Sunday, February 17, 2013

Canada Post

Canada Post is selling two more post offices in Montreal:
4944 Decarie Boulevard in Snowden
5751 Sherbrooke Street West in Notre-Dame-de-Grace, which will be closed on February 15, 2013.

In September of 2012, the Crown corporation sold four Toronto post offices, including:
Postal Station K at 2384 Yonge Street, the Montgomery's Tavern National Historic Site of Canada; and
50 Charles Street in Rosedale.  
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According to the Canada Post Corporation Act (1985), CPC "may acquire  hold, lease, sell or dispose of any real or personal property" and CPC can borrow five hundred million dollars from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
Postal Station K in Toronto and 5751 Sherbrooke West in Montreal are magnificent buildings.

Just a few of the Canada Post real estate holdings in Montreal, 20 years ago. (From: "The 1992 Federal Directory of Real Property.").
.
5751 Sherbrooke, Montreal
Postal Station K, Toronto.

Friday, February 15, 2013

Canada's Fahrenheit 451 - an update - UNESCO can save our cultural history.

Canada's National Libraries are being dismantled, much to the horror of librarians, researchers, writers and historians.
Librarians have been told to decentralize, photograph or basically throw away irreplaceable material from the following national libraries:
AGRICULTURE CANADA
ENVIRONMENT CANADA
TRANSPORT CANADA
CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION CANADA
INDUSTRY CANADA
NATIONAL DEFENCE
PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES
NATIONAL CAPITAL COMMISSION
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION


 The Sir John Carling Building housed one of the greatest agricultural libraries in the world:
The Gatineau Preservation Centre/ Library and Archives Canada Preservation Centre has 48 vaults for the storage and handling of archival documents, images, film, and portraits.
Canada's immigration history is so important, a museum was constructed to preserve documents and artifacts ---The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

UNESCO's "MEMORY OF THE WORLD PROGRAMME"
     "is an international initiative launched to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against the collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction. It calls for the preservation of valuable archival holdings and private individual compendia all over the world for the posterity, the reconstitution of disposed or displaced documentary heritage, and increased accessibility to and dissemination of those items." (From: Wikipedia).
     As of February 16, 2013, only three Canadian collections were part of the Memory of the World Programme:

  1. Hudson's Bay Company Archival Record - 2007 - Archives of Winnipeg, Manitoba. (Note: In 2006, the Hudson's Bay Company was sold to an American investor.)
  2. Quebec Seminary Collection, 1623-1800 (17th - 19th centuries) - 2007 - Musee de la civilisation, Quebec.
  3. "Neighbours" animated, directed and produced by Norman McLaren in 1952 - 2009 - National Film Board of Canada, Montreal.
Please, Government of Canada, do not shred, burn, sell or give away the irreplaceable documents, letters, maps, architectural drawings, photographs, movies, artifacts, government publications, research material, portraits, paintings...that are stored at Library and Archives Canada, the Gatineau Preservation Centre, the National Printing Bureau and other federal buildings.
Staff at Library and Archives Canada flew all the way to Texas, to retrieve Glenn Gould documents and memorabilia that were stolen from the Archives. An American woman was arrested, after attempting to sell  the material on e-Bay. Glenn Gould donated his archives to the people of Canada, not to profiteers and thieves.



Monday, February 11, 2013

Twenty five properties that the Government of Canada considered selling in 2007.


