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With no subway or really useful light rail (right now anyway), Ottawa’s options for easy-to-reach tourism areas are severely limited, so attractions should therefore be clustered and easily accessible. And that’s what makes the federal government’s decision to double-down on a mouldy, old, asbestos-ridden bread factory in a dumpy part of town as the location to showcase all of the advances we’ve made as a society so disappointing.

It’s perfectly understandable why the Conservatives, and in particular why local Conservatives, would say that it is, in fact, a really good idea to simply renovate the Canada Science and Technology Museum at a cost of $80.5 million. The Tories have built their brand on showering the land with exceptionally expensive tax cuts, not ponying up the kind of money it would take to provide a gem of a national institution in a prime location.

Unfortunately, you don’t build a great city or a great national capital — especially one that appeals to potential visitors — on a shoestring.

The Conservative member of Parliament for the area, Royal Galipeau, might have been right when he pointed out in an impassioned letter to the Citizen that the museum is actually less than nine kilometres away from downtown, but for someone just visiting the city for the first time, it may as well be in Stittsville.

Who wants to trudge through snow or rain in an unfamiliar place, wait around for a bus that may or may not show up, take a long ride past the central bus depot, some bars, fast food restaurants and a sex toy shop, and then hike some more to get to a museum? It’s a bit amusing that one of the key arguments in favour of the plan is that it’ll be ready in time for the Confederation anniversary celebrations in 2017. With everything that will undoubtedly be going on downtown, who would bother to travel to St. Laurent Boulevard? Why not take the time to produce something that would wow people for generations instead of surrendering to this rush job?