Why is Ottawa the capital of Canada?

Answer 1

Ottawa is the capital of Canada not because Canadians choose it but because it was chosen for them.

Canada was at one time one province and before that there were just two Canada's an Upper Canada (today southern Ontario) and a Lower Canada (now southern Quebec along the St Lawrence).

In the 1830's there were some revolts or disagreements with British rule in Lower and Upper Canada. The British response was to create one Province, the Province of Canada.

The capital was in Kingston, Canada West (old Upper Canada) but to accommodate both Canada's it was to be relocated. So it was in 1844 moved to Montreal, complete with all records and library material.

In 1849 the Capital was still in Montreal but there were still many concerns about British rule. This lead to a protest that ended up at the Parliament in the evening of April 25th. The result of that protest was the Parliament buildings in flames and the loss of many records (some which contain info about my family).

And that resulted in a rather upset British Crown, who relocated the Capital to Toronto shortly after the destruction.

That upset those in Lower Canada, or Canada East. The Crown wanted to settle those issues once and for all so they started looking for a new Capital. After some thought, too little many suggest, the Queen picked Bytown as the new permanent location for Parliament. Neither Canada liked the choice of a small lumber town on the Ottawa river but the Queen had the power.

As to why Bytown?

It seems to come down to what other choices were there? Montreal was an obvious choice or alternately Kingston or leaving it in Toronto but all of those came with history that either Britain didn't like, Quebec didn't like, or Ontario didn't like.

Bytown had river access, little political history and seemed like a good choice nd nobody really like it for the Capital.

Bytown became Ottawa and is today Canada's capital.

Interestingly many Canadians would like to see the capital once again relocated. Some would like to see it, and the massive contribution to the local economy that comes with it, shared, or moved on a regular basis.

Others would like to see it relocated to the centre of Canada in Manitoba for both geographical reasons and to better reflect the fact that Canada has a growing population with more people living in Ontario and West than East.

And of course every city has it's own case for being the Capital of Canada. Given the Capitals past history it's relocation is very possible, hopefully we can avoid losing so many historical documents in the process.

Answer 2

Ottawa was designated the capital of the Province of Canada by Queen Victoria on December 31, 1857.