Description of Historic Place

The Canada Permanent Building, erected in 1909, is a three-storey commercial block in downtown Winnipeg. The City of Winnipeg designation applies to the building on its footprint and the following interior elements: the banking hall and all finishes, offices on the second floor and all finishes, hallway, stairwell and all finishes, cage elevator and front foyer.

Heritage Value

The Canada Permanent Building, an elegant Renaissance Revival composition, is significant as the home of an early financial institution that was instrumental in capitalizing development on the Prairies. After opening its first branch office in Winnipeg in 1881, the Toronto-based Canada Permanent Mortgage Corporation helped propel the city into a regional financial centre through its mortgage lending, savings and investment services. The company's 1909 building, designed by J.D. Atchison to convey an image of strength and security, is gracefully enriched, outside and in, by exquisite materials and ornamentation, including facades of red sandstone not commonly found in the city. Set amid a small cluster of historic buildings, the banking hall/office block remains prominent due to its exceptional appearance and visibility on a secondary intersection fronting a busy downtown side street.

Source: City of Winnipeg Council Meeting Minutes, December 9, 1985

Character-Defining Elements

Key elements that define the heritage character of the Canada Permanent Building site include:
- the building's location on Garry Street in downtown Winnipeg, in proximity to other designated commercial buildings as well as the historic Bank of Nova Scotia on Portage Avenue

Key elements that define the building's elegant exterior style include:
- the basic rectangular massing and flat roof and extravagant, symmetrically organized sandstone facades meeting to form a striking rounded front corner, with the main level of fine-tooth-chiselled and rusticated ashlar, distinguished from the upper floors by pronounced banding elements
- the sides and rear of the building finished much less elaborately in domestic clay brick
- the corner bay containing the highly ornamented entrance, curved upper-storey windows, including a pedimented second-floor opening, and the name 'CANADA PERMANENT' inscribed in the fascia
- the double-door main entrance, with a geometrically divided transom and round-arched fanlight, all set within an architrave composed of columns on high plinths, a bracketed and adorned lintel, and a faux balustraded balcony
- the tall rectangular windows throughout, recessed into the thick walls, many with transom lights and some with bracketed lintels and the bank of three main-floor windows separated by heavy fluted columns on the principal facade
- the dentilled and modillioned cornice and balustraded parapet with an elaborately carved corner cartouche that forms the base for a flagpole
- the details, including quoins, the segmental-arched south entrance with a bold keystone and a lintel stone above reading 'CHAMBERS', etc.


Key elements that define the building's majestic interior details and finishes include:
- the formal plan composed of the public spaces of the banking hall and the private office spaces
- the small circular foyer off the main entrance featuring a mosaic tile floor, domed ceiling executed in finely detailed plasterwork, decorative grille-work around the doors, etc.
- the large, well-lit double-height banking hall composed of a front foyer leading to more formally enclosed offices along each side, and featuring mosaic tile floors, white marble veneer columns and pilasters rising to a richly moulded, coffered ceiling, etc.
- the large vaults of reinforced concrete on each level and the main-floor vault featuring a stencilled door
- the upper office areas partitioned by wood panels with blue-chip glass and the manager's office featuring a green tile fireplace with a heavy, bracketed mantelpiece
- the south entrance's marble and mosaic foyer providing access to the cage elevator and the grand staircase of grey marble with a cast-iron balustrade
- the details, including the verd-antique marble wainscotting in the banking hall, foyer and office entrances, door and window trim of marble, washrooms throughout finished in marble, etc.