  1. Asticou Centre - 241 Boulevard de la Cite-des-Jeunes. The Asticou Centre is a public service training centre in Hull, Quebec, built on a 64 acre parcel of land.
  2. Constitution Building - 305 Rideau Street, Ottawa.
  3. East Memorial Building - 284 Wellington Street, Ottawa.
  4. Gatineau Preservation Centre - 625 Boulevard du Carrefour.
  5. Lester B. Pearson Building - 125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa.
  6. Library and Archives Canada - 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa.
  7. Lorne Building - 90 Elgin Street, Ottawa.
  8. Major General G.R. Pearkes Building - 101 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa.(Update: 10,000 Department of National Defence employees will be relocated to the former Nortel campus at 3500 Carling Avenue in Ottawa. Coincidentally, the Rideau Centre shopping mall across the street from 101 Colonel By was Federal property, and the National Capital Commission sold the Mackenzie King Bridge to the City of Ottawa in 1995.)
  9. National Printing Bureau, 45 Sacre-Coeur Boulevard, Gatineau Quebec.
  10. Place du Portage - Phase 1 & 2 - 50 Victoria Street-located in the Hull sector of Gatineau, Quebec.
  11. Place du Portage - Phase 111 - 11 Laurier Street, Hull.
  12. Place du Portage - Phase 1V - 140 Promenade du Portage, Hull.
  13. Plouffe Park (includes dome) - 1010 Somerset Street, Ottawa. (Update: According to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency website, in 2012 the warehouse will be demolished "in order to make use of the site or dispose of the land.") 
  14. RCMP HQ and Trailers - 1200 Vanier Parkway, Ottawa.(Update: RCMP staff are moving to the JDS Uniphase campus at 3000 Merivale Road in Ottawa.)
  15. Sir Charles Tupper Building - 2720 Riverside Drive, Ottawa.
  16. Sir John Carling Building - 930 Carling Avenue. Ottawa.( Update:The building is now vacant, and will soon be bulldozed.)
  17. Sir William Logan Building - 580 Booth Street, Ottawa.
  18. Skyline Tower 1 to V11 - 1400 Merivale Road, Ottawa.
  19. Taxation Data Centre - 875 Heron Road, Ottawa.
  20. Temporary Building Site # 8 at Prince of Wales Drive, Ottawa.
  21. Thomas D'Arcy McGee Building - 90 Sparks Street in Ottawa. 
  22. Tunney's Pasture Complex - Scott Street, Ottawa. 
  23. Wellington Building - 180 Wellington Street, Ottawa.
  24. West Memorial Building - 344 Wellington Street, Ottawa.
  25. 111 Sussex Complex - 111 Sussex Drive, Ottawa.( In 1958, Princess Margaret officially opened the building. Canadian architect Moshe Safdie added a modern extension to "Green Island" in 1988.)
(From: An Ottawa Citizen newspaper article, February 21, 2007).
The former Ottawa City Hall is now called "The John G. Diefenbaker Building" (Bytown Pavilion). The photos of 111 Sussex were taken by Simon Pulsifer in May 2005, and posted on Wikipedia.
The Taxation Data Centre property at 875 Heron Road in Ottawa encompasses 150 acres of land. (From: "The 1992 Federal Directory of Real Property"):


Saturday, February 9, 2013

A pictorial glossary about buildings, political decisions and news events, that are relevant to my blog savecfbrockcliffe.

                                                    The Glossary

A
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada - is shutting down the 149-acre Delhi Research Farm in Delhi, Southern Ontario, by March 31, 2013:
In April of 2012, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada announced the impending closure of the 845-acre Kapuskasing Beef Research Farm in Northern Ontario.

Armoury - a military place where arms and ammunition and other military equipment are stored, and training is given in the use of arms. The University Avenue Armoury in Windsor, Ontario was sold.
B
Beaux-Arts architecture

Billy Bishop Airport


British Columbia - in 1993, the Government of Canada owned more than one million acres of land in British Columbia and 6,070 buildings. Environment Canada, Parks Canada, Agriculture Canada, Canada Post, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Department of National Defence and Fisheries and Oceans Canada were major property owners.
British Columbia Buildings Corporation
The Bunkers

C
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation -Wartime Housing Ltd., a federal agency, was founded in 1946 to house returning war veterans. Later, the CMHC built cooperative/community housing projects including: LeBreton Flats in Ottawa; Willow Park in Winnipeg; Regent Park in Toronto; and Milton Park in Montreal.

Canada Place in Vancouver, British Columbia - $400 million Canadian tax dollars were spent, to create  Canada Place/Canada Harbour Place in 1983. According to the Fraser Institute, the landmark should be privatized, see the Internet document "Introduction When a Country". Image from Wikipedia.


Canada Post Corporation - In 1988, Canada Post shut down 300 rural post offices; 1,500 post offices were closed between 1984 and 1993. Money from the sale of Canada Post property does not have to be deposited into the Canadian treasury, the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The Fraser Institute called for the privatization of the Crown corporation::
The Government of Canada is currently selling a massive Canada Post property at 349 West Georgia Street in Vancouver, British Columbia.
The "Canada" Wordmark - was designed by Jim Donoahue in 1965. In 1990, the government of Canada exempted the following institutions from the Federal Identity Program: The House of Commons; the National Capital Commission; Via Rail; Canada Mortgage and Housing; Canadian National Railway Company; Canada Post...the list goes on. (From: Federal Identity Program - Wikipedia.)
Toronto MP Dennis Mills wanted to know why the word  "Canada" was stripped from 40,000 Canada Post delivery trucks, mailboxes, etc. (From: Hansard - House of Commons Debates - May 15, 1992. The Hansard volumes are located at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa.)

