MacDougall: Next prime minister must tear down 24 Sussex

The next prime minister, who needs to builds hundreds of thousands of homes, should begin with his own.

Published Jan 09, 2025  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

A 2023 file photo of 24 Sussex Dr., the official residence for prime ministers for more than a half-century. Photo by Tony Caldwell /POSTMEDIA

It’s a match made in Heaven: a man who needs to prioritize house-building in his mandate will arrive on the first day of his new job in need of a new residence.

To be sure, Pierre Poilievre has not yet won the keys to 24 Sussex Drive. There might not even be any keys to 24 Sussex anymore, so long has Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dithered on the renovation of his former childhood home. But the sad truth is, nearly 10 years on from Trudeau and family absconding to Rideau Cottage, the problem of 24 Sussex remains.

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If Canada is indeed a top nation and a beacon of freedom, it needs to project this through its institutions and instruments of state. Having an asbestos-ridden firetrap of an official residence that you can’t invite other world leaders to is a mark of a country in decline. Parliament is undergoing refurbishment. Trudeau refreshed the prime minister’s air fleet. It’s time for the next prime minister to get his (literal) house in order.

Symbols matter in politics. A common (and valid) criticism of Trudeau is that he is all talk and no action. The matter of the Prime Minister’s official residence is a potent symbol of Trudeau’s press release politics. What better symbol of change could Poilievre muster than the actual razing of this dilapidated home?

Strategically, all new prime ministers look for quick wins to help frame their agendas. Trudeau breached Fort Pearson (home of Global Affairs Canada) and basked in the love of a diplomatic corps and bureaucracy that had grown tired of holding Stephen Harper’s supposed shackles and foreign policy lines. Message: Someone who respects bureaucrats is back in charge. Trudeau then took a huge compliment of the public service to the 2015 Paris climate meeting with Harper’s greenhouse gas reduction targets and convinced the world that Canada was “back.”

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With 24 Sussex, Poilievre could do the same. The country needs homes. He’s promised to build them. So why not get a Canadian architect? Canadian builders, building a piece of Canadian history. The first of the hundreds of thousands of homes that will go up across the country during his tenure. No more studies. No more consultations. Bulldoze and rebuild.

And rebuild to blend the personal with the political. It is the prime minister and his family’s residence; but it must also be a place of business. A place where prime ministers can bring their counterparts to have intimate conversations about matters of state. No more squatting in the King’s back garden. No more long rides up to a rickety (if picturesque) Harrington Lake.

Will Canadians kick up a fuss about a prime minister beginning with his own backyard? This, after all, has been the concern for many a prime minister, including Harper, the last man to dwell at 24 Sussex. In the midst of a then-economic calamity, Harper refused to order more than the bare minimum of work on the house, as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.

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A quick check of the public record shows Poilievre feels the same. When asked about the fate of 24 Sussex in 2023, the Conservative leader said a new home for the prime minister was “last on his list of priorities.”

But times have changed. Canadians have always been more generous and less small-minded than their leaders give them credit for. They don’t want their leaders travelling on 40-year old Airbuses or dwelling in outmoded residences or workplaces. They are proud of their country and won’t mind its symbols and facilities getting an upgrade. It’s not rebuild 24 Sussex or build homes for the proletariat; it’s both.

A photo of the interior of the closed and stripped-down 24 Sussex Drive, official residence of the prime minister. Photo by National Capital Commission

And if by some miracle it is someone not named Pierre Poilievre who is the next prime minister, they should commit to do the same, whether that’s Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, or whoever the authoritarians of the world decide to enter into the race thanks to the Liberal Party’s extremely loose membership rules.

It’s time to condemn 24 Sussex Drive and put it out of its misery.

Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

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