Queen Victoria (following the confidential advice of Canada's Governor General, Sir Edmund Head) chose Ottawa as Canada's capital in 1857. The late Goldwin Smith* thought it a poor choice. His snorted comment: "A subarctic village converted by royal mandate into a political cockpit." Ottawa (pop. about 160,000) is no longer a village. Neither is it the "Washington of the North" that Sir Wilfrid Laurier hoped that it would be. It is not for want of trying.
In the past half century, three different city planners and countless commissions and boards have produced...
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