Ottawa

Parliament Hill

We started the day appropriately by seeing the changing of the guard on Parliament Hill. This consists of lots of marching music with the formal inspection of the new guard and then the formal change of guard. We then did a tour of the House of Parliament where we learned a lot about the Canada’s government. The lower house is the House of Commons, 300 some delegates elected by the people. What was surprising for me was that the upper house, the Senate closely matched the British model – the 100 or so members are appointed for life by the Queen as recommended by the Prime minister. Most of these folks tend to be experts in various fields and often sit in on the hearing of the House of Commons committees. After the House of Commons passes a bill they discuss the bill and may recommend changes to the bill but rarely do they kill a bill. We also visited Notre Dame cathedral and the local market street where we had lunch.

In the afternoon, we went to the Canada War Museum. It was interesting to read about the French and Indian wars, as well as Canada’s concerns about an American invasion during the revolution and the War of 1812. There also was quite a bit about the Canadian participation in World War I. Here is a case where the bravery of the Canadian soldiers in several key battles, especially Reims, seemed to move the world’s opinion of them from a British colony to an independent country.