Canada's National Gallery is in hot water again -- thanks to the antics of a few previous and current directors. It all started four years ago, with the appointment of Sasha Suda as director. During her three-year term, Suda's goal was to transform the gallery, which she did, but mostly in a bad way. After smashing and careening around for three years left, right and centre, she left.
When I was working, I coined the phrase "FUFO", which stands for "F-ck up and f-ck off" -- something I saw all around me in my various jobs over many years. Apparently, that's what Suda did and all I can say is 'good luck' to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where she has crash-landed. Here's Suda:
Only 38 when appointed, the youngest director ever, Suda bulldozed her way through our gallery, firing staff and creating chaos as she "re-engineered and reimagined" every nook and cranny. I mean, that's what you do when you're 38, right? You bulldoze, re-engineer and reimagine. Her staff put it another way: She was described as driven by dogma and mantra. In other words, "woke-ism" run amok.
An Order-in-Council appointment, i.e., by Parliament (actually our "feminist" PM personally ordered this), such terms are for five years, but Suda jumped ship after just three. Apparently, the bedlam and pandemonium she was generating were too much for her.
I blogged the mess her successor, Angela Cassie, has made of the job (see, "Chaos", Jan. 28, 2023), but a new series of documents, released under Access to Information, reveals much more about the havoc Suda and her possé wreaked. The minute she took over, Suda turned the entire running of the gallery over to consultants -- the principal one being the NOBL Collective out of California for "strategic planning work". Yep, you read that right, Suda handed the whole mess over to an AMERICAN company based in the land of fruits and nuts! How ludicrous.
When the tally for NOBL came in, Canadian taxpayers had forked over $632,500 to create chaos. My question is, why would the gallery's director -- hired to run the place at an exorbitant salary -- hire someone else to do her job?! Wasn't that what she was supposed to do?
For an explanation, you have to look at who hired the feckless Suda. It was Françoise Lyon, chair of the board, and vice-chair Anne-Marie Applin. Google them and you'll get a clue as to why they went for Suda. Both young and very woke, these two are not what you want hiring people to curate historical, national art.
Suda's first job was to "decolonialize" the collection, whatever that means? Her successor, Cassie, recently doubled down, saying, "Our new vision, to create dynamic experiences through the visual arts, not only means adding new points of view to our collection, but also embracing new ways of doing our work."
In other words, we're going to fire people and keep spending money on consultants. Cassie's mantra was....wait for it...."Sensing, Vision and Bet Making". Neither you nor I could make that one up, but consultants are very good at bamboozling their clients. Eventually, the documents reveal, the scope of NOBL's work became all-encompassing, as they laid out plans and timelines for, "Defining the museum's values and crafting its change narrative." Complete bullsh-t, which also included a lot of "blue-skying". Cassie even turned over all-staff meetings to NOBL to actually chair and run. Whaaaaaat??!!
The result? A strategic plan entitled "Transform Together".
Next it was time to hire yet another consultancy firm called 'Elevate' and hand it a whopping $352,200 to develop a "JEDI" (cute) working group which would work with even more consultants "as needed", attend staff meetings and assist with the "onboarding" of new staff.
Have you ever heard such nonsense?! Again, shouldn't all that be Cassie's job?!!! Not to be left out in the cold, NOBL elbowed in again with a new plan that would focus on, "engaging in productive, courageous conversations". This meant charging another $15,000 to deliver a four-hour, team-building workshop for the seven members of the gallery's senior management committee.
What would this include? "Development experiences that would feel like an opportunity to slow down and set staff up for success." Slow down to succeed? How does that work? Elevate countered with yet another contract for a coaching program described as a "deep dive for senior leadership and management who wish to develop and practice critical inclusive leadership skills and the development and delivery of a suite of inclusive workplace training modules." Whew, I'm out of breath just typing that one!
Well, I never. What, pray tell, was senior management doing during all these coaching, leading, succeeding and engaging sessions? Good question!
I could go on, but you get my drift. Oh, and by the way, who was the minister in charge of all this mad consulting and to-ing and fro-ing? Why, none other than the wondrous Mélanie Joly, of course! Another of Trudeau's phenomenal "feminist" appointments.
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Note: No, I am not a misogynist. I want equally-qualified women to be given the same chance to apply for a job as men, but I don't want a woman to be given a job just because she is a female, or parachuted over more-qualified male applicants.
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Speaking of being parachuted into a job, next time I'm going to comment on the 5,000-page report on the mess we call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Brenda Lucki's star performance. Look out!
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