Yahoo Finance William Watson: Please, This Old House, hire Mike Holmes and re-do 24 Sussex for us
A government that can’t find permanent housing for its prime minister seems unlikely to solve a national housing crisis. Which I hope persuades it not to try. A house is the consumer durable of all consumer durables. People interested in buying or selling such durables, whether used or new, are perfectly capable of getting together in markets and exchanging money for lodging. The last thing we need is the first thing that jumps to federal ministers’ minds when they hear about a housing crisis: A national housing strategy! Yes! Let’s start consultation and co-ordination right away!
The current structure, 24 Sussex, has the great advantage of brand recognition, even if its brand is increasingly associated with rotting rats in the basement. When I was a kid we were told about 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, 10 Downing Street and 24 Sussex Drive, almost as if the three had equal standing in the world. It was a little like Saul Steinberg’s rendering of New Yorkers’ view of the world: 9th Ave, 10th Ave, Hudson River, Jersey, the Great Plains, the Pacific, Asia. In our young-Canadian perspective, 24 Sussex was that important.
As for the state of the Ottawa housing market: Under their new ownership, the NHL Senators are likely moving downtown, which means their current home at the Canadian Tire Centre in suburban Kanata will be vacant. Granted, it’s a half-hour drive from Parliament, which is toxic to this government — driving, I mean, not Parliament (though on second thought …). The security people reportedly are worried about drone strikes. You could build a nice modern residence inside the hulk of the CTC and the structure itself is only 13 minutes from the Diefenbunker. The two could be linked by an extension of Ottawa’s light rail system, once they finally figure out how to make it work.
The bunker itself is a spacious, drone-proof, 100,000-square-foot, four-storey underground structure that could be modified with high-def simulated windows. Commissioned by the Diefenbaker government at the height of the Cold War, it took only 18 months to built — though that was a time when Canada actually got things done. Only a decade or so later we began the habit of commissioning things — ice-breakers, fighter jets — that never arrive. It’s hard to believe this is the same country that got Expo 67 finished on time and with panache.
The obvious problem with building a new home for the prime minister is that the project would be co-opted by the Canadian architecture lobby. Which means “the prime minister’s new home” would play out like “the emperor’s new clothes.” A house designed by a politico-architectuals committee would end up looking like a camel. We couldn’t have a design that was tasteful and restrained, a grey-brick neo-Edwardian or neo-Victorian. Nothing so evocative of colonialism could possibly be tolerated. No, the new structure would have to showcase the daring and edginess of Canada’s best young architects. Which means it would be bound to leak. (Given this government’s lip service to transparent government, all-glass would be a good thematic fit, though because of climate obsession it would have to be at least triple-glazed.)
I’m with University of Toronto architectural historian Joseph Clarke, who in NP Comment makes the case for renovating 24 Sussex. And I think I know who could do the job right.
One of the few TV channels we could figure out how to access in the Airbnb where we stayed this summer was the This Old House channel. In endlessly linked half-hours we saw Tommy, Norm and the other guys, who after almost 44 years on PBS look in need of a little renovation themselves, completely re-do a house in Ipswich, Mass., originally built in 1720. The couple financing the project, who were relocating there to work remotely from Washington, D.C., where the real resources now reside, were pouring money into it, including by sending the original rafters off to a specialty shop in New Hampshire to have rotten parts replaced with compatible timbers and elaborate joinery.
I figure they were spending several million U.S. dollars on the project. Translate that to Canadian dollars; involve the National Capital Commission, famous for the costliness of dotting every “i,” crossing every “t” and putting umlauts and accents on everything else procedural; insist on union labour and rules for all sub-contractors; and set up a This Old House Canadian subsidiary (CEO the eponymous Mike Holmes?) to soothe local egos, and we’d be well into the dozens of millions of Canadian dollars. But at least the job would finally be done.
And we would then have to keep it done. The political problem with upkeep is that no prime minister wants to be seen budgeting public money to improve the house he and his family live in. So let’s set up an endowment, partly funded by Parliament, partly by appeal through GoFundMe to patriotic Canadians, and do renovations of $X per year on a schedule decided by Holmes and his group of professionals. In years when renovations weren’t required, the money could be folded back into the endowment. But, above all, rot should not be allowed to set in again (a good motto for Ottawa itself).
The only downside is that a federal government that finally got this problem solved might be emboldened to try other things that really aren’t its job.
