By Michel Rossignol
On December 29, 1941, a special train with the railway car of the President of the United States arrived at Ottawa’s Union Station, but the President was not aboard. The special passenger that morning was British Prime Minister Winston Churchill who, after meetings in Washington with President Roosevelt, arrived in Ottawa to discuss wartime policies with Prime Minister Mackenzie King.
During his lifetime, Churchill was a very controversial politician, and he is still the subject of much debate today. However, in 1941, Churchill was very popular in Canada because of his strong leadership and inspiring speeches when British cities were attacked by German bombers. As reported in the Ottawa Citizen‘s evening edition of December 29, 1941, a large crowd greeted Churchill with cheers when he walked through Union Station, and many persons lined the route taken by his limousine from the station to the Governor General’s residence, including Lowertown streets like Mackenzie and Sussex. The newspaper also noted that many spectators, including employees from the National Research Council building on Sussex, gathered near the Minto Bridges over the Rideau River to see the visitor. Many Lowertown stores like Caplan’s, Larocque, Dworkin Furs, and Trudel Hardware, as well as the Florence Paper Company on Boteler Street, placed ads welcoming Churchill in the December 29 and 30 editions of the Ottawa Citizen.
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Large crowds again greeted Churchill on December 30 on his way to Parliament Hill. Churchill thanked Canada for its contribution to the Allied war effort in his speech to a special joint session of the House of Commons and Senate which was broadcast live on radio around the world (the first broadcast ever from the Canadian Parliament). Just after the speech, the Ottawa photographer Yousuf Karsh took his famous portrait of a scowling Churchill. (An exhibition of over one hundred Karsh photos including Churchill’s portrait can be seen at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts until January 30, 2022.)
Churchill’s 1941 visit was not his first trip to Ottawa. For example, he was here in December 1900, just a year after his famous escape from a prisoner-of-war camp during the Boer War. In August 1929, Churchill arrived here during a train trip across Canada and the United States with his son and his brother. After meeting Prime Minister Mackenzie King on August 14, he spent most of the next day in Lowertown. He was the guest speaker at a luncheon at the Chateau Laurier Hotel and in the evening, he was the guest of honour at a dinner hosted by Sir Robert Borden and Lady Borden at their residence on Wurtemburg Street.
Churchill’s 1941 trip was also brief. He returned to Washington by train on December 31 and as mentioned on page 490 of Erik Larson’s book, The Splendid and the Vile (and in the January 2, 1942 Ottawa Citizen), Churchill invited everyone on the train to join him in the dining car just before midnight. He said that the coming months might be difficult but proposed a heartfelt toast to the New Year and everyone sang “Auld Lang Syne”.