The Stony Monday Riots
Despite whatever mild-mannered reputation Ottawa may have, the city’s history is rife with roughneck tales of debauchery, riots, and malfeasance going back decades. Here are a few examples of tales seldom told that could easily change your mind about this city and its residents.
In the early 19th century, the construction of the Rideau Canal brought large numbers of recently arrived Irish Catholic labourers into the area. After the canal was completed, and with increased unemployment in the region, the Irish Catholics became restless and revived old animosities with the French, English, and Protestant Irish. A group of disgruntled Irish known as the Shiners began to wage campaigns against French raftsmen and the Protestant fraternal order the Orangemen, escalating from street fights and bar brawls to a series of assaults and murders in 1837 (this period of Ottawa Valley history, 1837-1845, became known as the “Shiners’ Wars”). The end of the Shiner terror came when their leader, Peter Aylen, left Ottawa for Aylmer after a series of particularly brutal attacks, but tensions among the various groups remained.
Most of the affluent Englishmen who lived in Uppertown (now Centretown) were Tories, while the French and Irish were Reformers. The Tories spent much of the 1840s incensed at the Reformist-minded politics of Lord Elgin, then Governor General of Canada. After riots started in Montreal, where Tories burnt down the Parliament Building located there, Elgin was prompted to look for another capital for Canada. When His Lordship announced plans to visit Bytown in September of 1849, the people of Lowertown began preparing a royal welcome. Uppertowners, meanwhile, argued that Elgin should be ignored, and a meeting was called in the Byward Market to discuss the situation. The gathering on September 17 erupted into another riot. Stones were thrown, mayhem broke out, and one person was shot on what became known as “Stony Monday.” The British militia was called in to block the Lowertowners from advancing into Uppertown the following day, and the riot was dispersed.
Assasination of Thomas D’Arcy McGee
One of Canada’s early political assassinations occurred in Ottawa on Sparks Street. On April 7, 1868, poet, Member of Parliament, and Father of Confederation Thomas D’Arcy McGee walked home after a particularly late session and was shot dead in the doorway of the rooming house where he was staying. A reward of $2,000 was offered to anyone who could bring the assassin to justice. Soon after, Patrick James Whelan, a tailor and Fenian sympathizer (Irish nationalists who brought their fight against England to the colonies) was convicted of the murder, though, years later, it was suggested that Whelan was chosen as a scapegoat. Held for months in the county jail (now the site of the Youth Hostel on Nicholas Street), Whelan was executed on the gallows outside the courthouse before a huge crowd on February 11, 1869. This was the last public execution in Canada. The Smith & Wesson Tip-up revolver that Whelan allegedly used in the crime was sold at auction to the Museum of Civilization in 2005 for over $100,000 (it had been held in a family collection for years, perhaps even going as far back as the event). As of 2000, the bullet was in the possession of the Ontario Archives, but when the 2005 sale of the gun brought attention to the story, the organization informed the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that it had gone missing sometime within the last five years. A plaque has since been erected in front of the Royal Bank Building at 142 Sparks Street, identifying the location where McGee was assassinated. Just down the block, at the corner of Sparks and O’Connor Streets, printer George Desbarats (forebear of journalist Peter Desbarats and his daughter, poet Michelle Desbarats), who owned the rooming house where his friend McGee was staying, had originally put up the first memorial plaque soon after his McGee’s death. After it was erected, Desbarats had received an anonymous warning that his printing establishment would be destroyed; and sure enough, it was lost to a fire in 1869, barely a year after McGee’s assassination.
Heave Hi, Heave Hi Ho
French-Canadian Ottawa Valley folk hero Big Joe Mufferaw (based on real-life 19th-century figure Joseph Montferrand) was lionized for his exploits as a mighty woodsman. He was also celebrated as a protector of French interests and opponent of the combative Irish Shiners. Big Joe was even immortalized in song (“Heave hi heave hi ho / The best man in Ottawa was Mufferaw Joe”) by that inveterate Canadian mythmaker, folk singer Stompin’ Tom Connors. Over the years, tales of Montferrand’s 
physical feats in the Ottawa Valley, including an epic, bloody battle in which he fought 150 Shiners, turned him into a Paul Bunyanesque character. The building on Rue Laurier in Gatineau that currently houses the Palais de Justice is named for this local hero.
Ottawa—Birthplace of the Cold War?
The Cold War was inauspiciously launched at 511 Somerset Street West, in an apartment building now adjacent to the Beer Store. Don’t believe it? On September 5, 1945, Russian-born Igor Gouzenko, posted to the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa as a cipher clerk, walked into the offices of the late daily the Ottawa Journal and, in essence, defected. He brought with him 109 carefully selected documents that he had been collecting for weeks, establishing conclusively the existence of a Soviet spy ring in North America. A royal commission was appointed the following February to investigate. In 2003, a plaque for Gouzenko (who, with his family, was given a new identity and relocated by the Canadian government) was erected in Dundonald Park across from his former home. Gouzenko, who had adopted an assumed name, died in 1982 in Mississauga.
