Juno News - “Mr. Trudeau, tear down this house!”

00:00:00.000 Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

00:00:18.660 Is it time to take those age-old words from Ronald Reagan and apply them to the most famous

00:00:24.820 residence or one of the most famous residences in Canada, 24 Sussex Drive? That's the argument made

00:00:31.180 in a Toronto Sun op-ed by Aaron Woodrick, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

00:00:37.020 Time to tear down 24 Sussex. Aaron Woodrick joins me. Aaron, good to talk to you. Thanks for coming

00:00:43.240 on today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Andrew. So let's talk about this because there is with any

00:00:47.720 sort of heritage property, this idea of, you know, an emotional attachment to it. And I think that

00:00:54.520 in the case of 24 Sussex, there's really nothing all that historic about the building itself except

00:01:00.580 for what it's been used for. But still, there's a lot of pushback on this idea that we should tear

00:01:05.940 it down. So why do you think it has to go? Well, look, I mean, I wrote this speech. I'm a little

00:01:10.580 bit tongue-in-cheek. I think that tearing it down is something that needs to be on the table. We can

00:01:15.440 look at other options, but the point really is we need to do something with this building. This

00:01:19.700 building is falling apart. The Prime Minister doesn't live in it. I don't blame him for not

00:01:24.500 wanting to because it is too hot in the winter or too hot in the summer, too cold in the winter.

00:01:29.560 There isn't even air conditioning. I mean, there is faulty wiring. The plumbing is bad. I mean,

00:01:34.580 the list goes on. And taxpayers, though, still have to pay every year for upkeep of this building

00:01:39.660 several hundred thousand dollars a year. So it's a waste of money. We're kicking the can down the

00:01:44.660 road. It's a classic, you know, don't want to deal with it and the bill gets bigger later problem. So

00:01:48.820 I just really think we need to get moving. And tearing it down needs to be on the table because,

00:01:53.220 look, I think you hit the nail on the head. People think that it's historically important,

00:01:57.960 you know, because Prime Ministers have lived there. I don't think a lot of them realize

00:02:01.640 they've only lived there since the 1950s, for one. And also, architecturally, there's a strong case

00:02:07.380 there's really not that much special about the building. It's only special because of who's lived

00:02:12.160 in it rather than the structure of the building itself.

00:02:15.180 If anyone's familiar with Ottawa, they'll know what I'm talking about here. But I remember driving with a

00:02:19.620 friend who had never been before down Sussex Drive. And I said, oh, we're about to see the

00:02:23.820 Prime Minister's house. And I, you know, we round this bend on Sussex. And I say, you know, take a

00:02:28.380 look over there. And they're like, wow, that's beautiful. And I said, no, no, no, that's the

00:02:31.040 French ambassador's house. It's the tiny one next door. But really, it's not even a standout

00:02:37.000 building by Ottawa standards, necessarily, let alone Canadian standards. And when I'm looking at

00:02:43.180 Justin Trudeau not living there, the reason for that was always that he was going to say,

00:02:48.380 all right, everyone's been kicking the can down the road, we're going to do the renovations,

00:02:52.460 and I'm going to forgo my opportunity to live there. And that was long overdue. But it doesn't

00:02:58.060 seem like any work is actually happening with him being elsewhere.

00:03:01.980 No, you're right. And well, I guess you're not entirely true. He's already had the chance to live

00:03:05.580 there, remember, when he was a kid?

00:03:07.060 Well, yes, that's true.

00:03:08.300 He is he is forgoing the chance now. But you're right. I mean, the main reason for not living there is

00:03:12.960 to fix it up. But he's been quite candid in saying, look, no, no prime, no prime minister

00:03:17.680 wants to be seen to be spending money on themselves. Boy, Andrew, I wish he took that

00:03:21.440 attitude when it came to spending everything else. He's kind of got it backwards. He's not

00:03:25.740 spending on something that is owned by Canadians. Remember, this is not his personal house. I mean,

00:03:29.620 Canadian taxpayers own this house and will own it forever. So, you know, he's not really spending

00:03:35.180 it on himself. And yet when it comes to anything else, he's happy to toss a billion, a million here,

00:03:40.180 there. So I think he's got it backwards. I think he should be more careful on

00:03:42.880 spending everything on everything else. And he shouldn't be so reluctant to spend money on

00:03:46.860 what's essentially a government building. You know, if there was a downtown office building

00:03:51.140 in Ottawa where government bureaucrats were working, no one would say, don't fix the roof

00:03:55.160 if it's leaky. And yet that's exactly what we have with 24 Sussex.

