Uploaded on 2018-05-13 by Kristin Atwood

In this picture you can see a portion of a building covered in a tarp, with a crane in the foreground behind a construction fence. The building is the old railway station in Ottawa, along the Rideau Canal. The station was completed in 1912. At that time, more local products would have been used in its construction (e.g. stone) because it was expensive and time consuming to transport materials. However, repairs being undertaken now do not often use local materials. Canada does not have much in the way of secondary manufacturing - we usually import these materials from the United States. Our lack of secondary industry is exacerbated by free trade agreements with the U.S. that sometimes penalize us for using local materials; often the only legal thing to do is import from the U.S. I think the impact of trade and trade agreements on building materials should not be under-emphasized. For an interesting add on to this entry, visit http://www.pastottawa.com/comparison/rideau-canal-with-union-station/11/ or http://www.pastottawa.com/comparison/rideau-canal-before-the-construction-of-union-station/437/. These comparisons give an idea of how the building and surrounding area have changed over time.