Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole speaks during a news conference responding to the federal government’s COVID-19 response, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin TangJustin Tang/The Canadian Press
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Recent history
Re The Delusions Of Russia-Ukraine ‘Realists’ (Jan. 26): “Realists,” it seems, love tough guys. In a British Foreign Office on Jan. 22, 1940, a month after Joseph Stalin’s birthday, Sir William Seeds, as ambassador to the Soviet Union, wrote to Viscount Halifax (in a letter I noted at Library and Archives Canada): “This review would not be complete without allusion to the remarkable wave of pro-Russian enthusiasm which swept Great Britain during the whole period.
“Whether Tsarist or Stalinist, mysterious and monstrous Russia has always fascinated British imagination and inspired our press, novelists and politicians to flights of fancy unwarranted by mere realities.”
Irene Tomaszewski Ottawa
Conservative conflict
Re Erin O’Toole, Will You Please Stand Up (Editorial, Jan. 27): I believe Erin O’Toole is standing up for a business-first position. It’s just morally difficult to do so when we know that vaccines, masks and limited gatherings are necessary to keep us safe.
MPs such as Pierre Poilievre, Candice Bergen and Andrew Scheer are free to take this position, which I find well back from the moral threshold of what is best for society. However this Conservative kerfuffle, and Mr. O’Toole’s liminal stance, do not seem to be about doing the right thing, but about winning in the restrictive face of law and order.
Brian Emes Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
Economic interest
Re BoC Holds Interest Rate Steady, But Signals Hikes To Come (Jan. 27): Inflation is running at 4.8 per cent and housing prices, largely fuelled by low interest rates, have increased 40 per cent in the past two years and are forecast to further increase. Yet the Bank of Canada chooses to send a message of “no urgency, no panic, we’ll get there.”
Sure, let’s run those econometric models a few more times, reanalyze the results, pause and reflect, then perhaps do something. But the BoC started these fires and also holds the fire hose – use it before our purchasing power is further diminished, the housing bubble bursts and the bank loses credibility.
Michael O’Hara Toronto
Re Catch A Break (Letters, Jan. 27): A letter-writer suggests that homebuyers be permitted to make their mortgage interest payments tax-deductible. I am not necessarily against such a move, but to equalize this proposed benefit – available only to those who can afford to purchase a residence – shouldn’t the government impose a capital gains tax on any profit made when the house is sold?
Brian Caines Ottawa
Get smart
Re Premiers Ramp Up Campaign For Increase To Health Transfers (Jan. 27): When compared to other developed countries, our health spending per capita ranks well. What we are not getting is value for money.
In any other circumstance, no one would offer more money without expected outcomes. When will provinces bring our health systems into the modern day and make them world class?
I, like many Canadians, have been affected by the inadequacy of our health care systems. But as a taxpayer, I know more money won’t change what is broken.
Karin Zabel Ottawa
Down in the dumps
Re Behold The Architecture Of Canada (Editorial, Jan. 26): All the reports I have read sound as if repairing 24 Sussex is not a good idea. What an opportunity to hold a contest for Canadian architects and designers to create a new residence that is environmentally sustainable, beautiful and exciting.
Mary-Jane Horsfall Large Toronto
How about hiring Douglas Cardinal, the highly esteemed Indigenous architect, to design a modern house for the Prime Minister? He lives in Ottawa and might be available.
Barbara Klunder Toronto
It is the address that seems to be the landmark in this case, not the building.
Tear down 24 Sussex and reproduce the façade if that is what people want to save. Do it all at a fraction of the price. Oops, sorry: government project – it would be double the price.
Chris McCabe Blue Mountains, Ont.
By remarkable irony, a typesetting in the newspaper breaks the word extravagant into the hyphenated “extra-vagant” and puts 24 Sussex in the right context.
Vagant: Someone who leads a wandering, unsettled life without visible means of support.
M.P. Martin Ottawa
Based on the reported amount of work needed to restore 24 Sussex, there likely isn’t a party leader today who will still be in office when the work is completed.
It should be done. Get on with it.
John Burrows Toronto
24 Sussex does indeed reflect the architecture of Canada in other ways. It was built by a lumber baron and its last occupant, before being served with a federal eviction notice, was George Cameron Edwards, who also made his fortune in lumber.
I suggest a different solution to the politically sensitive issue of renovation: Sell the house and allow it to reassume its identity as a home of the well-heeled. A relatively low selling price, given the poor condition, should make it an attractive investment.
Rather than unending political headaches, it could be repurposed into a splendid set of townhouses.
Diana Nemiroff Ottawa
Why not declare 24 Sussex a national historic site, fix it up and repurpose it by inviting the neighbour across the road to take up residence? This would leave Rideau Hall vacant for the Prime Minister.
Bingo, all housed appropriately – and probably more palatably for taxpayers – and the grand edifice restored, as it should be.
Maurice Hladik Cape Breton, N.S.
What the Prime Minister needs is a secure house suitable for a family, with some capacity for modest entertaining.
24 Sussex does not seem very private. I am no security expert, but why else would the price tag to upgrade it be $36-million?
Put the Prime Minister somewhere more suitable, then find a new use for the house.
Only the stone walls and landscape have been identified as heritage features. That leaves a lot of scope for imaginative design for another purpose. A national portrait gallery, perhaps?
Heritage Ottawa has been campaigning for years for the government to make a decision here. Delinking the issue of accommodation from the future of 24 Sussex can move us forward.
Leslie Maitland Past president, Heritage Ottawa
Perhaps HGTV could take on the renovation of 24 Sussex. It might take more than one season, but it would be a fun show to watch.
Julianna Drexler Toronto
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