National Post (National Edition)
A decent house for our head of government?
CANADA IS NOW
GOVERNED FROM A
COTTAGE DOORWAY.
—REX MURPHY
There’s talk in the land of the possibility of a federal election in the not-too-distant future. Maybe Liberal plotters think we didn’t have enough fun with the last one and are mad keen for another. More likely it’s because they think they’d win. Conservatives are fumbling about looking for new leader who isn’t as bad as the old leader but holds most of the same beliefs, leaving the Liberals’ guy to look good by default, plus $200 billion or so in borrowed handouts. What more compelling reason could there be to put a virus-exhausted country through the trouble of a costly campaign than the possibility of getting a few extra seats?
I’m not so concerned about who might win — either way we’re deep in a pit of debt that can’t help but cause complications — but where the winner will live. It won’t be in the traditional home of prime ministers. As oil-isdead Elizabeth May might say, 24 Sussex Dr. is kaput. No one wants to live there, no one wants to fix it and it’s not for sale. The only question remaining is whether the National Capital Commission (NCC) should continue wasting money on security or upkeep. At the moment it’s a stinking albatross — wait, where have I heard that phrase? — around the neck of the body public. The main reason it’s not boarded up is that the kitchen facilities are needed to prepare meals for shipping across the street to Rideau Cottage, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and family has been hunkered down since the last election in order to avoid inhaling asbestos or having one of the air conditioning units fall out a window and onto someone’s head.
It’s been obvious the house needed a major repair job at least since the Mulroney family was in residence, but neither he nor any of the five prime ministers since have had the nerve to OK the repairs. They’re afraid it might produce a backlash. Governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have been willing to pour billions into a host of dubious spending programs, but a few million for the official residence of the head of government might upset the populace.
If you don’t believe that, consider the revelation that the NCC dedicated $2.5 million to some changes at Harrington Lake, the very nice country home prime ministers get to use as long as they’re in office. The money was apparently spent moving and upgrading a “guest cottage” — if 5,000 square feet really counts as a cottage. There is some dispute over whether the renovated building is bigger than it used to be, and whether it constitutes a “new” structure or not. The main reason for interest, though, is in the typical efforts of the Trudeau government (and the NCC) to dance around the whole affair, holding its breath and hoping no one notices, rather than sending off a news release with all the pertinent details when the plans were first formed. The prime minister has held near-daily press briefings since the pandemic began, but not once did he think to mention: “Oh, by the way, they’re doing some work up at Harrington Lake. Feel free to go up and take a look. We can arrange some buses.”
Even at the negligible borrowing rates available to the treasury, $2.5 million is probably less than we pay in interest in the time it takes Finance Minister Bill Morneau to sharpen his pencil. But if the Liberals are too nervous to be honest about a reasonable enough cottage repair, there’s no chance they’ll find the backbone to authorize the far pricier fix-up at 24 Sussex. And neither, I bet, will the next prime minister, after which it will probably be too late anyway. The more the place crumbles, the higher the eventual cost.
So where does the winner of the next election head to, after the swearing-in? Should Trudeau run, and win, presumably he’ll stick with Rideau Cottage (at 22 rooms, yet another “cottage” the size of a small hotel). But there are obstacles to it becoming the permanent replacement for Sussex Drive. The kitchen is evidently inadequate (hence the daily food run from across the street). It’s not built for hosting grand events. Rideau Hall, residence of the Governor General, is right next door, but even for unostentatious Canadians it seems a bit weird to have their elected leader living in a smaller joint behind the swank residence of someone he or she appoints.
National leaders don’t need grandiose living quarters. The living quarters at 10 Downing St. are so pokey recent British leaders have preferred the larger space next door at No. 11. Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel has an official residence in the Chancellery but spends more time at her nondescript apartment in what used to be East Berlin. New Zealand used the excuse of its 150th anniversary to resurrect a former residence that had been demoted to use as a dental clinic.
Prime ministers do need somewhere decent, secure, spacious and dignified while they serve as the country’s elected leader. Canada has been putting this off about as long as it’s avoided facing up to the repercussions of its costly spending habits. And with about as much success.