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It takes a while sometimes a very long while but the nations capital eventually gets around to dealing with the truly ugly.

The National Arts Centre, a centennial-year project completed in 1969, is about to begin a $110-million facelift that will, among other things, turn the hideous block of a building around to face the right way toward the street and Parliament Hill.

Another centennial project was to commission a statue to honour former prime minister Arthur Meighen. When another former PM, John Diefenbaker, saw what the artist had created, he dismissed it as a diabolical creature. Dief thought the depiction of Meighen might well be the greatest monstrosity ever produced a mixture of Ichabod Crane and Daddy Longlegs.

Meighens wife, Isabel, was so put off that she wanted nothing to do with it. For 20 years the statue was hidden away, stored in a concrete vault near the Rideau Canal, until finally it was shipped off to Meighens hometown, St. Marys, Ont., where it stands today as a monument to a local boy who made good in life, if less so in art.

Now, all of Ottawa is talking about another looming disaster a memorial to the Victims of Communism that is about to take over a parcel of land between the Supreme Court of Canada and the National Library, a small park-like oasis along Wellington Street where, this past week, there were only squirrel tracks to be found in the fresh-fallen snow.

That land is said to be worth $1-million. For nearly a century it had been earmarked as the site of a new federal court, but has now been handed over for the memorial, along with a pledge of $3-million to help pay for the $5-million project the remainder to be raised by a charity group called Tribute to Liberty.

Canada is, of course, the recognized world leader in apologies. Only a fool would deny that millions have been the tragic victims of communism, but that number pales, surely, in comparison with the victims of capitalism. If we agree to date communism to the Russian Revolution of 1917 feel free to argue the point the dating of capitalisms crimes would have to extend back beyond the Crusades and the spice wars to the very first deal that went badly sour.

Regardless of that, and despite the fact that there is already a most-impressive and expensive Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, this new memorial in Ottawa is going ahead.

But it certainly isnt going smoothly. Back in September, even before the final design had been selected from among the five competitors, Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin felt compelled to write to Public Works to share some concerns.

In the letter obtained by the Ottawa Citizen, the Chief Justice reminded Public Works that the site had long been designated as part of the judicial precinct, and she raised the rather valid point that such a memorial could send the wrong message within the judicial precinct, unintentionally conveying a sense of bleakness and brutalism that is inconsistent with a space dedicated to the administration of justice.

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New Victims of Communism memorial in Ottawa a looming disaster