The Case For Stornoway: In Defence of Housing A Politician

Oh, god, am I ever going to get mail for this one.

Stornoway is in good shape, but I’ve been saying for years that 24 Sussex needs work. Photo by Matt Palmer on Unsplash

A petition initiated by a citizen in Victoria and sponsored by Green Party leader Elizabeth May has Canadians asking whether the leader of the Opposition should have a taxpayer-funded home. At roughly $78,000 a year in upkeep and operation costs, plus occasional further investments, the residence is low-hanging fruit for those who dislike spending money, public things, the current occupant of the home, or some combination of the three.

The argument against Stornoway is easy to make, equal parts obvious and common sense. If we’re all tightening our belts, why should a mere official opposition leader enjoy lavish public housing? No other democracy pays to house such a person. Why should we? The only reason Canada bothers to is a quirk of history, a senator in the 1940s who decided it would be a good idea and raised private money to make it happen. Thus the home was held in trust for the country’s loyal opposition leader until the government took over the property in 1970 before passing it to the National Capital Commission nearly two decades later. Stornoway, while a heritage property, isn’t home to some grand tradition stretching back to Confederation. It’s a comparatively recent innovation, barely three decades older than the Toronto Blue Jays, depending on how you score it.

The case in favour of Stornoway is subtler, flying in the face of populist admonitions and (reasonable) cries of ‘hypocrisy!’ against politicians who preach fiscal austerity, move into public mansions, and criticize the government for spending money on 24 Sussex or Harrington Lake, the prime minister’s country home in Gatineau Park.

Stornoway is a public thing, not in the sense that it’s open to us, which it isn’t, but in the sense that it’s owned and operated by Canadians in service of an office recognized by Parliament. The leader of the Opposition lives and works at there. They entertain and host events there. They keep a metaphorical watch on the government from there, as they do everywhere. In a sense, we do these things together, whether we support the opposition leader of the day or not, and we spend a relative pittance doing so. We maintain a public thing in the public interest of supporting an office that works to hold the government to account, an essential function in a parliamentary democracy.

There are precedents for Stornoway and housing essential office holders. The prime minister has two residences, though 24 Sussex is a case study in neglect if there ever were one. The governor general has Rideau Hall. Lieutenant governors in the provinces have homes quite literally called “Government House.” The speaker of the House of Commons has the Farm.

We ought to support public heritage residences in the spirit of doing public things, from housing these office holders to running state-owned enterprises in key industries to rebuilding a robust welfare state. These things aren’t the same, but the spirit in which we undertake them can be united in shared purpose. Rather than dismissing a property as an economic drag on the public purse or an aberration, we should appreciate that we can still do things together, that we can own and maintain heritage spaces, that we can understand that not everything we spend taxpayer money on is meant to return a profit — the underspecified concept of government spending as “investment” that we hear so often.

Giving in to a culture of austerity, of searching for “efficiencies” by default, and generally being cheapskates won’t serve us in the long run. Indeed, this strategy will continue to rebound on us, reinforcing the argument that when in doubt, we should be cutting spending and outsourcing; that whenever possible, we should leave it to the individual or let the market sort it out. To give in to such thinking is to diminish the public and thus the collective, the assembled many who make up the country and who have shared interests beyond the sum total of private wants.

We should reject playing political games with government properties, tempting as that is. Faffing about with such frivolities will undermine the arguments and spirit needed to create a country that exists for purposes other than historical accident, economic convenience, or enriching the plutocratic class here and beyond our borders.

Maintaining a broad public spirit requires us to defend Stornoway, even when we don’t support those who live within its walls, just as we ought to for 24 Sussex or the Parliament buildings themselves. That commitment is an investment in loftier goals — and a good one. We should make it.