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The saga of 24 Sussex Drive, the derelict onetime official residence of Canada’s prime ministers, took a brand new flip final week after a information leak signaled that the destiny of the house — Canada’s most well-known fixer-upper — might quickly be determined.
Citing an unnamed official, Radio-Canada reported final week {that a} authorities group in control of determining what to do with the uninhabitable and rodent- and asbestos-infested home — which has been deserted since 2015 — is now leaning towards giving up on it. As an alternative, the group favors beginning over by constructing a brand new home at one among two different areas. Alternatively, the group is making Rideau Cottage, the place Justin Trudeau moved after changing into prime minister, the everlasting residence of Canada’s head of presidency.
Whereas 24 Sussex solely turned the prime minister’s official residence in 1951, the thought of completely abandoning it was swiftly condemned by some constructing heritage specialists. However political calculations might in the end resolve the proposal’s destiny.
Regardless of 24 Sussex’s symbolic significance, its fall into close to wreck has been occurring for many years, as I wrote virtually 5 years in the past. And the shortage of will to reverse its decline comes from a worry of political backlash. As Mr. Trudeau, who lived in the home as a baby when his father was prime minister, as soon as stated: “No prime minister needs to spend a penny of taxpayer {dollars} on upkeeping that home.”
[Read: Justin Trudeau’s Official Home: Unfit for a Leader or Anyone Else]
Whereas 24 Sussex was in a dismal state once I wrote that article, with an estimated restoration value of 38 million Canadian {dollars} on the time, the scenario has grow to be even worse. In 2021, the Nationwide Capital Fee, the federal company whose duties embrace taking care of Canada’s six official residences, rated its situation as “important” in a report.
“The constructing programs at 24 Sussex Drive have reached the purpose of imminent or precise failure and require substitute,” that report warned, including, “the age and situation of {the electrical} programs poses a hearth hazard, and the plumbing programs have failures frequently.”
In April, The Nationwide Submit obtained authorities paperwork that exposed there was a rodent infestation in the home. So many lifeless rodents and a lot rodent excrement had piled up in its partitions, attic and basement, a memo stated, that there have been “actual issues with air high quality.”
After Mr. Trudeau moved into Rideau Cottage within the yard of Rideau Corridor, the governor normal’s official residence, a few of his workers remained working within the kitchen at 24 Sussex, which is throughout the road. The family kitchen in Rideau Cottage is way smaller and less than office security requirements, so Mr. Trudeau’s meals had been ferried throughout Sussex Drive. However even the cooks had been moved out of 24 Sussex final November and the constructing was formally closed.
The Nationwide Capital Fee didn’t immediately reply my questions on the potential of a brand new prime minister’s residence at a brand new location. However in an e-mail, Valérie Dufour, a spokeswoman, stated that contractors had been at 24 Sussex since Might and that “pre-construction website preparation is full.” This month, quite a lot of duties will start, together with ripping out the “mechanical and electrical programs” there.
She added: “The present venture will perform the work that should be addressed no matter any determination taken by the federal government on the way forward for the residence.”
The Radio-Canada report means that the largest think about favor of constructing a brand new official residence is safety. Latest years have seen Parliament surrounded by the rowdy trucker convoy and a gunman kill a soldier on guard on the Nationwide Battle Memorial earlier than then occurring a capturing rampage in Parliament. In 2020, a navy reservist from Manitoba smashed by the gates of Rideau Corridor with a pickup truck earlier than heading on foot towards Rideau Cottage with a revolver, a pistol, a rifle and two shotguns to, he stated, arrest Mr. Trudeau. The prime minister was not residence.
Amongst its many safety issues, 24 Sussex is simply steps from the road, making safety from a automobile or truck bomb infeasible with out turning the residence right into a bunker. (Closing the highway, which is a significant route with no apparent different, isn’t doable.) Retrofitting the home’s roof for defense from drone assaults, it seems, poses related difficulties.
Even with out an official announcement, the suggestion of abandoning 24 Sussex has swiftly met resistance. At a information convention on Friday, a bunch of heritage specialists argued the case for renovating the home as an alternative. Residents close to the park that is without doubt one of the proposed websites for a brand new residence have additionally raised issues concerning the lack of public house.
However in the end the political dynamic that has lengthy stalled coping with the home might proceed to maintain its future in limbo.
“We don’t want a brand new residence for the prime minister, we’d like a brand new residence for working-class Canadians,” Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative chief who lives in a government-funded official residence, advised reporters. He added that coping with 24 Sussex can be the final merchandise on his agenda if he turns into prime minister and that Mr. Trudeau was centered on “constructing mansions for himself.”
Trans Canada
A local of Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported about Canada for The New York Occasions for twenty years.
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