Rideau Cottage 'inadequate' home for a PM as decision on 24 Sussex looms: internal memo

Rideau Cottage, the historical redbrick put up where canadian river undercoat ministers have been living for more than a decade, is inadequate and comes with security risks, according to a government memorandum prepared last summer.

"Rideau Cottage's proximity to the Governor General's residence and the surrounding residential neighbourhood increases security risk, while the building's small footprint and lack of adequate functional space make it inadequate for a prime minister's needs," the memo sent to Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Sabia on Aug. 8, 2025, said.

Successive prime ministers have been unwilling to take the political risk to spend the tens of millions of dollars required to renovate the 19th-century home on Sussex Drive or build a brand new official residence.

Stephen Harper was the last prime minister to call 24 Sussex home. The official residence was decommissioned in recent years, with mould, asbestos, dead rodents and their excrement removed.

The National Capital Commission, which manages the official residences, says "obsolete mechanical, heating and electrical systems" were also stripped out.

As one of his last acts in power last year, former prime minister Justin Trudeau set a Jan. 1, 2026, deadline for the government to create an advisory panel of former prime ministers to make recommendations about the official residence's "location, functionality, cost and security requirements," the memo says.

The government won't say if that advisory panel has been created.

The memo to Canada's top public servant notes that early in Carney's mandate, the prime minister suggested publicly he doesn't view investments in the official residence as a top priority.

But it says the Privy Council Office has been taking "a more active role in helping advance the file" to cost out options.

The document was written by the Privy Council Office to prepare Sabia for an August meeting that Tobi Nussbaum, the CEO of the National Capital Commission, requested.

The RCMP, which is tasked with protecting the prime minister, confirms it handed over its recommendations to the government about what it would take to secure each of the options under consideration.

RCMP senior deputy commissioner Bryan Larkin says the details are in some ways national trade secrets, but broadly can say the Mounties are looking at "target hardening" to strengthen security. 

"Whether it's through environmental design, whether it's through bollards, close circuit-television and cameras and surveillance systems, counter-drone mechanisms — all those pieces are advice that we would provide," Larkin said. 

The RCMP also prepared a briefing note for its commissioner in December with confidential advice and met with the Privy Council Office on Jan. 28. 

Officials at that time estimated the price tag could range between tens of millions of dollars to more than $100 million.

Sheila Copps, a former Liberal deputy prime minister, says former NDP leader Ed Broadbent agreed to help come up with a solution for the fate of 24 Sussex. She reached out to former Liberal prime minister Jean Chrétien near the end of Trudeau's mandate asking for a letter from all parties to support whatever decision the government made. Chrétien then reached out to Harper, she said.

Chrétien and Harper offered to lead a campaign in 2024 to fundraise money to restore 24 Sussex. Trudeau didn't take them up on the offer, Copps said.

"He turned it down because he felt that if they did raise money, there would be too many accusations of somebody paying for the place and then wanting their issues resolved," she said.

"So he wasn't keen on the idea of them raising the money."

Copps says she heard early on Carney wants the issue resolved. She calls 24 Sussex an "iconic part of Canadian history" that must be saved. She says prime ministers have put off dealing with the home because of the optics.

"It looks self-serving and self-interested. You're fixing up your own house," she said. "No matter how you frame it, people are looking at 'oh he's just spending money for himself' instead of looking at it as a story of Canada's history."

Right now the future of 24 Sussex is a political decision made by cabinet and guided by the prime minister, Copps said.  She wants that to change and isn't alone. 

Heritage Ottawa has long recommended the government appoint a committee with a non-partisan chair to make recommendations about the federal heritage building.

"This building needs to be taken care of," the non-profit group's president Katherine Spencer-Ross said. "So there is an urgency. Somebody needs to make a decision — and at this point just make the decision and we'll live with it."

Spencer-Ross sent Carney a letter in October calling on him to renovate 24 Sussex, but has yet to hear back. 

The home was built in the late 1860s by Joseph Merrill Currier, an MP and lumber baron, and designed in the Gothic revival style, her letter said. 

"It is a nationally significant place that belongs to all Canadians, not to a prime minister nor to any political party. Prime ministers who live in this house are stewards of this nationally significant structure," wrote Spencer-Ross in her letter to Carney. 

Scott Heatherington, the president of the Rockcliffe Park Residents Association, says his members want the prime minister's home to be refurbished at 24 Sussex Drive or expanded at Rideau Cottage, which are both in the adjacent neighbourhood of New Edinburgh.

Rockcliffe Park is home to foreign diplomats as well as Stornoway, the residence for the leader of the Official Opposition, and is one of Ottawa's most affluent areas.

Radio-Canada reported in 2023 that the government was considering a spot in Rockcliffe Park along the Ottawa River surrounded by woods.

Heatherington said people across Ottawa, including new immigrants, visit that greenspace to have picnics, enjoy the scenic outlook, bike and walk. He said it would be a shame for the public to lose access.

"I know that being a politician is really tough," he said. "They get criticized for everything they do. But I think this is right for Canada and I think Mr. Carney should show us that he's got the right stuff and make the right decision."

The Privy Council Office said work is ongoing and no final decisions have been made.

Senior reporter

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