Not just a teardown: Carney tries to awaken national pride in 24 Sussex Drive

OTTAWA—I always thought Preston Manning was finished as a political leader when he moved into Stornoway in 1997.

The Reform stalwart had usually associated the official opposition leader’s residence in the capital’s exclusive Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood with the entitled federal political elite—claiming at one point that, if given the chance, he would convert Stornoway into a “bingo hall.”

Despite the fact that the 34-room mansion had just undergone taxpayer-funded renovations, Manning went ahead and moved in. But five years later, the creator of the Reform movement was gone from federal politics.

Somehow, official residences in Ottawa have taken on an outsized symbolic importance in recent decades.

Other advanced industrial countries take pride in their national leaders’ temporary residences. Until United States President Donald Trump arrived, the White House was an elegant, suitably dignified emblem of U.S. democracy. Over in the United Kingdom, 10 Downing Street, the British prime minister’s residence, is a well-maintained townhouse complex with an impressive but welcoming atmosphere.

Here, of course, Canada’s first minister lives in the parking lot of the Governor General’s stately home. Rideau Cottage, the current PM’s residence, is a modest but comfortable two-storey house built 159 years ago.

It’s not far from 24 Sussex Drive, the once-estimable home of the prime minister that has been allowed by successive residents to crumble around them. It was too small for large meetings or for hosting other world leaders even if the prime minister was willing to suffer the embarrassment of living in a place where the windows had to be covered in plastic sheets to keep out the winter wind.

Still, no one wanted to spend a penny updating 24 Sussex Drive out of justifiable fear of being accused of wasting taxpayers’ money on their own comfort.

Prime Minister Mark Carney—in his typical let’s-get-it-done fashion—has proposed arm’s-length fundraising and an architectural competition to finally get the building renovated. Notably, the prime minister has stressed it won’t cost much in the way of federal dollars and he himself will never live there.

Even though past prime minister Stephen Harper now backs rehabilitating his former residence, today’s Conservative brain trust couldn’t resist criticizing the plan to save the prime minister’s residence from the junk heap.

Leader Pierre Poilievre, who has the taxpayer-funded Stornoway residence at his disposal, said the government should be worrying about housing for financially strapped citizens—not fixing the PM’s residence.

It would be comforting to say Canadians’ attitude toward 24 Sussex is just a quirk of a parsimonious public with a deep suspicion of politicians’ spending in Ottawa.

But there is, of course, a lot more to it than that, chiefly an embedded lack of consensus on what the country is about and how it is supposed to function across its 5,000-km span of disputatious regions. More than ever, it is a political construct based on the old distinction of not being part of the U.S.

As for having a respectable PM’s residence, support has been mixed for many years. About one-third of Conservatives usually tell pollsters the government should tear down 24 Sussex and not rebuild anything. Ditto for many Bloc Québécois voters, not surprisingly.

Quebecers, of course, have settled on an ever reviewable, transactional relationship with the rest of the country. Albertans, driven by Trump-loving rural residents and a frenzy of overwrought grievance-mongering, are also juggling questions about their place in Canada.

As if Canadians didn’t have enough to worry about, they now have to deal with an imminent referendum on sovereignty in Alberta and, possibly, in Quebec. It’s a disheartening situation that, as Carney has noted, comes at a time when political stability is crucial if this country is to realize the economic gains available to reliable trade partners in today’s risky global marketplace.

You can argue about whether the national government—and Canadians in general—have done enough for Alberta or Quebec. Certainly, Albertans would say we’ve done more than enough for Quebecers. And many people across the country would no doubt say Albertans, with their resource riches and nation-leading per capita incomes, aren’t so badly off these days.

Carney seems to have been able to generally pull the country together—at least for the moment—in response to the newly antagonistic stance of our neighbours to the south. And the idea of having a prime ministerial residence worthy of pride and respect befits that endeavour.

But boosting unity in Canada’s multifaceted, decentralized reality at a time of hyped-up political polarization is a formidable task for any leader. And the likelihood of two provinces threatening to break up the country—what more could Trump want?—isn’t a great start as Canadians ponder the prospects for a stronger, more independent country this July 1.

Les Whittington is a regular columnist for The Hill Times.

The Hill Times