Skip to main content

Canadians haven’t heard much about the National Portrait Gallery since the fall of 2009, when Stephen Harper’s Conservative government essentially shelved the project after more than two years of often dizzying equivocation.

Now, the vox populi has until Sept. 9 to let the country’s political masters know a) if it would like to see the project revived, and b) if so, should the gallery be housed in an 84-year-old former U.S. embassy, vacant since the late 1990s, located directly across from Parliament Hill at 100 Wellington St.

An exterior side view of the former U.S. Embassy at 100 Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa. (Roberta Gal)

Canada, as proponents are fond to harp, is one of the few significant countries lacking a portrait gallery. Even Zimbabwe has plans for one.

Of course, this being Canada, the issue is being addressed in a complicated way. Public Works and Government Services Canada, the department responsible for 100 Wellington, isn’t overtly asking Canadians if it’s a portrait gallery they want to fulfill its aim of turning the locale into “an important public destination.”

In an online survey posted in mid-August (at tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca) – and that Public Works wants completed by Sept. 9 – it presents the public with six “possible uses” for 100 Wellington and a scale of responses (1 being “really don’t like that idea;” 5 is “really like that idea;” there’s also a “Not sure/don’t care” response).

An aerial shot of 100 Wellington Street showing where it sits in relation to the Parliament buildings.

The six possible uses are:

-A Canada House venue to give visitors “a taste of the country’s diversity and achievements”;

-A gallery to house “art work of national significance”;

-An indigenous cultural centre;

-A Parliamentary interpretive centre;

-A museum “to exhibit national artifacts of historical and cultural interest”;

-An information centre grouping “federal, municipal and tourism organizations.”

Each of these uses also comes with a “specific suggestion” box that respondents are invited to complete.

An interior shot of the former U.S. Embassy at 100 Wellington Street. (The Government of Canada)

Presumably then, it isn’t enough for an advocate for a national portrait gallery to give, say, a number 5 to “a gallery to house ‘art work of national significance’” and assume the tabulator will know he or she means a portrait gallery. The respondent will actually have to specify that in the suggestion box. (There’s also an “Another Idea” box that respondents can complete if unsatisfied with the six possible uses, plus a box to rank their top three choices by order of preference.)

If the Wellington address, clearly a prestigious one, sounds familiar, it’s because it’s there, in 2002, that the Chrétien Liberal government announced it would establish a – yes! – national portrait gallery. The announcement, in effect, fulfilled an election commitment the Liberals had made two years earlier. While the Grits proceeded to spend close to $11-million on basic upgrades to 100 Wellington, they delayed bringing the gallery to fruition.

The former US Embassy is seen in downtown Ottawa Thursday January 21, 2016 in Ottawa. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld)

As a result, when the thrift-conscious Harper Tories took power in February, 2006, they began to “rag the puck.”

Eventually, they decided to scrap 100 Wellington as the NPG, suggesting the handsome Beaux Arts structure, designed by Cass Gilbert, the architect of the U.S. Supreme Court and New York’s Woolworth Building, might work better as a “parliamentary reception area” for visiting heads of state. As for the NPG, it could be situated elsewhere, the Tories said – although not necessarily in Ottawa. In fact, by late 2006, serious consideration was being given to Calgary, Stephen Harper’s home city, with the new Encana headquarters then under construction in the city’s downtown a strong candidate. Predictably, outrage and debate ensued, and ensued again as the government brought forward other schemes.

View of the Peace Tower through a ripped plastic tarp inside 100 Wellington Street. (Roberta Gal)

The Justin Trudeau Liberals made the NPG or, more specifically, the fate of 100 Wellington, a semi-issue in last fall’s election. In her campaign, Catherine McKenna, the party’s candidate for Ottawa Centre, the riding in which the former embassy is found, said she’d like to ask Canadians for their input within 100 days of being elected. The Liberals say they’ll make public the results of the consultation at an unspecified date (many are betting early 2017, Canada’s sesquicentennial) and these results will include “both numerical data as well as comments from the survey.”

Support for the NPG option seems strong. At least two newspapers – the Toronto Star and the Ottawa Citizen – already have published editorials in favour. In the meantime, a live two-and-a-half-hour public consultation in Ottawa on Aug. 18 brought forth several testimonials, including a passionate pitch from then-senator Jerry Grafstein, who in 2008 presented a private member’s bill calling for the NPG to be at 100 Wellington.

An inside shot of 100 Wellington Street. (The Government of Canada)

Of course, the survey is just advice for the government to interpret, weigh and discard as it sees fit. The current Prime Minister has the example of his own father in such matters. In 1982, Pierre Trudeau’s cabinet overrode the deliberations of a seven-member independent panel assigned to recommend an architect for the new Canadian embassy in Washington. The panel came up with a shortlist of four candidates, reportedly expressing a preference for Zeidler Roberts Partnership of Toronto. However, Trudeau went for a friend, Vancouver’s Arthur Erickson, who, though among the 11 semi-finalists chosen by the panel, wasn’t among the final four.

Protests roiled the land. But on May 3, 1989, when the ribbon was cut at 501 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, it was the Arthur Erickson design that was being celebrated.