With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau making ready for workplace, CBC Information has discovered that certainly one of his closing acts is an try to unravel the long-vacant 24 Sussex Drive concern, a Canadian Prime Minister official.
In a letter to the Minister of Public Providers and Procurement, Jean Ives Decross, Trudeau asks the Minister to formulate a proposal by January 2026 with the Prime Minister’s new civil servant choice.
The Prime Minister asks Ducross to ascertain an advisory committee to think about the placement, price, performance and safety necessities of the brand new residence.
Trudeau despatched one other letter to Public Safety Minister David McGinty, who’s asking him to help within the course of as his division helps safety plans.
After seeing the letter, CBC Information defined the general plan by a senior authorities official who spoke within the background.
Trudeau is looking on Duclos to switch residence legal responsibility from the Nationwide Capital Committee (NCC) to Public Providers and Procurement Canada (PSPC).
The advisory committee will embrace distinguished Canadians, together with the previous Prime Minister and Privy Council clerk, and can be capable to discover long-term options for official housing that meet the newest safety necessities, together with house for work and occasions.
The NCC is answerable for managing six official houses in Ottawa, together with 24 Sussex. The home has been vacant since 2015 when Trudeau was first elected. The NCC formally closed its residence in 2022, and employees later stripped the rodents which can be residence to mould, asbestos, lead and rodents.
Typically, there are three choices to swap for twenty-four Sussex. The transfer to the brand new or closely renovated complicated of present properties, the second property in Ottawa’s Rockcliff Park space, options a greater safety profile or improve for Rideau Cottage, which has been the prime minister’s unofficial civil servant since 2015.
Neither choice is affordable. Official estimates say the lowest-cost choice is tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars}, maybe north of $100 million.
That price ticket was a significant impediment to makes an attempt to improve or change the 24 Sussex.
The Prime Minister’s civil servant, 24 Sussex Drive, might by no means home one other Prime Minister. The federal authorities is contemplating choices for a extra fashionable and secure residence for the long run prime minister.
When bizarre Canadians battle to purchase a house, spending some huge cash on civil servants was politically troublesome. This problem was exacerbated by inflation and an inexpensive disaster within the years following the Covid-19 pandemic.
The committee proposed by the committee is an try to beat it, particularly if a former prime minister from a distinct political get together is collaborating within the course of. Timing additionally implies that Trudeau won’t be seen if it advantages from what the committee recommends.
Nevertheless, Trudeau’s successor, Mark Carney, or the one that gained the subsequent federal election, might have determined to not assist what the committee recommends and to not transfer ahead along with his new residence.
Carney is scheduled to be sworn as prime minister on Friday.
New proposals ought to take note of the newest safety wants. Some safety sources and consultants say that the 24 Sussex website is simply too small to satisfy fashionable necessities.
And Trudeau faces a significant risk as prime minister.
In 2021, a former Canadian reservist crashed the truck via the gates of Rideau Corridor close to Trudeau’s present residence, Rideau Cottage.
Based on courtroom paperwork, Corey Harlen was livid over the federal authorities’s Covid-19 restrictions and the ban on assault-style firearms. He was sentenced to 6 years in jail and granted parole for the day earlier this yr.
Trudeau has by no means lived in 24 Sussex in 9 years as Prime Minister, but it surely was in his childhood residence that his father was Prime Minister.
