Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Canada's federal government has abandoned plans to build a national portrait gallery because of the economic slowdown.

Efforts to select a permanent site for the gallery have ended, said James Moore, minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, late yesterday in a statement. The project would have cost about C$100 million ($84 million), Moore told the Globe and Mail in an interview published today.

``In this time of global economic instability, it is important that the federal government continue to manage its own affairs prudently and pragmatically,'' Moore said in the statement. ``The selection process failed to meet the best interests of both the Portrait Gallery and taxpayers.''

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party won re-election on Oct. 14 after promising to avoid ``risky'' economic measures. Harper cut C$45 million for arts programs before the campaign started and said ``ordinary Canadians'' resent state funding of cultural industries, triggering protest rallies in Quebec.

Canada decided in 2001 to create a gallery for the more than 20,000 paintings and 4 million photographs stored in archives in Gatineau, Quebec, across the Ottawa River from the capital. The building was scheduled to be completed in 2005 at a cost of C$22 million, the Ottawa Citizen reported today.

Exhibitions

The date was later pushed back to 2007 while the estimated price tag climbed to C$44.6 million, the newspaper said.

Library and Archives Canada's collection represents the largest group of portraits in the country. Canadians will still be able to view the collection through traveling exhibitions, Moore said.

Beside paintings and photographs, some of which have been amassed since the 1880s, the collection also includes several thousand caricatures and about 10,000 medals and philatelic items.

Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta, submitted bids to host the gallery.

Ottawa is already home to the 128-year-old National Gallery of Canada, which houses 36,000 works of art. The gallery's permanent collection includes paintings by Braque, Dali, Monet, Rubens, Turner, van Gogh and Veronese, as well as prints, drawings, photographs and Inuit art from Canada.

To contact the reporter on this story: Frederic Tomesco in Montreal tomesco@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 8, 2008 11:27 EST