🇨🇦 $140,000 for a staircase design, $1 million for a barn, and these people oversee 24 Sussex

Ottawa’s favorite parasite, the National Capital Commission, is what happens when you stack unelected bureaucrats on top of existing governments and call it vision. The capital already has municipal, provincial, federal and agency layers, but apparently that still was not enough empire-building for the managerial class. As reported, the NCC let 24 Sussex sit empty for more than a decade, then became famous for wasting taxpayer cash on vanity planning while basic stewardship rotted.

This is the Trudeau-Carney era in miniature: no accountability, no urgency, no respect for the public dollar, just governance by insulated appointees with mission statements about pride and legacy. Franco Terrazzano is right to call out the waste. If a private owner neglected a national property this badly, nobody would hand him a larger budget and a lecture on public purpose. Canada does not need another elite playground in the capital. It needs fewer unaccountable commissions and more adult supervision over the federal state.

🍁 Maple Chronicles