Calgary Midnapore MP Stephanie Kusie has created a federal petition in hopes of saving the Olympic Plaza bricks, set to be destroyed in January.
The petition, which can be found on her website, hopes to halt the destruction of these bricks by recognizing them as part of Calgary and Canadian heritage.
To celebrate the memory of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, over 30,000 bricks were engraved and placed in Olympic Plaza at a cost of $19.88 each.
Fast forward 36 years, the city announced plans to revamp the area, which includes the removal of the bricks.
“The Olympics brought people out…I stood out and watched a parade, I hate parades, and I froze, standing and waiting … I bought a brick and waited for the torch to come in, standing in the freezing cold like so many other Calgarians,” one woman told CityNews.
Some have already taken matters into their own hands, removing their bricks themselves.
Kusie says this is an indictor of desperation of those who purchased the bricks to retain their small piece of history.
“I think it points to the necessity of those who made this contribution, this investment in Calgarian history, and that’s why I brought this petition forward,” she said. “It’s not just important to me, it’s important to many Calgarians.
“I felt compelled to start a petition.”
One Calgarian says new construction in the city is good, but it lacks history.
“I mean everywhere you look it’s just something shiny and bright, but there’s no story behind it, and we should keep it,” she said.
“People paid money to get their name on the bricks, to build the plaza so I think we need to save them, repurpose them,” added another.
The group in charge of the new Olympic Plaza design, Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), says it’s aware of the petition and recognizes the bricks hold sentimental value. However, due to their age and condition, the bricks won’t be repurposed and integrated into the revitalized plaza.
Kusie says she is willing to concede if the costs are too high, but is proposing an alternative solution.
“Then I would ask somehow that the bricks — or the names within the bricks — are recognized within the new structure, whether that’s a wall that has the names on the bricks, or some type of visual presentation of the bricks as they are now,” she said.
The MP says her family has a brick in the plaza, and was “proud” to participate.
If enough signatures are generated, Kusie will present the petition to the house of commons in Ottawa.