Justin Trudeau’s Official Fixer-Upper

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/world/canada/justin-trudeaus-official-fixer-upper.html

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Many years ago a friend defined the perfect Canadian political scandal as someone having lunch at the government’s expense — and enjoying it. His joke came back to me again and again while I was reporting on the protracted saga that is 24 Sussex Drive, the rundown official residence of Canada’s prime minister.

[Read: Justin Trudeau’s Official Home: Unfit for a Leader or Anyone Else]

A new American president can mean, among many other things, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on new china for the White House. But Canadian prime ministers often seem vaguely embarrassed about hanging their hats at 24 Sussex, the country’s official residence since 1951. And the willingness of politicians to spend money on 24 Sussex, even for things as prosaic as making sure the wiring won’t burn it down, is almost nonexistent.

Sure, there are significant differences between the two countries. Unlike the American president, Canada’s prime minister is not the nation’s head of state. Canada doesn’t have a nonprofit group to pick up the tab for things like state dinnerware. And, of course, Ottawa is crowded with official homes, including Rideau Hall, an estate of 26 buildings including one now housing Mr. Trudeau and his family. Not far away is Stornoway, a residence for the leader of the opposition.

But, above all, there’s a parsimony among Canadians when it comes to politicians spending money on themselves that’s almost alien to Americans.

As a result, years of deferred maintenance have left 24 Sussex basically an uninhabitable dump, as I wrote in my article. Certainly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau didn’t move his family in after coming to office. But proposing to spend tens of millions of dollars to deal with the problem is so radioactive that no one, including Mr. Trudeau, has been willing to touch it.

“We might be an incredibly diverse society, but when it comes to our political culture, we’re 100 percent Presbyterian,” Peter Donolo, the director of communications for Jean Chrétien when he was prime minister, told me. “I think there’s something healthy in a political culture that’s egalitarian and that looks down on ostentation.”

There are two broad lines of thinking on what to do with Canada’s top fixer-upper. While Mr. Donolo and others want to renovate and restore the house, which lost most of its Victorian charm in a 1950s renovation, others suggest knocking it down and starting over.

Scott Weir, an architect and writer in Toronto, suggested a great Canadian compromise: Keep the interesting parts of the current house, like its stonework, and add elements that reflect 21st century Canada. The government, he said, should set a budget and ask architects across Canada to submit proposals.

What do you think? Should the government tear down 24 Sussex and start over, or should it renovate? What about the hybrid proposal? And what do you think it says about Canada and its politics that the official home of the prime minister has become uninhabitable? Send your thoughts to nytcanada@nytimes.com. Please include your full name. We may highlight some of your replies in an coming newsletter.

A reminder that Sam Tanenhaus, the former editor of The New York Times Book Review, will moderate a panel on book reviewing on Friday, Nov. 30, in Toronto. All the details are here. Newsletter readers who use the code CANADALETTER will get $5 off the ticket price.

By our best estimate, The Times has roughly six million photos dating back to the 19th century in an archive known internally as the morgue. Now, for the first time, all of those millions of photos are being electronically scanned.

One immediate result of this massive digitization effort is a new feature called Past Tense, an archival storytelling project from The Times. Its debut was a series of photos of the World War I armistice, 100 years ago. The size of the celebratory crowds in some of the photos is staggering.

[Read: In Photos Unpublished for 100 Years, the Joy of War’s End on Armistice Day]

That photo essay was swiftly followed by a multimedia presentation on our history of photographing California.

[Read: California: State of Change]

If you can, do the photos justice by viewing them on a computer or a tablet, rather than a phone screen.

This week, the National Hockey League announced a proposed settlement of a lawsuit filed by 318 former players who contend that it withheld what it knew about hockey-related brain injuries, actively encouraged fighting, and didn’t help players after they hung up their skates. Jeff Arnold met with Daniel Carcillo, who has become the public face of the lawsuit, and learned that he planned to vote against the deal.

“I’m going to fight until the end. It’s not acceptable. Not in the slightest,” said Mr. Carcillo, who suffered seven concussions during his career.

[Read: For Daniel Carcillo, the Fight Against the N.H.L. Goes On]

Ken Belson, my colleague in Sports who covers football, took a look at the settlement agreement and found that it falls short of a similar deal struck by the N.F.L. in 2013.

[Read: In N.H.L. Concussion Settlement, Owners Win the Fight]

—Catherine Porter, our Toronto bureau chief, asked parents how they are handling the era of legal marijuana.

—Make sure you read Dan Levin’s head-spinning and highly amusing tale of Jyoti and Kiran Matharoo, sisters from Toronto who are sometimes “called the ‘Canadian Kardashians’ for their devotion to spandex bodysuits, private jet travel, Christian Louboutin and social media.”

—Working from a cluttered office in Ottawa, a former cybersecurity expert for the Canadian government is now something of a guru for the elites of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Some of his advice may surprise you.

—Douglas Rain, the Canadian actor who died last weekend, never saw the film that included his most famous role.

—Voters in Calgary turned down making another Winter Olympics bid this week. Just before they voted, Michael Powell, the Sports of The Times columnist, was among the voices encouraging Calgary to take a pass after he visited the city. “So many optimistic cities and nations have walked this path only to tumble down the Olympic stairs of inflated hopes, spiraling costs and corruptions’ bruises,” he wrote.

—Chris Santella followed steelhead trout anglers to the tributaries of British Columbia’s Skeena River and declared that “for any serious steelheader, the rivers of the Skeena drainage are Valhalla.”