Rideau Cottage 'inadequate' home for a PM as decision on 24 Sussex looms: internal memo

Rideau Cottage, the historic red-brick house where Canadian prime ministers have been living for more than a decade, is inadequate and comes with security risks, according to a government memorandum prepared last summer.

CBC News obtained the internal memo amid signs the Carney government wants to make a decision soon about what to do with the prime minister's uninhabitable official residence at 24 Sussex Drive.

"Rideau Cottage's proximity to the Governor General's residence and the surrounding residential neighbourhood increases security risk, while the building's small footprint and lack of adequate functional space make it inadequate for a prime minister's needs," the memo sent to Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Sabia on Aug. 8, 2025, said.

Successive prime ministers have been unwilling to take the political risk to spend the tens of millions of dollars required to renovate the 19th-century home on Sussex Drive or build a brand new official residence.

A source with knowledge of the matter, whom CBC News agreed not to name because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, says the government could make a decision in the coming months about the fate of 24 Sussex.

Stephen Harper was the last prime minister to call 24 Sussex home. The official residence was decommissioned in recent years, with mould, asbestos, dead rodents and their excrement removed.

The National Capital Commission, which manages the official residences, says "obsolete mechanical, heating and electrical systems" were also stripped out.

As one of his last acts in power last year, former prime minister Justin Trudeau set a Jan. 1, 2026, deadline for the government to create an advisory panel of former prime ministers to make recommendations about the official residence's "location, functionality, cost and security requirements," the memo says.

The government won't say if that advisory panel has been created.

The memo to Canada's top public servant notes that early in Carney's mandate, the prime minister suggested publicly he doesn't view investments in the official residence as a top priority.

But it says the Privy Council Office has been taking "a more active role in helping advance the file" to cost out options.

CBC News obtained the memo through an access to information request.

The document was written by the Privy Council Office to prepare Sabia for an August meeting that Tobi Nussbaum, the CEO of the National Capital Commission, requested.

The RCMP, which is tasked with protecting the prime minister, confirms it handed over its recommendations to the government about what it would take to secure each of the options under consideration.