Lessons learned from the "Chateau Laurier Hotel addition" fiasco.

1.)  Canadians love the Chateau Laurier just as much as the people of Paris loved the Notre Dame Cathedral; Parisians were weeping in the streets and singing patriotic songs as the Cathedral burned. The CPR and CNR hotels are Canadian icons. The Chateau belongs to all of us, it is part of our heritage, our heart and soul.

2.)  The Department of Heritage, Parks Canada, National Capital Commission, City of Ottawa and the Province of Ontario should have presented a united front and told the developer and architect to go back to Vancouver and Toronto and build their "walls of China" in their own territory.

3.)  Parks Canada should legally protect all the views of the Hotel du Canada.

4.)  The terms "National Historic Site of Canada" and "UNESCO World Heritage Site" should mean something.

5.)  Do not be intimidated, City of Ottawa, by entities that threaten to appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board and to the courts. Former American First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy initiated the "Committee to Save Grand Central Station" and Mrs. Kennedy and other people  travelled from New York City to Washington, D.C. on the "Landmark Train" and testified at the American Supreme Court. They won.

Jane Jacobs tried to save Penn Station NYC in 1963; saved New York's Little Italy and the West Village and stopped the Spadina Expressway in Toronto.

6.)  The Government of Canada should stop privatizing historic buildings including the Chateau Laurier Hotel; Edmonton's Hotel Macdonald; Winnipeg's Fort Garry Hotel; Saskatoon's Bessborough Hotel; Kingston Penitentiary, Prison for Women, 111 Sussex Drive (the John G. Diefenbaker Building); all of the federal lighthouses; Library and Archives on Wellington Street, Ottawa; post offices; pavilions including the recently marketed E-Space Pavilion on the Quebec City waterfront; the vacant CBC Headquarters on 1500 Bronson Avenue, Ottawa...

7.)  Do not sell our landscapes to residential and corporate developers---the Experimental Farm to the Civic; National Capital Commission Greenbelt land (you are the protector and gatekeeper of this land, NCC, on behalf of all Canadian citizens); the National Parks;

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