The Ottawa Citizen

It cost the Harper government about $6.5 million to halt work on the Portrait Gallery of Canada on Wellington Street and to seek another location, according to internal government documents.

About $4.5 million was lost when the government cancelled the plan for a gallery in the former United States embassy building. An additional $1.9 million was spent on a national competition among nine cities to host the gallery.

"They spent that money and we got zero value," said NDP MP Paul Dewar who obtained the documents through an access to information request.

"Instead of going ahead with a project they were told was on budget and on time, they came up with this other process that went nowhere and cost us money."

In a 2007 memo to the Minister of Public Works, bureaucrats noted that $11.4 million had already been spent on the former embassy building across from Parliament Hill.

(Public Works spent $6.5 million and Library and Archives Canada spent $4.9 million.)

The work included planning, design, gutting the interior, removal of asbestos and program development.

"To date the project is on budget and on time," says the memo. "The project is well advanced for completion by December 2007 ... costs totalling $4.5 million are exclusive to the use of the building as a portrait gallery and would be considered 'lost' if the current direction is changed."

The $4.5 million included fees for design consultants and construction managers.

The $1.9 million spent on the competition included fees for a selection committee, consultants, and salaries for Library and Archives staff.

Last November, Heritage Minister James Moore cancelled the process, saying the decision was based on "global economic instability" and on bids that fell short of the government's requirements.

"This partisan approach to culture has wasted millions of taxpayers' dollars with no portrait gallery to show for it," Mr. Dewar said during question period in the House of Commons yesterday.

Dean Del Mastro, parliamentary secretary for the minister for Canadian heritage replied that "we currently are living in challenging economic times."

"Unfortunately the minister had to withdraw a process that had been set in place on the portrait gallery, but it is something that we look to revisit at some point in the future."

In 2001, the government passed a motion to establish a gallery for the paintings and photographs stored in archives in Gatineau. At the time, the Chrétien Liberals unveiled a plan for a gallery at the former U.S. embassy site, then scheduled for completion by 2005 at an estimated cost of $22 million.