Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Ottawa | Finance Canada headquarters building to be named after Jim Flaherty



A new building in Ottawa housing Finance Canada will soon be dedicated to the memory of former finance minister Jim Flaherty.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will announce shortly that the modern, glass-enclosed structure a few blocks from Parliament Bill will be named the James M. Flaherty Building.

One of the GTA’s best-known political figures, Flaherty held various cabinet posts in Ontario’s Progressive Conservative governments from 1997 to 2003 before switching to the federal scene, where he was named finance minister by Harper in 2006.

Flaherty held the portfolio for eight years until resigning in March 2014. His death less than a month later shocked parliamentarians and led to an outpouring of appreciation for the well-liked MPP from the riding of Whitby-Oshawa. At a state funeral in Toronto, Harper lauded Flaherty as the “best finance minister in the world.”


Finance Canada’s new headquarters will be located on the site of the former Lorne Building, a 1959 structure named after Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, Canada’s governor general from 1878 to 1883, who was known as the Marquess of Lorne.

In recent years, the Harper government has been raising the visibility of historic Conservative figures. The former Ottawa City Hall building down the street from the prime minister’s residence was named the John G. Diefenbaker Building. In 2012, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird announced the Ottawa River Parkway would be renamed Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway.

The former Bank of Montreal building across from Parliament has also been named after Macdonald. And Harper has designated a new polar icebreaker now under construction the CCGS John G. Diefenbaker.

Finance Canada staffers were moved over the summer to their new headquarters from their former building a few blocks away in downtown Ottawa.

Torstar News Service

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