Calgary MP Stephanie Kusie launches Parliamentary petition to save Olympic Plaza bricks

Calgary MP Stephanie Kusie has launched a Parliamentary Petition to try to save (Photo courtesy Stephanie Kusie)

A Calgary MP is collecting names on a petition in hopes of saving the Olympic Plaza bricks.

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.

But the city has announced plans to revamp the area, and the group in charge of the plaza design says the bricks are too old to be repurposed.

Stephanie Kusie, who represents Calgary Midnapore in Parliament, hopes the bricks — or even just the names on the bricks — can be recognized within the new structure.

Over the last few weeks, a number of Calgarians have been dropping by the plaza and removing the bricks with their name or their family’s name.

The Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC), which is overseeing the renovation of the area, explored the possibility of removing the bricks and returning them to the original purchasers, but it was deemed “not feasible.”

“They're not in a condition where if you can take it out, it will be intact. So as a result of that, it's not a wise thing to do,” said Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong.

“Having everybody coming down to take it out will cause a lot of confusion or disruption. People are encouraged to come down to do an etching of the brick.”

In a Substack column, Kusie pushed back.

"These building blocks represent sentimental value to thousands of people in our city and are a part of Calgary’s identity; something our woke Mayor seems dead-set on eroding,” she wrote.

“Many Calgarians are excited to see the new expansion to Arts Commons come to fruition, however, ironically, with this addition comes the elimination of a key piece of Calgary's identity. Though Calgarians have been told that it’s too expensive to save the bricks, some citizens feel so strongly about preserving them that they’ve gone to Olympic Plaza to remove theirs independently.

“Though city administration might say, “it’s just a brick”, it’s certainly more than that. There is a general feeling among the population that our identity is being erased, or that we shouldn’t be proud of our history.”

With files from Tyler Barrow and The Canadian Press