The MLA for Estevan is responding to the decision of the provincial government to deny the request to display the Forever in the Clouds on the Estevan Provincial Courthouse lawn. 

"Basically what it comes down to," explained Lori Carr, Estevan's MLA, "is the Courthouse is a legal entity. There's a bunch of monuments that are already there, The Cenotaph, The Soldier's Tree, the lawn is getting rather full. So the Courthouse doesn't want anymore monuments that don't actually have anything to do with the building, and justice and things that happen within the building because at some point in time, they might want to put up some type of monument of their own, and there would be no room."

She adds that one of the criteria for monuments is that it is supposed to be a lasting structure, meaning made of metal or steel, or something that is going to last forever and not deteriorate after time.

Carr adds that the lawn at the Courthouse is often used during the summer months for football, Frisbee and other outdoor activities and the panel didn't want the lawn to become crowded. 

"There is a safety factor to it of course because there's benches  and the beautiful airplane carved at the very front and it might be tempting for young people to actually climb up on it."

Carr does notes that because the Forever in the Clouds monument matches so well with the Soldier Tree, a special panel was created to make the decision. 

"We took the request forward and the judges have a say whether they think they want it to be there or not. In this incidence, the judges panel said, "No, we want to keep it clear so if we ever want to put anything there.""

"Because they knew how passionate the committee was about putting that piece right there on the courthouse lawn, they actually put together a special panel which consisted of two members of the public, a former president of the Architectural Association of Saskatchewan and two members of the judiciary, so two lawyers." 

The panel went through all the criteria such as architectural design, durability of the monument, size of the monument, etc. 

"Even though they thought this was an absolutely fantastic project, they decided there just wasn't going to be anything else on the lawn." 

"I was told that they've never put together a panel quite this extensive but they wanted to make sure that they made the right decision."

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