Scandals of Parliament
Cold War, Hot Sex
It’s often said that there haven’t been many sex scandals on Parliament Hill simply because the exploits that have probably gone on haven’t been revealed to the public. (One wonders about Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s days and nights in office.) A scandal that did surface was the tale of Gerda Munsinger. An East German prostitute and Soviet spy, Munsinger got herself involved with a number of high-ranking Canadian government officials in the late 1950s, including cabinet ministers George Hees and Pierre Sévigny, much to the embarrassment of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. While her affair with Hees was brief, she carried on a three-year relationship with Sévigny. Dubbed the “Munsinger Affair,” the scandal only became public in 1966 when Minister of Justice Lucien Cardin spoke out of turn during debate in Parliament. He not only got her name wrong, but revealed the scandal a good five years after she had been deported to East Germany, and three years after Sévigny had quietly resigned from Diefenbaker’s cabinet. Despite the fact that the government claimed she had since died of leukemia, Toronto Star reporter Robert Reguly found her alive and well in Munich, West Germany, where she confirmed the story. Not only that, according to an interview Reguly did years later with CTV.ca, Munsinger revealed that he was inadequate in the sack, and told him, “As a lover, you make a great politician.” Dubbed a security risk and “ruined by the Munsinger affair,” Sévigny was eventually cleared of charges of disloyalty, but he spent the rest of his life in isolation. The scandal was the basis of the 1992 feature film Gerda.
The Parliamentary Bathroom Bomber
On the afternoon of May 18, 1966, after moving from failed jobs to failed businesses and blaming everyone but himself, Toronto resident Paul Chartier focused his unhappiness on the Canadian government, and planned to throw an explosive in the House of Commons during question period. Working his way through the Parliament Buildings, Chartier discovered that the Public Gallery was full, forcing him to move to the (then) Ladies’ Gallery on the third floor. Here he entered a washroom to light the explosive, and planned to return quickly to toss it to the floor of the House. Misjudging the length of the fuse, he managed only to blow up himself and the washroom; he was killed instantly. For the first time in history, the sittings of the House were temporarily suspended, resuming an hour after the incident.
More Celebrity Dirt
When Margaret Trudeau Kemper, ex-wife of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, was charged with drunk driving in 2004, she got off on a technicality based on a violation of the Charter of Rights. Originally claiming he had pulled her over for a speeding violation, the arresting officer ultimately admitted that his speedometer wasn’t calibrated, so the defense was able to argue that his stopping her was unwarranted. It also didn’t help that while at the police station she had been kept in a locked room, unable to call out, and the policeman didn’t properly telephone her lawyers, upon her request.
Dimplomatic Non-Immunity
In 2001, Russian diplomat Andrei Knyazev, working as first secretary at the embassy, was driving home from an ice-fishing party, where he had allegedly consumed considerable amounts of alcohol, when his car skidded onto the sidewalk after missing a turn in the quiet residential neighbourhood of New Edinburgh. He struck and killed 50-year-old Catherine MacLean, a prominent labour lawyer, and seriously injured Catherine Dore, whose dog was also killed. Knyazev refused a breathalyzer test, and invoked his diplomatic immunity, enraging Canadians across the country. The Russian ambassador immediately ordered Knyazev back to Moscow. A year later, he was sentenced by the Russians to four years in a “village colony,” where he would sleep in medium-security barracks, report to guards twice a day, and spend his time labouring either in farming or forestry. Originally, the embassy had denied that anyone there had reported any sort of accident, and when questioned, Knyazev denied even having a drink that day. Both Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham were adamant that zero tolerance of drunk driving be upheld, however, and apparently the Russian government agreed—they introduced their own zero tolerance policy for their diplomats abroad.
Nighty Night
Interested in knowing what it’s like to sleep in a prison cell? Well, you can at the hostelling international Ottawa Jail youth hostel
. And when you want to leave, you don’t have to attend a parole hearing. Located in the centre of downtown, this facility served as the Carleton County Gaol from 1862-1972, and now offers accommodation in converted jail cells, with private as well as shared rooms (ideal for families and groups). Here, you might even get to stay in the cell that once held Patrick James Whelan, convicted of assassinating Thomas D’Arcy McGee.
