Description of Historic Place

The Canada Hotel is a three storey commercial building with a beveled corner located at the intersection of Broad and Johnson Streets in Victoria's Old Town District.

Heritage Value

The Canada Hotel adds value to Victoria's Old Town District because it physically joins the historic commercial streetscapes of Johnson and Broad Streets. Although this 1870s building has lost almost all of its fine original detailing, it is the surviving solidity and form, with its beveled corner, which impart a visual connection along the vistas of this intersection. Furthermore, the fact that both the Canada Hotel and the adjacent 1892 Duck Block to the south were constructed for local entrepreneur and politician Simeon Duck some eighteen years apart sheds light onto patterns of real estate speculation and development which occurred in Victoria in the late nineteenth century.

Source: City of Victoria Planning and Development Dept.

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements of the Canada Hotel include:
- The prominent location on the busy intersection of Johnson and Broad Streets.
- The physical and visual connection the building makes between the two streets on which it sits, accentuated by its beveled corner.
- The integrity of the building envelope which relates to its two stages of construction in 1874 and 1879, and the evidence of construction methods and building materials used to carry out its construction, particularly the original stone and brick construction still evident on the west elevation.
- Interior light wells.
- The contiguous relationship with the 1892 Duck Block to the south.
- The existing scale and height which are compatible with the surrounding historic streetscape.