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Published: February 20th 2009
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Rideau Canal
The biggest ice skating rink in the world. We came to Ottawa with a bit of a soft spot for national capitals. After spending so much time in our own nation’s home of politics, we are used to the taunts that are afflicted on such cities - expensive, sterile, full of civil servants, boring. We didn’t find Ottawa to be a cheap city, and there were a lot of government buildings and civil servants around, but boring...No, not all. In 1857, Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as Canada’s capital even though she had never been to Canada. Ottawa lies between Toronto and Montreal, in the province of Ontario, just across the river from the French-speaking Quebec province. Locating a nation’s capital in no man’s land between two established major cities is certainly a tried and tested concept.
Whilst strutting to the sounds of the wheels of government grinding away, we based ourselves in the apartment linked to the HI Hostel in the Byward Market area, a funky precinct with lots of pubs, restaurants, a food market and lots of small stores. No sterility there at all.
Ottawa has the world’s largest outdoor ice-skating trail. You may be aware that Winnipeg has laid claim to the longest outdoor skating
The Infamous Beaver Tail
How not to eat a Beaver Tail. trail in the world, a title unceremoniously stolen from Ottawa’s Rideau Canal, but Ottawa still lays claim to the world’s biggest - presumably by some measure of surface area or some other technicality. The weekend that we were there saw many people lacing up their skates to get in a bit of exercise on the Rideau. This exercise is acutely necessary as we discovered when we ordered Ottawa’s culinary classic, the Beaver Tail. It may sound a little dirty to some of you with overactive imaginations, but it’s actually named due to its resemblance to the tail of the animal. Take a flat bit of doughnut mix and shape it like a beaver tail, deep fry, add sugar, cinnamon and some sugary maple syrup sauce and you have a somewhat difficult to eat yet very tasty snack, as well as a compelling reason to skate 10 km on the canal.
No visit to Ottawa would be complete without a visit to the Canadian Parliament building. We did the tour which includes a trip up the Peace Tower with great views of the city. There’s all of those cities in the world that slug you $20 a head to catch
an elevator to a lookout over the city, and Ottawa gives their choice lookout spot away for free. The parliamentary library was bit of a highlight, with its beautiful carving and ye olde design. Apparently the library is the only part of the original building that’s still standing after the rest of it burnt down in 1916, its separation from the main building by a corridor to protect it from fire ultimately a successful design. One thing that we are still coming to grips with after more than 9 months in this country, is the fact that Canada has an unelected Senate of 105 members appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the Prime Minister. A senator has to be over 30, have assets in excess of $4000 and is appointed until the age of 75 years when they have to retire with a very generous pension package. It must be the most plum job in the Country. You get paid around $130,000 per year, inflation adjusted, and you really don’t have to do much at all for it. You can even retire before 75 and pick up the typical generous, but not quite as lucrative, government pension.
The Parliament Library
The nicest library we have ever seen. In fact there is a story of a Senator who only made two speeches during his entire 37 years in the Senate - his introductory speech after being sworn in and his departing speech upon reaching 75 years of age. All of the provinces have rid themselves of their upper house over the years, and while there is talk of Senate reform and/or abolishing the Senate, when you can reward party supporters with a perpetual gold watch, it’s hard to get too much traction on the issue within parliament.
The Canadian Museum of Civilisation came to us as highly recommended, so we popped in for a visit that we expected to take a couple of hours. We ended up spending around five. The Museum is enormous maze of rooms that follows Canadian Civilisation from the First Nations and Inuit people through to the 21st century. Among them was an exhibition that looked at a number of historically prominent Canadian identities from different spheres of life. The refreshing part of the exhibition that compared starkly with most museums of a similar ilk, was that the exhibition included stories and quotes on their darker qualities and foibles as well - their
Canadian Parliament
Very gothic. A view from the Quebec side of the river. alcoholism, quirky personality traits and the mistakes they made along the way. Case in point - Joey Smallwood was the Premier of Newfoundland and the last father of Canadian Confederation. Newfoundland only joined Canada in 1947. That is a good thing and that’s why we celebrate his achievement. But we can also giggle at the fact that he was autocratic and stubborn and that this affected his ability to do his job well. Joey presided over an energy deal to export hydro-electricity from Labrador to Quebec. Newfoundland signed the deal, selling the electricity to Quebec at a fixed price. Quebec then sold the electricity onwards at much more profitable market rates. As electricity prices went up, Quebec garnered increasing profits, while Newfoundland continued to get it’s fixed price. Funnily enough, this agreement is still in place today and for some reason Quebec has not felt any need to respond to requests to renegotiate the contract.
A timely reminder that just because someone moves on from public offer either through retirement or a revolt at the ballot box, the legacy of a scribble of their pen can echo for decades to come.
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