History
The house at 24 Sussex Drive was originally commissioned in 1866 by lumberman and Member of Parliament Joseph Merrill Currier as a wedding gift for his wife to be. He named it Gorffwysfa, Welsh for "place of rest."
In 1943, the federal Crown used its sovereign power of expropriation to divest Gordon Edwards of his title to the house, in order to put it to its current use. Edwards had fought the action, but eventually lost the dispute with the Canadian government in 1946 and died at the house later that year. Louis St. Laurent became the first prime minister to take up residence there in 1951. Except for Kim Campbell, every prime minister since that date has resided at 24 Sussex Drive for the duration of their mandates; previous prime ministers lived at a variety of locations around Ottawa: Sir Wilfrid Laurier and William Lyon Mackenzie King, for instance, lived at Laurier House in Sandy Hill when they were prime minister. Laurier House was willed to the Crown upon Mackenzie King's death in 1950 and was thus also available for designation as the prime minister's official residence at the time.
Security at 24 Sussex was overhauled following a November 1995 attempted assassination by André Dallaire, who wandered around the house and grounds for nearly an hour before being confronted outside Jean Chrétien's bedroom by the Prime Minister's wife, Aline; she locked the door to the bedroom while Chrétien guarded it with an Inuit stone carving. Ultimately, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers arrested Dallaire. Measures put in place after the attempted assassination include the addition of several more guards to the house's attache, the installation of crash-proof barriers within the main gates, and the addition of several more security cameras.
Despite the building not having any bureaucratic function, it has been the location of protests, such as when farmers drove their tractors in a convoy past the front of the property in 2006, and when Greenpeace activists chained themselves to the front gates in March 2007.
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“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
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