Memorial to the Victims of Communism (Ottawa)

The Memorial to the Victims of Communism — Canada, a Land of Refuge is a controversial proposed monument that is to be built in Ottawa. It was to be erected on a site between the Supreme Court of Canada and the National Library of Canada but in December 2015, Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly suggested that the National Capital Commission instead approve a 500 square metre site half a kilometre to the west, in the Garden of the Provinces and Territories. Under the revised timeline, a national competition was held in 2016 and 2017 to select a new design for the monument, with construction to be completed by 2018.

Joly complained that the previous Harper government had made the project too controversial. Her new Liberal government has moved the site and cut its budget. She stated:

The winning design was announced in May 2017 as Arc of Memory designed by Toronto architect Paul Raff in partnership with designer and arborist Michael A. Ormston-Holloway, and landscape architects Brett Hoornaert and Luke Kairys, and was described by the selection committee as follows:

In 2007, Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Jason Kenney toured Masaryktown, a private park owned by the Czech and Slovak community in Toronto, with Czech ambassador Pavel Vosalik and saw Crucified Again, a statue of a tortured man crucified on a hammer and sickle, commemorating victims of Soviet oppression. Kenney commented to the ambassador that the public should be able to see such a monument and they discussed the idea of creating a memorial in Ottawa.

Tribute to Liberty was founded the next year as a charity with the mission of building a monument to the victims of Communism. Its 9-member board is composed of members of ethnocultural communities and whose families originate from various former or still Communist states. The founding chair of the group was Philip Leong who had run as a candidate for the conservative Canadian Alliance in the 2000 federal election and is described by the National Post as a friend of Kenney's and an admirer of Stephen Harper. Alide Forstmanis, the group's treasurer who has also served as chair, ran for the Conservative Party of Canada nomination in Kitchener—Waterloo in 2007 while another former director, Wladyslaw Lizon was later elected a Conservative Member of Parliament.

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