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1985 Turkish Embassy Attack
On March 12, 1985, a squad of terrorists armed with assault rifles and hand grenades stormed the Turkish embassy. It all started early that morning, when a rented U-Haul van backed up to the wall of the embassy and three heavily armed members of the Armenian Revolutionary Army leaped out, scaled the wall, shot and killed a guard, and worked their way into the building’s inner sanctum. They demanded the return of their land and the acknowledgment of the genocide that was carried out on the Armenians by the Turks in 1915. During the siege, the Turkish ambassador, Coskun Kirca, was forced to throw himself out of a second-storey window. Arriving on the scene, Ottawa police constable Michel Prud’Homme kept the ambassador, who was severely injured by the fall, hidden from the terrorists for hours, earning Prud’Homme the Medal of Bravery. Once captured, the three gunmen were sentenced to 25 years in prison without parole. Before the attack of 1985, many foreign diplomats had complained about the lax security for embassies in Canada. The 1985 incident caused Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s government to act quickly, leading to the creation of Canada’s top-secret commando unit, Joint Task Force Two.
Diplomatic Non-Immunity
In 2001, Russian diplomat Andrei Knyazev, working as first secretary at the embassy, was driving home from an ice-fishing party, where he had allegedly consumed considerable amounts of alcohol, when his car skidded onto the sidewalk after missing a turn in the quiet residential neighbourhood of New Edinburgh. He struck and killed 50-year-old Catherine MacLean, a prominent labour lawyer, and seriously injured Catherine Dore, whose dog was also killed. Knyazev refused a breathalyzer test, and invoked his diplomatic immunity, enraging Canadians across the country. The Russian ambassador immediately ordered Knyazev back to Moscow. A year later, he was sentenced by the Russians to four years in a “village colony,” where he would sleep in medium-security barracks, report to guards twice a day, and spend his time labouring either in farming or forestry. Originally, the embassy had denied that anyone there had reported any sort of accident, and when questioned, Knyazev denied even having a drink that day. Both Deputy Prime Minister John Manley and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham were adamant that zero tolerance of drunk driving be upheld, however, and apparently the Russian government agreed—they introduced their own zero tolerance policy for their diplomats abroad.
Stopwatch Gang
The Stopwatch Gang, led by Ottawa’s own Paddy Mitchell (who grew up in Little Italy), Stephen Reid (of Massey, Ontario), and Lionel Wright, are perhaps Canada’s most infamous bank robbers. The trio, whose orchestrated meticulous heists never took longer than 90 seconds, robbed more than 100 banks and armoured cars during the 1970s and 80s in the United States and Canada. Their most notorious job was a 1974 gold heist (worth $750,000) at the Ottawa airport, earning themselves a place on the FBI’s most-wanted list. The gang’s exploits were detailed in several movies, including Point Break (1991) and The Heist (2001), as well as in the book The Stopwatch Gang (1992) by Toronto Sun reporter Greg Weston, and in Mitchell’s own memoir, This Bank Robber’s Life, which he wrote in prison and sold over the Internet. While still in jail, Reid wrote his own book, a semi-autobiographical novel titled Jackrabbit Parole. Through this book he met his editor, West Coast poet and writer Susan Musgrave, and in 1986 they married while he was still imprisoned. Upon his release a year later, he and Musgrave attempted to live a quiet life on Vancouver Island, and had a child as well. He appeared as a rifle-toting security guard in a 15-second cameo (as well as acting as the film’s bank heist consultant) in the independent movie Four Days (1999). Unfortunately, in the spring of 1999 in Victoria, BC, his heroin addiction resulted in a return to crime and a botched robbery and shootout; currently, Reid remains in prison. The leader of the gang, Patrick “Paddy” Mitchell, called “North America’s most famous, most successful and, especially, most likeable bank robber of our time” by his son, grew up on Preston Street in Ottawa, and died of cancer on in 2007 in a US prison while serving a 65-year sentence. Wright served his sentence, and according to a 2005 report from the CBC, worked as an accountant for Corrections Canada. The gold from the airport robbery in 1974 was never recovered.
Ottawa—City of Gold Diggers?
Ottawa, as the site of the Bank of Canada, played a central role in Operation Fish, an undertaking initiated in 1940 to provide safekeeping for the assets of Britain, Norway, France, and Belgium in Canada for the duration of World W
ar II. Six ships carried combined gold and securities from the four allied countries via Britain; secretly unloaded in Halifax, the reserves were transported to Montreal by train, then to Ottawa, where the 60 million ounces of gold were loaded onto trucks at night and ferried to the basement of the Bank of Canada on Wellington Street under the watchful eye of armed guards disguised in simple overalls. The crates were unloaded and stacked by two 30-member teams who, although they worked 24 hours a day, were unable to keep up with the number of crates delivered. The backlog of 1,500 unopened crates of gold that lined the halls of the basement soon required a contingent of RCMP officers to guard it round the clock. But it’s hard to keep any secret for long. One can only presume that once the war ended, the gold was just as secretly slipped back out of the country and returned to its owners.