🇨🇦 24 Sussex: A Nation's Rotting Symbol of Government Incompetence

Canada's official prime ministerial residence has sat uninhabitable since the Harper years. Mould, asbestos, rats, cracked windows, outdated wiring — the 35-room heritage mansion overlooking the Ottawa River is a ruin. The government spent $4.3 million just to strip out the hazardous materials and catalog old doorknobs. A full restoration is estimated at anywhere from $35 million to $100 million, and no one in Ottawa will make a decision. Carney lives across the street. Trudeau lived across the street for a decade before him.

This is the government that just rolled out a $13 billion housing plan promising 500,000 homes a year. They cannot fix one house — a house they already own, on land they already control, with heritage status already established — in over a decade of trying. Every agency passes the buck to the next. The PCO defers to the NCC. The NCC defers to the PCO. Meanwhile Canada remains the only G7 nation with zero legislative protection for federally recognized heritage sites. The rot is architectural and institutional.

🍁 Maple Chronicles