Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Let’s all hate Ottawa

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, August 16, 2011 10:00am - 22 Comments

Mohammed Adam considers the deserted embassy across from Parliament Hill as a symbol of the capital’s plight.

Longtime city watcher Rhys Phillips agrees. “One thing about Ottawa that is probably unique to Canadian culture is that the country almost hates its capital,” he says.

That resentment, Dewar says, has infected decision-makers in Ottawa and created a “paralysis or reluctance” to champion and promote the capital. “Ottawa is used elsewhere in the country as some kind of punching bag, not a capital city we should be proud of,” he says.

Tags: capital, National Portrait Gallery, Ottawa, Paul Dewar, portrait gallery, Rhys Philips

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Anonymous

And is there anything serious about this? One guesses not.
Anonymous

What a stupid piece of fluff. Dewar must be bored.

The embassy to gallery conversion was put on hold because of the recession, duh. Museum of Man just recently refurbished, Parliament Buildings renovation on-going, etc.

Trudeau didn’t “give” us the National Gallery and Museum of Civilization – out tax dollars did and we have the national debt to show for it. The ’70′s saw the huge move of Federal Buildings over to Hull which meant more bridges, infrastucture, etc. Another stupid Trudeau legacy.

Ottawa is a beautiful city, born and raised there – childhood memories of a steady-stream of relatives being taken around town – my dad liked to say “this is the lovely _____ that your tax dollars paid for, thank you very much”,lol!!
Anonymous

What a stupid piece of fluff. Dewar must be bored.

The embassy to gallery conversion was put on hold because of the recession, duh. Museum of Man just recently refurbished, Parliament Buildings renovation on-going, etc.

Trudeau didn’t “give” us the National Gallery and Museum of Civilization – out tax dollars did and we have the national debt to show for it. The ’70′s saw the huge move of Federal Buildings over to Hull which meant more bridges, infrastucture, etc. Another stupid Trudeau legacy.

Ottawa is a beautiful city, born and raised there – childhood memories of a steady-stream of relatives being taken around town – my dad liked to say “this is the lovely _____ that your tax dollars paid for, thank you very much”,lol!!

Anonymous

Ya know…Trudeau has been out of office since 1984…and dead since 2000.

Don’t you think it’s time to stop blaming him for the country’s ills?

Our deficit was eliminated long ago as well…by Chretien and Martin.

Our current deficit is entirely Harper-made.

Anonymous

Meant national debt – and it is still with us.

Anonymous

The national debt has been with us since day one, and it isn’t going away.

Anonymous

Meant national debt – and it is still with us.
Anonymous

With your help, OE1. Plus , it does take a generation or more for a nation to work its way through a bad policy initiative and PET’s were legion. All bleeding heart liberal/socialist stuff, you see. Look at what is going on in olde England?

Anonymous

Cons waste an enormous amount of time worrying about dead people.

And claiming everyone but them is wrong.

PS…we’ve had riots. So has the US. In fact there are currently riots all over the world, including Israel.

PPS. Kindly stop pretending I’m left wing…I dislike the left wing as much as I dislike the right wing.

Anonymous

Ya know…Trudeau has been out of office since 1984…and dead since 2000.

Don’t you think it’s time to stop blaming him for the country’s ills?

Our deficit was eliminated long ago as well…by Chretien and Martin.

Our current deficit is entirely Harper-made.
Anonymous

The embassy to gallery conversion was put on hold because of the recession, duh.

Not at all. The embassy was put on hold thanks to a change in government from one that thought the National Portrait Gallery should be in the National Capital to one that thought the National Capital region should be Calgary. The entire project was halted and opened to new bids that were completely geared towards moving it out of Ottawa. That happened two years before the recession hit, which was six months before the World’s Greatest Economist realized that a recession was currently underway.

The recession just gave the Conservatives a good reason to completely halt the project, especially when it became obvious that Calgary was not going to win the competition. As a matter of fact, had the Conservatives not meddled with this back in 2006, the gallery would have been finished (or close to) by the time the recession hit.

