Parliament Hill (French: Colline du Parlement) is an area of Crown land on the southern bank of the Ottawa River that houses the Parliament of Canada in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. It accommodates a suite of Gothic revival buildings whose architectural elements were chosen to evoke the history of parliamentary democracy. Parliament Hill attracts approximately three million visitors each year. The Parliamentary Protective Service is responsible for law enforcement on Parliament Hill and in the parliamentary precinct, while the National Capital Commission is responsible for maintaining the nine-hectare (22-acre) area of the grounds. Development of the area, which in the 18th and early 19th centuries was the site of a military base, into a governmental precinct began in 1859 after Queen Victoria chose Ottawa as the capital of the Province of Canada. Following several extensions to the Parliament and departmental buildings, and a fire in 1916 that destroyed the Centre Block, Parliament Hill took on its present form with the completion of the Peace Tower in 1927. In 1976, the Parliament Buildings and the grounds of Parliament Hill were designated as National Historic Sites of Canada. Since 2002, an extensive $3 billion renovation-and-rehabilitation project has been underway throughout the precinct's buildings that is expected to be completed after 2028.
History
Early use Parliament Hill is a limestone outcrop with a gently sloping top that was originally covered in a primeval forest of beech and hemlock. For hundreds of years, the hill was a landmark on the Ottawa River for First Nations people and later for European traders, adventurers, and industrialists, marking their journeys to the interior of the continent. After the founding of Ottawa, which was then called Bytown, the builders of the Rideau Canal sited a military base on the hill, naming it Barrack Hill. A large fortress was planned for the site following the War of 1812 and the Upper Canada rebellion but the threat of an American invasion subsided and the project was scrapped.
Selection as a parliamentary precinct
In 1858, Queen Victoria selected Ottawa as the capital of the Province of Canada. Barrack Hill was chosen as the site of the new parliament buildings for its prominence over the town and the river, and because the Crown already owned it. On 7 May 1859, the Department of Public Works issued a call for design proposals for the new parliament buildings on Barrack Hill, for which 298 drawings were submitted. The number of entries was reduced to three but the panel of judges could not decide whose design should win the contest. Governor General Sir Edmund Walker Head was approached to break the stalemate, and the winners were announced on 29 August 1859. Contracts to build the Centre Block and departmental buildings were separately awarded. The first was awarded to the team of Thomas Fuller and Chilion Jones, with their Victorian High Gothic scheme of a formal, symmetrical front facing a quadrangle and a more rustic, picturesque back facing the escarpment and bluffs overlooking the Ottawa River. The team of Thomas Stent and Augustus Laver won the prize for the second category, which included the subsequent East and West Blocks structures. These proposals were selected for their sophisticated use of Gothic architecture, which was thought to remind people of parliamentary democracy's old European history, and would contradict the republican neoclassical style of architecture used in Washington, D.C. It was also thought that it would be better suited to the rugged surroundings of still wilderness in northern North America, while being stately. $300,000 was allocated for the main building and $120,000 more for each of the several departmental buildings.
Construction and early use
Ground was broken on 20 December 1859 and the first stones were laid on 16 April the following year. Prince Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), laid the cornerstone of the Centre Block on 1 September. The stone is called Potsdam sandstone and it was quarried in Nepean, a distance of 30 km. Construction of Parliament Hill became the largest construction project undertaken in North America to that date. Workers hit bedrock sooner than expected, necessitating blasting to complete the foundations, which the architects had altered to sit 5.2 metres (17 ft) deeper than originally planned. By early 1861, the Canadian Department of Public Works reported over $1.4 million had been spent on the venture, leading to the closure of the site in September and the covering of the unfinished structures with tarpaulins until 1863, when construction resumed following a commission of inquiry. The site was still incomplete when three of the British North American colonies—now the provinces Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—entered Confederation in 1867, and Ottawa became the capital of the new country. Within four years, Manitoba, British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, and the North-West Territories—now Alberta, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut—were added and, along with the associated bureaucracy, the first three required representation be added in Parliament. The offices of Parliament spread to buildings beyond Parliament Hill.
The British military allocated a nine-pounder naval cannon to Ottawa's British army garrison in 1854. The newly created government of the Dominion of Canada purchased the cannon in 1869 and fired it on Parliament Hill as the Noonday Gun, which was colloquially known as "Old Chum", for many years. By 1876, the structures of Parliament Hill, and the surrounding fence and gates, were completed. The grounds were designed with the help of architects Thomas Scott and Calvert Vaux. Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, in late September that year, Prince George, Duke of Cornwall (later King George V)—Queen Victoria's grandson—dedicated a large statue that stands on the hill in the late Queen's honour.
Fire, incidents, and renovations
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