Juno News - September 09, 2019“Mr. Trudeau, tear down this house!”
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Summary
Is it time to take those age-old words from Ronald Reagan and apply them to the most famous residence in Canada, 24 Sussex Drive? That s the argument made in a Toronto Sun op-ed by Aaron Woodrick, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Transcript
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Is it time to take those age-old words from Ronald Reagan and apply them to the most famous
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residence or one of the most famous residences in Canada, 24 Sussex Drive? That's the argument made
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in a Toronto Sun op-ed by Aaron Woodrick, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
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Time to tear down 24 Sussex. Aaron Woodrick joins me. Aaron, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming
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on today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Andrew. So let's talk about this because there is with any
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sort of heritage property, this idea of, you know, an emotional attachment to it. And I think that
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in the case of 24 Sussex, there's really nothing all that historic about the building itself except
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for what it's been used for. But still, there's a lot of pushback on this idea that we should tear
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it down. So why do you think it has to go? Well, look, I mean, I wrote this speech. I'm a little
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bit tongue-in-cheek. I think that tearing it down is something that needs to be on the table. We can
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look at other options, but the point really is we need to do something with this building. This
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building is falling apart. The Prime Minister doesn't live in it. I don't blame him for not
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wanting to because it is too hot in the winter or too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter.
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There isn't even air conditioning. I mean, there is faulty wiring. The plumbing is bad. I mean,
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the list goes on. And taxpayers, though, still have to pay every year for upkeep of this building
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several hundred thousand dollars a year. So it's a waste of money. We're kicking the can down the
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road. It's a classic, you know, don't want to deal with it and the bill gets bigger later problem. So
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I just really think we need to get moving. And tearing it down needs to be on the table because,
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look, I think you hit the nail on the head. People think that it's historically important,
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you know, because Prime Ministers have lived there. I don't think a lot of them realize
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they've only lived there since the 1950s, for one. And also, architecturally, there's a strong case
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there's really not that much special about the building. It's only special because of who's lived
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in it rather than the structure of the building itself.
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If anyone's familiar with Ottawa, they'll know what I'm talking about here. But I remember driving with a
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friend who had never been before down Sussex Drive. And I said, oh, we're about to see the
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Prime Minister's house. And I, you know, we round this bend on Sussex. And I say, you know, take a
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look over there. And they're like, wow, that's beautiful. And I said, no, no, no, that's the
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French ambassador's house. It's the tiny one next door. But really, it's not even a standout
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building by Ottawa standards, necessarily, let alone Canadian standards. And when I'm looking at
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Justin Trudeau not living there, the reason for that was always that he was going to say,
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all right, everyone's been kicking the can down the road, we're going to do the renovations,
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and I'm going to forgo my opportunity to live there. And that was long overdue. But it doesn't
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seem like any work is actually happening with him being elsewhere.
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No, you're right. And well, I guess you're not entirely true. He's already had the chance to live
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He is he is forgoing the chance now. But you're right. I mean, the main reason for not living there is
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to fix it up. But he's been quite candid in saying, look, no, no prime, no prime minister
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wants to be seen to be spending money on themselves. Boy, Andrew, I wish he took that
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attitude when it came to spending everything else. He's kind of got it backwards. He's not
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spending on something that is owned by Canadians. Remember, this is not his personal house. I mean,
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Canadian taxpayers own this house and will own it forever. So, you know, he's not really spending
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it on himself. And yet when it comes to anything else, he's happy to toss a billion, a million here,
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there. So I think he's got it backwards. I think he should be more careful on
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spending everything on everything else. And he shouldn't be so reluctant to spend money on
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what's essentially a government building. You know, if there was a downtown office building
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in Ottawa where government bureaucrats were working, no one would say, don't fix the roof
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if it's leaky. And yet that's exactly what we have with 24 Sussex.
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Yeah. And what's interesting is that this is a distinctly Canadian problem in that if you look
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at the US or Britain, for example, their official residences for the president and the prime
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minister are also the official working quarters of them. So 10 Downing Street is an executive
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office and home. The White House is an executive office and home. And if you have that, you don't
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have this problem that we have now. And I don't know if it's possible to go back to that. I don't
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know if we can build an apartment in the old launch van block and say, this is where you live now or
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consolidate the two to some new building we create. But if we say everything's on the table,
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you could build a working residence that is cheaper than the renovation costs that are
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You're absolutely right. And that does need to be on the table. So I mean, whether we tear it down,
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maybe we rebuild there, maybe we rebuild somewhere else. Maybe the prime minister keeps living at
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Rideau Cottage. I mean, it seems to be working as an arrangement that that could be some cost savings.
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Maybe, you know, the opposition leader and the speaker of the house, they both get
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official residences. Maybe the prime minister takes one of those. And then we give the speaker
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or opposition leader a generous housing allowance like we do for other MPs. Or maybe we do, like
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you mentioned, the US-UK model where you have both a working building and a residence together.
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We could put that somewhere else in Ottawa. So there's all kinds of options. Obviously,
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the sky can't be the limit for cost. I mean, we're still talking about significant money here.
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But the point is we have to do something because every year it's 300 grand down the toilet
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and we don't move the ball anywhere on this. So, you know, I really wrote this to try and get the
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conversation going and just, you know, really make the point that doing nothing is not really
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an option anymore. There is the fiscal conservative in me that says, you know, they can just get a
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housing allowance like everyone else. But I do think from a symbolic perspective, there is an
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importance of having an official residence. I don't think that's unreasonable in the grand scheme
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of things. But when I look at the cost, and you say in your column here, at least $34 million,
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you could build something that looks identical or looks better and is functional and state-of-the-art
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for a fraction of that cost. And that's the part that I find so baffling here. And we see this with
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the center block renovations just down the road, you know, going to be costing a billion dollars.
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Yeah. I mean, you could literally build something that looks identical for a fraction of the
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price. So why is that, that these reno costs are so much more than creating something that
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Yeah. So in the case of 24 Sussex, there's a couple of reasons. One is, and they are
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understandable when you think about them. One is security. So this is not a regular mansion,
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right? The security needs are very different for this than they would be for a regular house.
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So that adds quite a bit to the tap. The other thing is the location. It's on a beautiful
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cliff overlooking the Ottawa River. You know, I have actually spoken with some people who
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said one of the fears is that cliff could literally just topple over and the whole house goes into the
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Ottawa River. So you have the structurally, there are a lot of big demands, but that's
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part of the reason I think maybe we rethink the location. It's a beautiful location, but
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maybe it's not the safest or the most cost-effective location for the prime minister to live. So
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maybe we should look for somewhere else. But one other thing on the rebuild, you know,
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I think one thing that has not been talked about enough is the opportunity. If you made this sort
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of a, think of it as a national contest, right? Open it up and let, you know, prominent architects
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from around the world design something, something unique, something new. In this country, Andrew,
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we're a pretty divided bunch a lot of the time. We don't have a lot of big symbols to rally around.
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You know, if you invited people to do that and you made a contest out of it, you could let Canadians
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participate in the process. I think you could also save some money because I think a lot of people
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would be willing to attach their names to this or donate, you know, their time or work to this
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because it's something that's so special. So there might actually be a win-win here where you get
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something new and unique and actually save some money in the process too. You know, I don't know
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if a lot of people know this, but Stornoway, which is the official residence of the official
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opposition leader, actually was paid for by private money. I can't remember the time, but it was bought,
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I think, by a conservative opposition at the time because they said, you know, we'd like to do this,
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but we don't think the taxpayer should be on the hook. And I think that you may be right there that
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there would be a public appetite to contribute to this if we view it as a publicly owned residence
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and not a private one. Although, you know, your thing about the coastal erosion, maybe that's the
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whole point here is that wait until it falls over and then we just get the insurance payout.
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And that's, you know, because then no politician has to be the one to say it's time to do this.
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Yeah. And then all the more reason for nobody to be living in there. So.
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Yeah. So let's, let's talk about that idea of it though, because I do think that any prime minister
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is between a rock and a hard place. It's the same as salary increases. No politician ideally wants
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to vote themselves a salary increase that doesn't stop them. That doesn't stop them from doing it a lot
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of the time. But, but, you know, you and I would be jumping up and down on Trudeau if he were
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spending millions of dollars for his own gain. So is there a way to completely depoliticize this
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process? I know the National Capital Commission has some oversight of sites in Ottawa. Is there a way
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to take the politicians out of the equation and say, this is going to be managed by someone so
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independent that no one can accuse us of, you know, stealing the taxpayers money for our own gain?
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Yeah. I think what would definitely be helpful is if the NCC puts out proposals or options in advance
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of an election and there's buy-in beforehand, right? I think that's the key is you need multiple
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party buy-in and you need it before you know the outcome. So then you can't accuse people of saying,
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well, you're only spending the money because you get to live there. If, you know, you had a reasonable
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proposal that had the, you know, buy-in of every major party and even groups like ours, like if there
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was a, I, you know, I'm not saying we are the be all end all credibility, but if a group like ours that is
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very concerned about spending money was to give our blessing on the basis that it would actually
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save money in the long run, I think that would actually help give credibility to the process.
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And we'd be willing to do that if the cost was reasonable and there was buy-in because the last
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thing we want to see is another 50 years of this money going down the drain. Yeah. And for Trudeau,
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there's a great opportunity here to say, look, even if I win a second term, no matter what,
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I will not move into 24 Sussex Drive. That's my contribution. So I don't have skin in the game here.
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And I think that for him and his family, they're at Rideau Cottage. It seems to be working,
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as you've said, that would be a way for him to say, look, no matter what, I'm out of this. This
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isn't my home. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I mean, again, I just, I find it very curious that
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he and others have said, oh, well, you know, the public outrage about spending. I mean, where is this
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concern on just about anything else? I mean, I would love to see that concern shown somewhere else. And
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then, you know, we'd be happy to cut a little slack on the house if he would just rein in these
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ridiculous deficits that he promised he wouldn't run. Yeah, exactly. And that's where the symbolism
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is important here, because it's the symbolism of spending the money, but he's okay with the
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actual practice of spending it on everything else. Exactly. Exactly. Well, it was a great column
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by Aaron Woodrick of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in the Toronto Sun. Time to tear down 24 Sussex.
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Aaron, thanks for your time, sir. Hey, thanks for having me, Andrew.