Anonymous

Thank you, I coldn’t remember all the details – just that Leo’s revisionists version wasn’t right.
Anonymous

It was proposed in 2001 and to be finished in 2005. The costs more than doubled and in 2006 it went up for bid to about eight Canadian cities, including Calgary with private sector funding to be included. The winner was to be announced in 2008 – then the recession. hit.

Why does it have to be in Ottawa??? The thing with art, it can get moved around and displayed anywhere there is an appropriate location – happens all the time.

Anonymous

The national portrait gallery contains portraits that are works of art, for sure, but it is an archive of Canada’s history, with “more than 20,000 paintings, drawings and prints, 4 million photographs, several thousand caricatures, and ten thousand medals and philatelic items.” What better place than Ottawa? Do you also think should move their National Portrait Gallery out of Washington, the UK’s out of London, etc.? Why?

Anonymous

The National Portrait Gallery should not be in Ottawa unless Ottawa (The City) can compete with the bids put forth by Edmonton and Calgary. Residents/Taxpayers have every right to have the opportunity to house the gallery in their community if they can put forth a plan to fund/sustain it.

Anonymous

I thought Harper shelved the Ottawa project back in 2006. He tried to re-locate it, Encana
then was going to house it in the Bow, and then they bailed.

Anonymous

What a stupid piece of fluff. Dewar must be bored.

The embassy to gallery conversion was put on hold because of the recession, duh. Museum of Man just recently refurbished, Parliament Buildings renovation on-going, etc.

Trudeau didn’t “give” us the National Gallery and Museum of Civilization – out tax dollars did and we have the national debt to show for it. The ’70′s saw the huge move of Federal Buildings over to Hull which meant more bridges, infrastucture, etc. Another stupid Trudeau legacy.

Ottawa is a beautiful city, born and raised there – childhood memories of a steady-stream of relatives being taken around town – my dad liked to say “this is the lovely _____ that your tax dollars paid for, thank you very much”,lol!!
Anonymous

First of all, I can’t believe there was an empty office building right across the road, and we spent millions on temporary office space somewhere else during renovations. I don’t know how much ‘embassy to gallery’ work had gone on and if offices have already been removed, but this story makes us nod our heads at why we hate Ottawa.

But as to that, don’t you think it is that peculiar part of the Canadian character (and no, I don’t mean every single Canadian, but a general likelihood) that hates everything successful from one of our own? And I don’t think it is really a genuine hatred, but we can’t very well be openly proud about something (not modest) so we do this strange thing whereby we highlight the success (the bragging part) only to ridicule and denegrate it (the never bragging because we’re a modest people part). Sometimes I can see clearly that is what someone (usually in the media) is doing, and sometimes I’m doing it myself and have no idea. I think this is fascinating!

Anonymous

It’s called ‘tall poppy syndrome’ in Australia….and the Canadian lobster syndrome here.

On edit: Oops sorry, I see ‘lobster syndrome’ has been changed to ‘crab mentality’….maybe because of Parizeau’s mangling of the original. LOL

Anonymous

That it has a name I’ve very thankful for (could you tell?) But Canadian Lobster Syndrome doesn’t do it for me. I think Tall Poppy Syndrome is even less instructive, though. Hah! I like ours better! And gave it a compliment while simultaneously bashing it!

Do Aussie’s do that, too? I had never noticed or even heard it said. Even more fascinating!

Anonymous

Tall poppy syndrome (TPS) is a pejorative term primarily used in Australia, but also in New Zealand, Canada and other Anglosphere nations to describe a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome

The one I always heard about Canada was lobsters….

‘A man waiting to be seated at a seafood restaurant notices that one of the lobster tanks has no lid. He alerts the mâitre d’ to a possible escape in progress. “Ah,” says the mâitre d’, “don’t worry, sir. Those are Canadian lobsters. If one of them starts to crawl out, the others will just drag it back down.” ‘

But then Parizeau mangled the whole thing with his separatism remark, so it seems to have been redone as crabs….LOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality