TORONTO – If you are like every other “concerned citizen” who takes pride in the visuals and substance of our country and its component provinces and territories, you cannot help but look at the nation’s capital city’ s environmental ambience, socio-cultural infrastructure and architectural attractions for stimulation or depression. 

Or you could follow the daily updates of pollsters who try to decipher why the governing party is having difficulties. My parents used to say, “tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are”.

If you do, you will know that for over a year, because of self-serving “partnerships”, a “pall” has descended on the city, and its politics.

The mood cannot be attributable simply to popular disposition towards one Leader or another. The place is also missing that “je ne sais quoi” that makes other capitals so attractive. I have often wondered why the City’s planners allow(ed) the construction of office towers/condominiums to crowd out access to the national Capital district’s nerve hub and main attraction, the Parliament Buildings.

After more than a decade, I returned to the parliamentary precincts to visit briefly. Unhappily for me, Mother Nature must have conspired with those City Planners to ensure that my visit would be memorable for its dismal, negative impressions.

And yet, for the better part of twenty-three years, I loved that place; took considerable pride in extolling the wonders of the nation’s Capital by the river to visitors, friends, students and others whom Chance might have brought to the place. I used to look forward to the sighting of the Parliament buildings as I approached, from Toronto, along Highway 417, some 8-10 km away. One can barely “sneak a peek” today.

Visually and physically, it has taken on the metaphor of a closed, fortified, inaccessible bunker whose basic purpose is to shield “the place and its practitioners” from the “prying eyes” of the public it is designed to serve. How regrettable. The best one can say today is that it is still a work in progress.

In the pics below: the Confederation Building, home to the Parliamentary Offices; the bunker that you have to cross to get to the Center Block, home to the House of Commons and the Senate; work in progress for another ten years; the West Block with, in the background, the Chateau Laurier and, behind the street sign, the Prime Minister’s Offices; Sparks Street Mall (photo: Corriere Canadese)