Opinion: Human rights museum director should be fired - National Post

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg. Photo by David Lipnowski/PostmediaArticle contentThe current director of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR), Isha Khan, told its board that it is not her “boss.” The Globe and Mail reported this in August, in its article on the controversy over the museum’s “Nakba” exhibit, drawing on interviews with five board members.

The law is clear. And it is contrary to what Ms. Khan told the board about who is in charge.

Parliament decides who oversees the CMHR. Section 18(3) of the Museums Act holds the board “responsible for the fulfilment of the purposes and the management of the business, activities and affairs” of the museum. The director — Ms. Khan — is “responsible to the board,” and “under the direction of the board, has control and supervision of the work and staff of the museum.”

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Ms. Khan told the Globe that the director is not hired or fired by the board, but by the minister, to whom she reports.

Not so. By statute, the director is hired — and can be removed — by the board, in both cases with the approval of the cabinet. Board members are appointed — and can be removed — by the minister, again with the cabinet’s approval.

Both serve “during pleasure,” meaning they can be removed at any time within the term of their appointment. If the Interpretation Act is read alongside the museum act, as it must, then section 24(1) makes this explicit: the power to appoint someone “during pleasure” includes the power to “remove or suspend” them.

The law does not cast the board members as spectators. Parliament has, in Section 115 of the Financial Administration Act, squarely placed duties on the directors and officers of all Crown corporations — including the CMHR — to act in good faith in the best interests of the corporation, and to exercise care, diligence and skill. These are duties, not options.

The exhibit, “Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present,” was developed with a Palestinian Content Advisory Network created by the museum’s staff, not the board. One member is Ramsey Zeid, president of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba, who has written that Zionism is “a disease that must be destroyed.” Mr. Zeid told the Winnipeg Free Press in August that it is “not really” the trustees’ “job to approve or disapprove exhibits.” And that the job of the board is instead to job is to “make sure that the museum is operating and following their mandate, properly and legally.” Of course, the board cannot ensure the mandate of the CMHR is met without looking at actual processes and outcomes — and ordering corrective measures when warranted.

Board members knew, or should have known, that the advisory process was partisan and lacking in transparency, that mainstream Jewish organizations were denied meaningful consultation, and that a great deal of relevant scholarship was being ignored. They had advance notice from the museum’s own pre-opening description of what was coming. It was predictable that the exhibit would, contrary to the museum’s statutory mandate, distort history rather than enlarge the public’s understanding of it, and divide Canadians rather than foster mutual respect — which grows from an honest appreciation of historical reality, not from divisive propaganda.