The federal government is transforming the Canadian Museum of Civilization into the Canadian Museum of History, a move that’s leading critics to speculate political spin not historical life will be prominently on display when the doors open on the new institution.

Heritage Minister James Moore announced last month that $25 million will be reallocated from the current Heritage Canada budget for the new museum that will feature a gallery honouring “Canadian heroes, achievements and milestones” — a departure from the richly textured panorama of Canadian historical experience best exemplified in the current museum’s Canada Hall.

CAUT executive director James Turk says the Conservative government’s recent focus on military history, its misleading depiction of the War of 1812, and the publication of a contro­versial new immigrant study guide all point to efforts to “rewrite history to fit the government’s ideological agenda.”

The government’s plan has been criticized as a “big mistake” by Turk, who said it “needlessly eliminates Canada’s largest and most popular museum.”

According to Turk, the government could have housed a new history museum in any number of locations in the National Capital Region without abandoning the Canadian Museum of Civilization and its mandate to increase interest in, knowledge and critical understanding of and appreciation and respect for human cultural achievements and human behaviour.

“This is a government that has done so much to undermine our ability to know our past,” Turk said. “It is gutting Library and Ar­chives Canada, the institution tasked with acquiring and maintaining Canada’s cultural heritage, and is crippling Parks Canada, which maintains 167 national historic sites, now we lose the Mu­seum of Civilization.”

He said the issue is not opposition to the creation of a museum of Canadian history, but that it shouldn’t come at the expense of another museum or be used for political purposes.

“If the government is genuinely committed to Canadian history, it should begin by restoring funding to Library and Archives Canada and administering Canada’s histo­ric sites,” said Turk. “After that, it could consider a new museum of history — with a truly arm’s-length board and a broad mandate to ensure it is not a display of history to support the government’s political ideology.”