00:03:59.940 Yeah. And what's interesting is that this is a distinctly Canadian problem in that if you look

00:04:04.100 at the US or Britain, for example, their official residences for the president and the prime

00:04:09.660 minister are also the official working quarters of them. So 10 Downing Street is an executive

00:04:14.760 office and home. The White House is an executive office and home. And if you have that, you don't

00:04:21.040 have this problem that we have now. And I don't know if it's possible to go back to that. I don't

00:04:25.980 know if we can build an apartment in the old launch van block and say, this is where you live now or

00:04:29.820 consolidate the two to some new building we create. But if we say everything's on the table,

00:04:35.580 you could build a working residence that is cheaper than the renovation costs that are

00:04:41.000 being floated for 24 Sussex.

00:04:43.380 You're absolutely right. And that does need to be on the table. So I mean, whether we tear it down,

00:04:47.400 maybe we rebuild there, maybe we rebuild somewhere else. Maybe the prime minister keeps living at

00:04:52.580 Rideau Cottage. I mean, it seems to be working as an arrangement that that could be some cost savings.

00:04:57.440 Maybe, you know, the opposition leader and the speaker of the house, they both get

00:05:01.040 official residences. Maybe the prime minister takes one of those. And then we give the speaker

00:05:05.960 or opposition leader a generous housing allowance like we do for other MPs. Or maybe we do, like

00:05:10.680 you mentioned, the US-UK model where you have both a working building and a residence together.

00:05:15.920 We could put that somewhere else in Ottawa. So there's all kinds of options. Obviously,

00:05:20.080 the sky can't be the limit for cost. I mean, we're still talking about significant money here.

00:05:24.220 But the point is we have to do something because every year it's 300 grand down the toilet

00:05:29.440 and we don't move the ball anywhere on this. So, you know, I really wrote this to try and get the

00:05:33.400 conversation going and just, you know, really make the point that doing nothing is not really

00:05:38.920 an option anymore. There is the fiscal conservative in me that says, you know, they can just get a

00:05:43.880 housing allowance like everyone else. But I do think from a symbolic perspective, there is an

00:05:48.880 importance of having an official residence. I don't think that's unreasonable in the grand scheme

00:05:53.620 of things. But when I look at the cost, and you say in your column here, at least $34 million,

00:05:59.400 you could build something that looks identical or looks better and is functional and state-of-the-art

00:06:06.140 for a fraction of that cost. And that's the part that I find so baffling here. And we see this with

00:06:11.380 the center block renovations just down the road, you know, going to be costing a billion dollars.

00:06:16.360 I mean, you could just... How much?

00:06:18.560 If we're lucky.

00:06:19.220 Yeah. I mean, you could literally build something that looks identical for a fraction of the

00:06:24.020 price. So why is that, that these reno costs are so much more than creating something that

00:06:29.720 would be quite beautiful?

00:06:31.640 Yeah. So in the case of 24 Sussex, there's a couple of reasons. One is, and they are

00:06:36.260 understandable when you think about them. One is security. So this is not a regular mansion,

00:06:40.440 right? The security needs are very different for this than they would be for a regular house.

00:06:44.340 So that adds quite a bit to the tap. The other thing is the location. It's on a beautiful

00:06:48.780 cliff overlooking the Ottawa River. You know, I have actually spoken with some people who

00:06:54.060 said one of the fears is that cliff could literally just topple over and the whole house goes into the

00:06:59.120 Ottawa River. So you have the structurally, there are a lot of big demands, but that's

00:07:03.220 part of the reason I think maybe we rethink the location. It's a beautiful location, but

00:07:06.980 maybe it's not the safest or the most cost-effective location for the prime minister to live. So

00:07:12.040 maybe we should look for somewhere else. But one other thing on the rebuild, you know,

00:07:15.820 I think one thing that has not been talked about enough is the opportunity. If you made this sort

00:07:20.980 of a, think of it as a national contest, right? Open it up and let, you know, prominent architects

00:07:26.340 from around the world design something, something unique, something new. In this country, Andrew,

00:07:31.600 we're a pretty divided bunch a lot of the time. We don't have a lot of big symbols to rally around.

