Justin Trudeau’s final bow outside Rideau Cottage cemented its place in Canadian TV history | Canada Voices

For what was the likely the last time, Justin Trudeau addressed the country live on television outside Rideau Cottage on Monday.

The front stairs and pedimented porch of this once obscure Georgian revival home on the grounds of Rideau Hall became as iconic a screen image for Canadians during Trudeau’s nine years in power as the door and sidewalk outside of 10 Downing Street is for Brits.

Announcing his intention to resign as Prime Minister and Liberal Leader, Trudeau stood at the bottom of the steps of what had become his family’s temporary-permanent home. It was the same spot where, as CBC’s Rosie Barton reminded viewers while filling time for the tardy address, he had spoken daily to Canadians in an extremely dark period, providing open-air updates behind a similar podium but with a sign plugging the government’s coronavirus website.

Perhaps Trudeau was trying to bring back those televisual memories from 2020, a time when he did indeed do some of his best communicating in front of the cameras – when he grew his hair out in solidarity with all Canadians dealing with shuttered barber shops, and let his beard grow, too, as if challenging us to imagine the pandemic as a tense playoff run. Even though his government had just gone to minority from majority, he looked like he was leading the country through a disaster we were all in together.

But that wasn’t exactly the image recreated on screens on Monday. Freshly trimmed and shaved, Trudeau looked like an ex-leader heading out for interviews in the corporate sector – and the visual state of Rideau Cottage’s front stoop added to the picture of a party that was over. A holiday garland that went all the way around the front door was beyond drooping; it was creeping toward the threshold and into tripping-hazard territory, just waiting to be brown-bagged and put out for the next scheduled Christmas tree pickup.

There was salt scattered all around the porch. And the stairs leading up, and down, to the front door were covered in ugly stains that showed the recent work of chemical ice melters.

In his remarks and responses to questions from journalists, Trudeau tried to revert to the “sunny ways” that had won over the country in 2015, but you could almost see the trickles of anger and resentment dripping down when he mentioned the “internal battles” that led him to his decision.

His own internal battle between desired image and psychological reality seemed externalized in the image that framed him: contrasting bright white salt discolouration and dark, dripping slush stains spotting the stairs.

Where were those perky potted evergreen trees that framed the front door during the pandemic? Why had they been replaced with skinnier ones and pushed to the side like so many cabinet ministers who had outlived their usefulness?

That no one had spruced up the Rideau Cottage entrance suggested Trudeau hadn’t simply waited for the holidays to tell the country his decision, but had really been wrestling with it until the last minute.

American presidents have so many physical places to choose from as a backdrop for delivering different messages, including Camp David, the White House Rose Garden and the Oval Office.

In never renovating and moving into his crumbling childhood home of 24 Sussex Dr., Trudeau didn’t just avoid a political hot potato but enriched our country’s iconography by adding in Rideau Cottage.

I wonder whether we’ll wait (and wait) to hear future prime ministers address the country in front of its entrance again – or whether, even if they use it as a residence, they’ll retreat to sterile, indoor locations as the place is now so closely linked with Trudeau-era TV.

While Trudeau’s live performances there may be over, Rideau Cottage will be the setting of at least one more iconic video, in some circles at least: his moving van pulling out.