Canada's Parliament Buildings

By Mark Bourrie

Three beautiful gothic buildings loom over the Ottawa River just below the historic Chaudiere Falls. They are the seat of Canada’s federal government, visited by thousands of people each year. Canada’s Parliament Buildings, filled with heraldry and history, instill pride in our country and give visitors a deep sense of being Canadian.

Constructed in controversy, and steeped in decades of political lore, the Parliament Buildings have been the stage for the evolution of Canada from a small colony to one of the great nations of the world. This fascinating book takes you behind the scenes of Parliament Hill, examines the architecture, heraldry, and history of the buildings, and gives readers an understanding of the important role of Parliament in our society. Profusely illustrated with contemporary and historic photographs, this beautiful book belongs on the shelf of everyone who has toured the Parliament Buildings. It will also appeal to those interested in Canadian history and politics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Nov 25, 1996
• ISBN: 9781459713369

Mark Bourrie

Mark Bourrie is an Ottawa-based author, lawyer, and journalist. He holds a master’s in journalism from Carleton University and a PhD in history from the University of Ottawa. In 2017, he was awarded a Juris Doctor degree and was called to the bar in 2018. He has won numerous awards for his journalism, including a National Magazine Award, and received the RBC Charles Taylor Prize in 2020 for his book Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson. His most recent book, Big Men Fear Me: The Fast Life and Quick Death of Canada’s Most Powerful Media Mogul, was nominated for several book awards.

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Introduction

The voice of the people is said to be as the voice of God.

House of Commons,

Petition to King James I, 1604

The idea that the voice of the people holds wisdom, or should even be listened to, is not new. In small places, where people know one another and can judge for themselves the wisdom in the words of their neighbours, democracy is a system that arises fairly naturally. Nomadic groups, such as the aboriginal hunters of the Canadian subarctic and plains, have to be limited in size since hunting is an unpredictable and rather tricky way of making a living. Most hunting bands are made up of only a family or two, acting the way any family would. Ideas are shared, disagreements are worked out through argument, promises are made. If people aren’t satisfied with the way things are going, they may simply leave the group. Anyone holding responsibility does so with the direct consent of the governed, and, if the people don’t like the way things are run, the leader works out the problem with the unhappy followers, steps aside, or watches as his former friends pack up and go.

People who live on farms have a more stable food supply. If there is a surplus, populations rise. Towns and cities can be created. As a society becomes more complex, its members no longer know everyone in their region. Class systems arise, people compete for control of commerce and territory, citizens expect protection, and armies are created to protect the society from foreign invasion.

Most early states were simply tyrannies, developed to force people to do the bidding of a few leaders. The voice of the people can never be kept silent for very long, however. In time, the will of the people, their demand to be heard, has crumbled all of the great police states. Pharaohs, Greek city state tyrants, Caesars, absolute monarchs, Jacobins, all once terrified their citizens. Now they’re gone, most often remembered only as part of high school history exams. Nazis, Communists, Peronists, Fascists, too, are fading, or have already left history’s stage. Yet our one-thousand-year-old parliamentary system survives, flourishes, and is copied and adapted in most places that have embraced democracy. Canada’s parliamentary system has roots that go back far into the history of Europe and North America. We think of Canada as a new country, but it is one of the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies. Some of the democratic ideas that are embedded in our political system took shape here before Europeans began colonizing North America.

Canada is the largest area ever to be governed by a truly democratic government. Our constitution envisions Canada as a federal state, meaning that power is shared between provincial governments, each representing the interests of a separate region, and a central government, which is expected to govern for the benefit of Canada as a whole.

The Parliament of Canada is a complex institution that uses written law, as well as the unwritten traditions of the British system, to determine how it is to function. Parliament is not just the House of Commons. It embraces the queen, represented in Canada by the governor general, along with the Senate, and the House of Commons. In theory, at least, the three branches of Parliament balance each other. Members of the ministry, who are the executive of the government, may be members of either the elected House of Commons or the appointed Senate. Ministers are selected by the prime minister, who also chooses the departments for which they will be responsible, but the prime minister must inform and consult the governor general, in the name of the queen. The governor general appoints the prime minister’s choices, and, traditionally, new ministers are sworn in at Rideau Hall, the governor general’s residence.

The buildings on Parliament Hill were built to be the physical centrepiece of this system. Their Gothic architecture is a reminder of the long history of the institution of Parliament. Inside, the political currents of our society are reflected by the ebb and flow of governments. Dramatic, colourful, brilliant, and, quite often, eccentric people, created these buildings and governed from them.

There is a sacredness within the walls of the old Gothic buildings. They are legislatures, offices, and meeting rooms. They are also shrines to our freedom. If anyone in the country really wants to feel like a Canadian, this little group of stone buildings is the place to visit. Good and bad governments come and go, but the hard-won right of the people to have their voice echo in the halls of Parliament endures, as it has down through the centuries.

Part One

Victoria’s Choice

It seems like an act of insanity to have fixed the capital of this great country away from the civilization, intelligence and commercial enterprise of the Province, in a place that can never be a place of any importance. My confident belief is, notwithstanding the vast expense incurred here in public buildings, Ottawa will not be the capital four years hence.

Lord Monck, first governor general

of Canada, 1866

Lord Monck was obviously not blessed with psychic powers or political foresight. Long after his prophecy, along with his name, was forgotten by Canadians, the Parliament Buildings still stand on a limestone outcrop bounded by the Ottawa River and the Rideau Canal.

Many Canadians feel a surge of patriotism when they come to Parliament Hill. There is no greater symbol of Canada than these great Gothic buildings. The Canadian flag seems to fly more proudly at the top of the Peace Tower than it does at any other place in the country.

Like the rest of Canada, Parliament Hill has its faults. In fact, it’s geological faulting that created the hill in