00:07:36.240 You know, if you invited people to do that and you made a contest out of it, you could let Canadians

00:07:40.980 participate in the process. I think you could also save some money because I think a lot of people

00:07:44.820 would be willing to attach their names to this or donate, you know, their time or work to this

00:07:50.220 because it's something that's so special. So there might actually be a win-win here where you get

00:07:54.800 something new and unique and actually save some money in the process too. You know, I don't know

00:07:59.280 if a lot of people know this, but Stornoway, which is the official residence of the official

00:08:03.040 opposition leader, actually was paid for by private money. I can't remember the time, but it was bought,

00:08:08.680 I think, by a conservative opposition at the time because they said, you know, we'd like to do this,

00:08:13.160 but we don't think the taxpayer should be on the hook. And I think that you may be right there that

00:08:17.220 there would be a public appetite to contribute to this if we view it as a publicly owned residence

00:08:25.420 and not a private one. Although, you know, your thing about the coastal erosion, maybe that's the

00:08:31.400 whole point here is that wait until it falls over and then we just get the insurance payout.

00:08:35.360 And that's, you know, because then no politician has to be the one to say it's time to do this.

00:08:40.940 Yeah. And then all the more reason for nobody to be living in there. So.

00:08:44.500 Yeah. So let's, let's talk about that idea of it though, because I do think that any prime minister

00:08:49.760 is between a rock and a hard place. It's the same as salary increases. No politician ideally wants

00:08:56.100 to vote themselves a salary increase that doesn't stop them. That doesn't stop them from doing it a lot

00:09:00.520 of the time. But, but, you know, you and I would be jumping up and down on Trudeau if he were

00:09:05.240 spending millions of dollars for his own gain. So is there a way to completely depoliticize this

00:09:11.580 process? I know the National Capital Commission has some oversight of sites in Ottawa. Is there a way

00:09:16.840 to take the politicians out of the equation and say, this is going to be managed by someone so

00:09:21.540 independent that no one can accuse us of, you know, stealing the taxpayers money for our own gain?

00:09:26.640 Yeah. I think what would definitely be helpful is if the NCC puts out proposals or options in advance

00:09:33.020 of an election and there's buy-in beforehand, right? I think that's the key is you need multiple

00:09:37.580 party buy-in and you need it before you know the outcome. So then you can't accuse people of saying,

00:09:42.400 well, you're only spending the money because you get to live there. If, you know, you had a reasonable

00:09:45.960 proposal that had the, you know, buy-in of every major party and even groups like ours, like if there

00:09:51.240 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

00:09:56.020 very concerned about spending money was to give our blessing on the basis that it would actually

00:09:59.560 save money in the long run, I think that would actually help give credibility to the process.

00:10:04.000 And we'd be willing to do that if the cost was reasonable and there was buy-in because the last

00:10:08.480 thing we want to see is another 50 years of this money going down the drain. Yeah. And for Trudeau,

00:10:12.880 there's a great opportunity here to say, look, even if I win a second term, no matter what,

00:10:17.800 I will not move into 24 Sussex Drive. That's my contribution. So I don't have skin in the game here.

00:10:23.660 And I think that for him and his family, they're at Rideau Cottage. It seems to be working,

00:10:28.140 as you've said, that would be a way for him to say, look, no matter what, I'm out of this. This

00:10:32.860 isn't my home. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I mean, again, I just, I find it very curious that

00:10:38.400 he and others have said, oh, well, you know, the public outrage about spending. I mean, where is this

00:10:44.620 concern on just about anything else? I mean, I would love to see that concern shown somewhere else. And

00:10:50.360 then, you know, we'd be happy to cut a little slack on the house if he would just rein in these

00:10:54.420 ridiculous deficits that he promised he wouldn't run. Yeah, exactly. And that's where the symbolism

00:10:58.960 is important here, because it's the symbolism of spending the money, but he's okay with the

00:11:04.100 actual practice of spending it on everything else. Exactly. Exactly. Well, it was a great column

00:11:08.940 by Aaron Woodrick of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in the Toronto Sun. Time to tear down 24 Sussex.

00:11:15.260 Aaron, thanks for your time, sir. Hey, thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:11:20.360 Thank you.

Juno News - September 09, 2019

“Mr. Trudeau, tear down this house!”

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript