As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepares to depart workplace, CBC Information has discovered that one in every of his last acts is an try to settle the issue of 24 Sussex Drive, the official — and lengthy vacant — residence of Canada’s prime minister.
In a letter to Public Providers and Procurement Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, Trudeau asks the minister to develop a proposal with choices for a brand new official residence for the prime minister by January 2026.
The prime minister asks Duclos to arrange an advisory committee that will weigh in on the placement, price, performance and safety necessities of the brand new residence.
Trudeau despatched a separate letter to Public Security Minister David McGuinty asking him to help the method, as his division would assist with safety planning.
CBC Information has seen the letters and was briefed on the general plan by a senior authorities official who was talking on background.
Trudeau asks Duclos to switch accountability for the residence from the Nationwide Capital Fee (NCC) to Public Providers and Procurement Canada (PSPC) — which already is answerable for buildings within the parliamentary precinct.
The advisory panel would come with eminent Canadians that might embody former prime ministers and clerks of the Privy Council to discover a long-term resolution for an official residence that will additionally embody house for work and occasions and meet fashionable safety necessities.
The NCC is answerable for the administration of the six official residences in Ottawa, together with 24 Sussex. The house has been vacant since 2015, when Trudeau was first elected, and sits in disrepair. The NCC formally closed the residence in 2022 and staff have since stripped it of mould, asbestos, lead and the rodents dwelling inside.
Broadly, there are three choices for changing 24 Sussex: A brand new or closely renovated advanced on the present property, a transfer to a second property within the Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood of Ottawa that has a greater safety profile or an improve of Rideau Cottage, which has been the prime minister’s unofficial official residence since 2015.
Not one of the choices are low-cost. Official estimates say the lowest-cost possibility could be within the tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} and sure north of $100 million.
That price ticket has been a big impediment to any makes an attempt to improve or exchange 24 Sussex.
The official residence of the prime minister, 24 Sussex Drive, might by no means home one other prime minister. The federal authorities is trying into choices for a extra fashionable and safe home for future prime ministers.
It was politically tough to spend important cash on an official residence when bizarre Canadians are struggling to purchase houses. This problem was compounded by the inflation and affordability disaster within the years after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The committee Trudeau is proposing is an try to get previous that — particularly if former prime ministers from totally different political events take part within the course of. The timing additionally means Trudeau will not be seen as benefiting from regardless of the committee recommends.
Nonetheless, it’s doable that Trudeau’s successor Mark Carney — or whoever wins the subsequent federal election — will not help what the committee recommends and decides to not transfer forward with a brand new residence.
Carney set to be sworn in as prime minister on Friday.
Any new proposal would want to account for up to date safety wants. A number of safety sources and specialists have mentioned the 24 Sussex grounds are too small to fulfill fashionable necessities.
And Trudeau has confronted important threats as prime minister.
In 2021, a former Canadian Forces reservist crashed his truck via the gates of Rideau Corridor, close to the location of Trudeau’s present residence, Rideau Cottage.
Based on court docket paperwork, Corey Hurren was outraged by the federal authorities’s COVID-19 restrictions and its ban on assault-style firearms. He was sentenced to 6 years in jail and granted day parole earlier this 12 months.
Trudeau has by no means lived in 24 Sussex in his 9 years as prime minister, however it was his childhood residence when his father was prime minister.
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