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A mirror hangs along one wall at the heart of the former U.S. embassy in Ottawa, perfectly reflecting the Peace Tower. Its placement was no accident – its image was meant to lend iconic weight to the first in a series of rooms telling a narrative of Canada's history in portraits.

Then, in September, 2007, the Conservative government cancelled the $40-million plan to transform the building into a national Portrait Gallery in favour of designating the property as a parliamentary reception centre. Earlier this month, newly minted Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore discontinued plans to build the gallery a home in one of three bidding cities (including Ottawa), saying such an expenditure would not to be prudent in difficult economic times.

But Ottawa supporters of the gallery aren't giving up hope, and now the battle has come full circle, with attention falling back on the original 100 Wellington St. site.

The charge is led by Liberal Senator Jerry Grafstein, who on Thursday introduced a private member's bill in the senate to redesignate the building for the Portrait Gallery.

“This is a no-brainer. The building is there, money [between $11-million and $15-million] has been spent, the treasure trove inventory is all there. The only thing they have to do is renovate the building. An international design is all set to go – they just have to finish it off,” he said.

Grafstein was thrilled to see Moore scrap a competition scheme that allowed developers in nine cities to submit bids for projects that would house the gallery. (In April, he had introduced a bill to keep the gallery in Ottawa; it died on the order paper.) An amateur portrait artist himself, he is one of only a handful of parliamentarians who have visited the gallery's Gatineau archive.

A spokeswoman for Public Works and Government Services Canada, which maintains the former embassy, said the building is being heated and powered at a minimum level and maintained to prevent deterioration.

Grafstein estimates it would cost $30-million to $40-million to complete construction and that the virtual collection could be expanded and broadcast across the country at nearly no cost to the taxpayer. He hopes his bill will pass from the Senate to the House of Commons, where he is convinced it would succeed.

“Mr. Harper in his Throne Speech talked about the new solidarity we have to show. I think Mr. Harper should look at the will of the public, as seen through the vox populi of Parliament, to make a decision. The only thing that's standing in the way is political egotism,” Grafstein said.

Architect Jack Diamond said that, in times of recession, the government has the money to build cultural and physical infrastructure more cost-effectively, all the while creating jobs for a faltering work force. It's a refrain increasingly taken up by Canadian economists.

“The dams that Roosevelt built in the 1930s are still producing electricity,” Diamond said.

Grafstein was not alone in his disdain for the Tories' competition scheme. Ottawa city councillors Diane Holmes and Clive Doucet both decried it and artist Vera Frankel deemed it “cynical and divisive.”

“I had a running bet, non-financial unfortunately, that it would be cancelled. I thought it was smoke and mirrors. What I regret is all the time, energy and resources that have gone into these efforts,” Frankel said.

Ruth Phillips, Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture at Carleton University, did guest curatorial work on the Portrait Gallery's aboriginal collection. As one of a select few who has explored the empty embassy's inner workings, Phillips said it is by far the city's best option.

“I think it would have been practically the gem of the whole city.” she said.

Phillips said that if the project stalls, the greatest loss would be a complete narrative of Canadian history in portraits that was to begin in the former reception room and cover much of two floors. Its breadth makes it virtually impossible to tour, and its combination of portraits and pictures of Canadians from all walks of life – from oil paintings to photographs of immigrants to small sketches of indigenous populations – is incomparable, she said.

Phillips also described a large marble-clad room on the building's ground floor that was to host a gallery entitled The Presence of Absence, in which curators would enlist the help of contemporary artists to evoke the presence in Canada's history of figures whose portraits were never made.

“It would have been, or it will be, wonderful,” Phillips said.

She confirmed that the gallery's permanent exhibitions are planned and ready to go, should the government reconsider.

Sheila Copps, who was heritage minister when the project was first conceived, dismissed the notion that it would be politically embarrassing for the Tories to return to the originally intended site.

Given Moore's assurances that competition bids from Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa would have cost about $100-million, and that none of them met the standards set, Copps thinks a return to the embassy site in six months time could be played up as a cost-saving measure and a dignified admission of fault.

“Given their record in culture, it would probably show that they can revisit a bad decision. And most people appreciate a politician who can admit they made a mistake,” she said.

But Frenkel and Phillips doubt that the Conservative government fully understands the cultural gem it is handling.

“I think all this decision-making and delaying happened without a proper opportunity for the detailed narratives and exhibitions and spaces to be explained to the ministers,” Phillips said.

“People never had the opportunity to find out what it would be.”