If those walls could have talked!

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

When Ottawa's Sir John Carling Building was demolished in July, it took with it memories of 16 of Canada's 32 ag ministers, many policy battles and even the odd myth

by BARRY WILSON

Last July, a small sliver of Canadian agricultural history was demolished, lost forever.

The Sir John Carling Building on the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa was blown up in less than two minutes.

A small crowd gathered to watch the moment. The implosion created a plume of smoke that had witnesses gasping.

To see the moment, check out the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nco5hmi3OmU

It is counter-intuitive to be nostalgic about the destruction of a 1960s-era concrete government building constructed when all sense of architecture went out the window. It was dull and ugly, although nothing to compare with Agriculture Canada's current digs at the old Nortel complex just beyond the west edge of the Experimental Farm.

As architecture goes, the current seven-tower Agriculture Canada/Canadian Food Inspection Agency office might win a competition for the best drab Stalinist construction in the city.

But the destruction of the Carling Building, although it had been abandoned for several years because of asbestos throughout the structure, still marked the elimination of a pivotal focal point in the development of modern Canadian agricultural policy.

Fourteen of Canada's 32 agriculture ministers occupied the ninth floor corner office of the building, which was named after Sir John A. Macdonald's last agriculture minister, whose claim to fame was being part of a pioneer Canadian beer brewing company in London, Ont., but mainly for setting aside land for the Central Experimental Farm where the departmental headquarters was located.

And if walls that now are demolished could talk, what stories they could tell. Most of the policies that created modern Canadian agricultural policy were concocted in that drab building, opened on July 1, 1967, Canada's centenary.

Two generations of Canadian and Ontario farm leaders were regular visitors to the Carling Building as lobbyists, suppliants or advisors. Demonstrators often filled the parking lot.

Eugene Whelan was the longest ministerial tenant in the building and there he created his strategy on research investment and support programs. In that corner office, John Wise helped plan the tripartite farm support program of the late 1980s and his defense of supply management in the midst of 1980s free trade talks.

Within those walls in the 1990s, Ralph Goodale devised largely ineffective defenses against finance department plans to slash agriculture support. And the current agriculture minister incarnation and one of the longest in history, Gerry Ritz, used those spaces to begin to design new farm program structures that drastically trim farmer benefits and put a new focus on market forces and trade.

Many forgettable agriculture ministers moved through the building – Liberal Joe Greene was minister in 1967 when the building was opened. Remember him?

Alberta Liberal Senator Bud Olson also occupied that corner office for more than four years (1968-72) and, although little remembered and an Alberta right-winger, he was the author of the legislation that is the cornerstone of Canada's supply management system.

If those walls could have talked before they were blown down! But like any icon, the Carling Building had its myths. In early days, as an Ottawa agricultural reporter when bureaucrats were allowed to meet with journalists and actually say something, the Carling Building was my second home.

It had these odd covers over the windows facing east – lattice configurations. I was told that they were installed on the orders of former minister Alvin Hamilton, an old Saskatchewan lad who was minister for less than two years from 1960 to 1963 and liked to get to work early, so these were to keep the rising sun out of his eyes.

They were called "Alvin's Eyebrows."  Except they weren't, since Hamilton was there four years before the building opened.
All icons have their myths. BF

Barry Wilson is a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery specializing in agriculture.