#593 Diefenbunker 2.0

Diefenbunker 2.0?

What a Cold War shelter in Carp can tell us about spending we aren’t allowed to see.

In Carp, Ontario, there’s a four-storey bunker built in secret to shelter Canada’s government through a nuclear war. I’ve been inside. The CBC’s emergency broadcast studio, the room meant to speak to a whole country after the worst day in its history, was about 12 feet by 12 feet.

12 ft
×
12 ft

One small room, one tape of pre-recorded messages, and the job of reaching every Canadian with a radio.

The Diefenbunker was built under a veil of secrecy, and the public didn’t understand its purpose or cost until long after the money was spent. It’s a museum now.

None of that is speculation. The Diefenbunker is real, it’s a designated National Historic Site, and anyone can tour it. It shows that Canada has built secret, expensive underground facilities for its officials and kept quiet about them until the Cold War was over.

So I think we should ask whether it’s happening again.

The bunker boom

Lately we’ve been told that billionaires are building bunkers. It sounds crazy, and some of it is rumour. Tech figures including Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman and Reid Hoffman are reportedly building or buying bunkers, secret compounds and “apocalypse insurance” plans. Zuckerberg’s Hawaii compound is the best-known example. It reportedly includes a huge underground shelter, though he denies it is a “doomsday bunker.”

We laugh at that, or we’re unsettled by it. But we’ve been here before, and the government of Canada has done it too. It built one near Carp with public money and kept it secret for years. It’s reasonable to ask, and this is speculation, whether the same thinking continues today in places the public isn’t invited to see. I have no evidence that it does. The point is that the Diefenbunker shows it has happened before, and secrecy is what makes the question impossible to answer.

Ogilvie Road

On Ogilvie Road in Ottawa, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) occupies the Edward Drake Building. The official cost estimate was $880 million, which made it the most expensive government building in Canada. Sources close to the project told CBC the true figure would be nearer $1.2 billion once associated costs were tallied. Next door, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) headquarters cost about $153.5 million when it was completed in 1995.

What the public record says

Facility	Figure	What it is
CSIS headquarters, Ogilvie Rd.	$153.5 million	Total project cost, completed 1995
CSE, Edward Drake Building	$880 million	Official estimate
CSE, Edward Drake Building	about $1.2 billion	Reported by sources close to the project, with associated costs included
CSE, Edward Drake Building	$4.1 billion CONFIRM	Listed on Defence Construction Canada’s project page for the public-private partnership (P3). CONFIRMATION Unlikely
NRC Montreal Road campus, two new science labs	$1.5 billion	Combined budget for two labs announced under the Laboratories Canada program
of which TerraCanada National Capital Area	about $1.05 billion	Public Services and Procurement Canada’s stated project value; construction began summer 2026

Sources: CBC News; Office of the Auditor General (CSIS headquarters); Defence Construction Canada; Public Services and Procurement Canada (TerraCanada).

I can’t prove this, and it is speculation on my part, but the pattern looks familiar. The Edward Drake Building is a very large, very expensive, very secure facility, and the public can’t see inside it.

I’m not saying it’s a bunker. The Diefenbunker was built to shelter officials from nuclear war. CSE’s job is signals intelligence and cyber defence. My point is narrower: the Diefenbunker’s secrecy meant the public couldn’t ask whether it was worth the cost until it no longer mattered.

Next door

CSE’s site was carved out of land that belonged to the National Research Council, and the NRC’s Montreal Road campus is now getting its own major construction. The federal government has announced two new science laboratories there with a combined budget of $1.5 billion, funded under the $3.7-billion Laboratories Canada program. The larger of the two, the TerraCanada National Capital Area facility, is valued at about $1.05 billion. Its stated components include a Class II nuclear facility, and construction began in summer 2026. The other, the Transportation Safety and Technology Science hub, is budgeted at about $500 million.

Then there’s what’s underground. The National Capital Commission’s design submission for the TerraCanada building describes a three-storey structure with a 9,200 square metre footprint, plus a partial basement and sub-basement, and a two-storey penthouse. Labs routinely have below-grade levels, so that alone proves nothing. But the public summary doesn’t say what those levels are for, and I think that’s the right question to put to the people spending the money. CONFIRMATION? unlikely to be forthcoming

Here the contrast matters. Those labs were announced publicly, with budgets, contractors and timelines posted on government websites. CSE’s building was not. Add the two at their official figures and you get roughly $2.4 billion of federal construction in one east-end corner of Ottawa. We can read the details on one project, and on the other we’re left with a headline number and sources close to the project.

“Don’t worry, you don’t need to know”

The usual answer to questions like these is some version of “don’t worry, you don’t need to know.” The trouble with that line is that it can’t be checked from outside. Nobody can show it’s wrong, so it works as a complete answer to any question.

Some secrecy around an intelligence agency is legitimate, and a reasonable reader may accept that. What we shouldn’t have to accept is that nobody outside the agency verifies its cost, purpose and design. Canada has bodies that can see what the public can’t, including the Auditor General, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. The question to put to the government is a specific one: who has actually looked, and what did they report?

We were effectively told the same thing about the Diefenbunker, until it became a museum. The bunker was real, and the secrecy around it was real too.

Questions to ask now

1. What does the full $4.1 billion cover, and who is accountable for it?
2. What oversight exists over cost overruns on a project that can’t be fully examined in public?
3. What will we learn about this building in thirty years that we’re not allowed to know today?
4. Why can we read the full budget and schedule for the labs next door, but not for CSE’s own building?
5. Which review body has examined this building’s cost and design, and what did it report?

Canadians shouldn’t have to wait for a museum tour to find out.