The founder and Editor-in-Chief of Monocle Magazine, Tyler Brûle, recently had a nice trip to Ottawa:
If you’ve never been to Ottawa, don’t bother. Of all the G7 capitals, it’s one that hardly conjures up much in the way of attractive images. Don’t believe me? Try it. What comes to mind? What stands out? You see what I mean? No Big Ben, no Lincoln Memorial, no Eiffel Tower. Ottawa might have had an easier time when Germany was partitioned and Bonn was its capital but that credit ran out when Berlin was reinstated as Haúptstadt and the Brandenburg Gate roared back as a symbol for the Federal Republic’s capital.
He and his mom also thoroughly enjoyed their hotel:
We walked into the bar and the whole space seemed gripped by a similar force that plagued the front desk: no speed, movement or sense of urgency. A man-child showed us to the table and barely said a word. His colleagues at the bar were having their own discussion, disconnected from the patrons around them. I started to laugh. My mother urged me to stop. “It’s incredible that this is the best that our country can do for people coming to the capital, no?” I said.
As an unabashedly proud Canadian, this is deeply upsetting. It is upsetting because a lack of movement, a lack of urgency, and an overall lack of engagement are truly terrible qualities to possess. But more importantly, it is upsetting because one could argue that Tyler’s Ottawa and hotel experiences were a microcosm of some broader national issues around Canadian complacency.