Canadian Forces Base Summerside in Prince Edward Island - In 1992, the 1,500 acre military base was sold to the private, for-profit Slemon Park Corporation for one dollar.
Canadian National Railway
Camp Hughes - a 652 acre former military base near Brandon, Manitoba. Camp Hughes is an important archaeological site.
Carnegie Libraries - between 1883 and 1929, American philanthropist and business tycoon Andrew Carnegie provided funding for 1,689 libraries; 125 libraries were built in Canada---Brockville, Ottawa, Toronto..
Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa; for decades, government bureaucrats and developers have been trying to get their hands on the Experimental Farm. In 1975, a former head of the National Capital Commission suggested that 7,000 new homes should be built on 700 Farm acres. Agriculture Minister Bud Olson said that Farm land would be sold to developers "over my dead body", while Agriculture Minister Eugene Whelan said the land was "untouchable". The following news articles, from the Ottawa Journal newspaper in 1974, were scanned from a microfiche reader at the downtown Ottawa Public Library:

Dominion Observatory
Dominion Public Building - at 1 Front Street West in Toronto, Ontario is worth $74,153,000.
Downsview Park in Toronto. In 1984, the Auditor General of Canada said the 936 acre CFB Downsview was worth $100 million dollars.

E
Earnscliffe
Eglington Hunt Club -RCAF Institute of Aviation Medicine - in Toronto was converted to townhouses.
Expo '67

F
Fairmont Hotel's and Resorts - Canada's landmark CNR and CPR railway hotels are now owned by a multinational corporation. Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns 35% of Fairmont Hotel's and Resorts.


Federal Heritage Buildings Review Office
Fort Pepperrell in St. John's, Newfoundland - was an American Air Force Base from 1941 until 1960.

G
Grain Elevators in Canada - a vanishing landmark.
Greek Revival architecture - 10 Toronto Street is a former Canada Post and Bank of Canada building. Canadian financier E.P. Taylor bought 10 Toronto Street in 1958; the building later became the headquarters for Conrad Black's Hollinger Corporation. (Information and photo from Wikipedia.)



H
Hudson's Bay Company


I
Isabel McNeil House


J


K
Kapyong Barracks
Kingston Penitentiary

L
Lansdowne Park in Ottawa
LeBreton Flats - 130 acres of prime waterfront land in downtown Ottawa.


Lighthouses -


M
Montreal Customs House at 105 rue McGill - a 2001 movie entitled "The Score" was filmed at the Montreal Customs House. (Photo from Wikipedia.)

N
National Arts Centre
National Capital Commission - in a May 1998 letter, the National Capital C FUTURE OF THE CENTRAL EXPERIMENTAL FARM OTTAWAommission recommended that  all the buildings, flower gardens and fields at the Experimental Farm should be preserved. (Document: INTERIM REPORT ON THE RESULTS OF THE PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS ON THE FUTURE OF THE CENTRAL EXPERIMENTAL FARM OTTAWA- May 1998.): NCC Letter:

National Historic Site of Canada
National Printing Bureau -  45 Sacre-Coeur Boulevard in Hull. In 2007, the government of Canada planned to sell the building and land.

O
Ontario Municipal Board
Ontario Realty Corporation/Infrastructure Ontario



P


Q

R
Recognized Federal Heritage Building
Rockwood Insane Asylum, a.k.a Rockwood Lunatic Asylum - in Kingston, Ontario. The Ontario Realty Corporation/Infrastructure Ontario owns Rockwood; the nearby Kingston Psychiatric Hospital (former), and all the land at the Kingston Provincial Campus. The ORC  provides money for infrastructure development; and manages and sells provincial Crown real estate.


Royal Commission on the Future of the Toronto Waterfront - Date: 1992.Chair: David Crombie.

S
Senneville Lodge
Sir John Carling Building - (1967-2013) was an Ottawa landmark, an award-winning heritage building and the national headquarters of the Department of Agriculture.

Summerhill Train Station in Toronto - The 140-foot clock tower was modeled after the Campanile di San Marco in Saint Mark's Square, Venice Italy. (From Wikipedia). The 1955 Katharine Hepburn/ Rossano Brazzi movie "Summertime" features the Campanile di San Marco. Marathon Realty, real estate arm of the CPR, sold the train station to the Liquor Control Board of  Ontario. If the LCBO is privatized, Summerhill will be transferred to the Ontario Realty Corporation, real estate arm of the Ontario government.
Surplus Crown Assets Act -  before leaving office, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney amended the Surplus Crown Assets Act "to provide departments with additional options for the disposal of surplus movable assets." Movable Crown property includes furniture, cars, office equipment, paintings, rugs, Royal Silverware from Rideau Hall, statues and statuettes, tapestries...

T
Takao Tanabe - Canadian artist Takao Tanabe painted a 75-foot by 15-foot mural, spanning the foyer wall on the main floor of the Sir John Carling Building in Ottawa.MAN, SOIL AND CLIMATE.
Thomas Fuller - was Canada's Chief Dominion Architect.
Thousand Islands International Bridge at Lansdowne, Ontario - The Canadian span of the Thousand Islands Bridge reverted to Canada in 1976.

U
Union Station in Toronto, Ontario - A June 23, 2000 federal Order-in-Council resulted in the sale of Union Station to the City of Toronto.
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Upton Farm in Charlottetown Prince Edward Island