spiritual centre of Canada is at the intersection of the streets of Portage and Main. Ironically people can no longer go there due to development but there is talk of bringing it back and a groundswell of support to do it.
Winnipeggers are hardy. They have been through the catastrophic loss of a professional hockey team and then got it back so there is hope for the spirit of Portage and Main.
Because of where they are, Winnipeggers can’t call themselves westerners, nor would they dare to refer to themselves as easterners. They endure floods from the Red River. They are subject to prairie tornadoes, especially on the western side of the town where on a clear night you can see lightning hundreds of miles away – a pure magical sight. And snow? They once piled up so much snow they called it Snow Mountain and it took until late June for it all to melt.
Many in Winnipeg declare themselves conservative, yet they have elected Liberals and even have an NDP provincial government. They are all things but they are first and foremost Canadian and they are proud of it. They should be. Everything that stands for Canada is right there in Winnipeg. Chief among these things is freedom and human rights.
Many will tell you that this is one of the many reasons why the Canadian Museum of Human Rights is located right in the middle of this city. Real estate professionals are raising money for naming rights for Realtors within this honourable place for good reason.
Anyone with even a minimal understanding of the common rights of people will tell you that the foundation of freedom is the right to own property. To buy and sell property freely is the ultimate act of free people. Nowhere in the world is the simple act of owning property more treasured than in Canada. In this, we are irrefutably the leaders of the free world. There is no better place to celebrate this than in Winnipeg, the centre of our country.
The real estate community will be recognized in the museum through the donations of Realtors across Canada. The extraordinary efforts of WinnipegRealtors and the Manitoba Real Estate Association have brought this project close to realty. It is a $2-million project that is now at $1.8 million. It needs a push to get over the top to achieve its goal. Two hundred thousand dollars is a great deal of money, yet if it was broken down it would only take one toonie from every Realtor in Canada to get it done.
No person, no profession, no kind of worker better represents the purchase and sale of property greater than a Realtor. No person represents the freedom to own a home more than a Canadian Realtor. This last push for inclusion in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights will not be achieved unless Realtors step forward now to tell their friends, their customers and their colleagues and perhaps dig a little deeper themselves to make this happen. It’s in your hands.
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].
