Most of Ottawa’s downtown public toilets are ‘hidden’

By Alan Etherington

It’s hard to imagine that the capital city of any other rich developed nation has only two stand-alone public toilets, but that’s what Ottawa offers our one million residents and 10 million annual visitors.

Our two stand-alone toilets are on Parliament Hill and Major’s Hill Park.
There are, however, many other toilets in public buildings, funded of course from our taxes, but with no exterior signs indicating that washrooms are available.

Here is our list (below) of all these locations – keep it handy when you are downtown.

One of the best of these, in our opinion, is on the ground floor at City Hall. But as with the others, no one would ever know – even our City Council cannot install a public toilet sign on its own building.

There are also public toilets in commercial buildings such as the Rideau Centre. Many Bridgeheads, Tim Hortons and Starbucks also provide access to their toilets to non-customers. Please help them by making a purchase if you can afford it.

Alan Etherington is a volunteer with the GottaGo! Campaign advocating for safe, accessible and easy-to-find public toilets in Ottawa.