by Dan Coates
THE OLD US EMBASSY AT 100 WELLINGTON STREET IN OTTAWA’S PARLIAMENTARY PRECINCT
Protecting and restoring heritage properties is everyone’s responsibility. And everyone today, and our children and theirs in the future, benefits aesthetically, spiritually and economically, substantially in hard dollars. Until September 9, every Canadian and resident here in Mississippi Mills or anywhere in Canada has an opportunity to express their view to the Government of Canada on the future uses of the heritage gem that is the former US Embassy, vacant for almost 20 years, at 100 Wellington Street facing the Peace Tower and Centre Block.
Mississippi Mills is a heritage Town, a good part within the National Capital Region (NCR). We share with both Ottawa and Gatineau a common rich built heritage. The big difference between us and the NCR, especially at its core, is the presence of a national perspective and the active role of the Government of Canada with its deep pockets, the involved interest of all Canadians in the NCR, the depth of the federal expertise in heritage and restoration and the presence of Canada’s Crown jewel, the Parliamentary Precinct.
Billions are being invested in the restoration of each of the major buildings there. One of North America’s leading heritage architects, the former resident of Appleton, Julian Smith, has played a major role in this Parliamentary Precinct project, as Julian did with me and many others in our Economic Development Committee in Town in past years.
Mississippi Mills can continue to tap into the federal expertise, for our current Mayor dutifully stays in contact with the NCC. And thanks to Shaun for his leadership and to John on Council and many others in Town for strong interest in and support for heritage properties.
When Margaret Duncan (Brunton) was Reeve of Ramsay Township years ago, Margaret a true visionary and dedicated leader, started a close relationship with then Chair of the NCC, the equally legendary Jean Pigott, and Margaret and I, as a member then of the short lived joint Almonte Ramsay Economic Development Committee, met with Pigott on several occasions to explore assistance and advice, for both the then separate Ramsay and Almonte.
We in Mississippi Mills urgently need to tap the profound world class heritage expertise in the federal government to learn more about how best to preserve, restore and develop new uses for the rich heritage properties we have in our Town. Some local projects and needed initiatives are urgent, let’s learn more from the federal example and their experts. Adaptation of heritage buildings is not a dirty word, done with skill and sensitivity, changes and additions can be entirely compatible and ensure the use and preservation of heritage properties that may otherwise decline or disappear in neglect.
On Thursday evening, August 18, 2016, two federal Ministers, Judy Foote, responsible for Public Services and Procurement Canada, but more importantly Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment & Climate Change and political Minister for Ottawa and the NCR, one of the most effective and talented federal Ministers, hosted a public consultation session on one of the heritage treasures, the old US Embassy at 100 Wellington Street, directly facing the Peace Tower, a key stone building in the Precinct.
McKenna, since her election, among other major achievements such as the Paris Agreement, has quietly but doggedly moved to reverse what most see as perverse and unpopular decisions by the Harper government in the NCR, taken without any public consultation of any kind. These include Mr. Harper and John Baird’s 2006 cancellation of the planned Portrait Gallery in the old US Embassy (with their failed plan to re-locate it to Alberta in a so-called public private developer partnership), the location and monstrous, brutal design and overwhelming size of their monument to the Victims of Communism, planned for a site adjacent to the Supreme Court, and McKenna’s insistence that the Ottawa Civic Hospital re-visit in public consultations, options to Baird’s choice to locate the new Civic hospital ideally elsewhere than on research and heritage valuable Experimental Farm land.
Before the Thursday evening consultation session, that afternoon the old US Embassy was open for public tours. I was able to re-visit memories of that heritage building, now vacant for almost 20 years. Both the Chretien and Martin governments had approved a plan for the National Portrait gallery to be located there, until the change of government in the 2006 general election stopped it. Work on the Embassy for the Portrait Gallery was quite advanced at that time, acclaimed architectural plans for both the heritage structure and an adjoining large but entirely compatible expansion on the West parking lot were approved, old wiring, noxious substances and old plumbing were removed – so the interior appearance is now somewhat derelict. The annual cost of maintaining the vacant structure is over $200,000.
On that sunny Thursday afternoon I stood in the former Ambassador’s second floor office, still wood paneled and with its grand black marble fireplace intact but all the HVAC vents removed, the ceiling gutted and devoid of its grand chandelier, hidden away with other heritage artifacts.
Looking out at the same picture of the Peace Tower directly opposite I recalled my first meeting of many in that very office in 1967 with the then US Ambassador to Canada William Walton Butterworth, an imposing and powerful person who had just completed negotiations with Lester Pearson on the historic Canada US Auto Pact.
As a young twenties recent grad from an American university who had worked on Bobby Kennedy’s 1964 Senate campaign in New York State canvassing, which he was aware of, I was meeting with Butterworth and his First Secretary for my planned visit to Washington, DC that year. Am sure he had a full file on my background in the US and my friendship since 1962 with Secretary Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and knew of course that I was at that time sort of representing Mr. Pearson, however in the most junior capacity, so he kept me fully intimidated as he recalled his tough negotiations with Canadian Ministers and officials and ultimately, with the Prime Minister. He was more Lyndon B. Johnson’s man although appointed by JFK, but not a friend of Mr. Pearson, known as the Nobel Peace Prize peacemaker not supportive of LBJ’s ugly war in Vietnam.
On this August summer day standing in that office, with heavy dust settled on the barely visible wood floor and wood columns and walls, gazing through the open window at the Peace Tower and Centre Block, with a ceiling open to the concrete roof, I needed no convincing that this now Canadian owned heritage treasure and former US territory, needed to be fully and appropriately preserved for all Canadians to use and value. It sits on one of the most valuable points of land in the Parliamentary Precinct, there since 1932. Soon it will be launched after years of desolation back into public use, possibly with a magnificent and compatible addition.
Every reader of the Millstone can participate before September 9 this year at the links below in suggesting appropriate future uses for the former Embassy. Foote’s department has put forward six broad suggestions for its future use to inform public discussion. However, my sense, and strong prejudice, since the plans are already developed and advanced and paid for, and because the heritage value of Canada’s heritage portrait collection is so great, sticking to the original plan for a National Portrait Gallery best fits the site and its heritage values, and will allow the 8 or 10 million visitors to the NCR each year opportunities to visit a historic and heritage gem in all its restored splendor. Most of the officials’ suggestions, other than the best one for a gallery, are thoughtful but much less appropriate for that site, and would be better served elsewhere in the NCR.
One participant on Thursday night, an elderly and soft spoken lady, made a short, earnest and powerful comment in similar words to these: “Canada is known for the beauty of its land, but that is ultimately not what defines Canada, it is its people, and their portraits, through history, capturing their diversity, from early indigenous people, those working the land and in factories and on the sea, at war and in peace keeping, common folk with mothers and fathers and children, those great and not so great, all who made Canada what it is today, and will become.
The national portrait collection is a fabulous collection of portraits, rarely seen by Canadians, some captured by the greats including Yusuf Karsh, and other noted early and contemporary photographers, equally most by your ancestors and mine.
Learn more. Express your view, whatever it may be, at the links below.
https://97.ca/ekos/callweb.cgi?_proj=05116OT&_lang=EN&ISRC=1
