Andrew Froh (Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica)

Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica

On September 7, 1828, a counsel submitted a request to Colonel By to build a church, a rectory, and a school for the small Roman Catholic population in Bytown. The request was granted and a section of land was designated on the west side of the Rideau Canal, but a church was never built there because most of the Catholic population lived in Lower Town on the east side of the canal. These were some of the first attempts to accommodate a minority group of French-Canadian Catholics in Upper Canada. Many decades later, section 93 of the Constitution Act 1867 would establish the minority rights of Catholics to provide education in Upper Canada and the minority rights of Protestants to provide education in Quebec. The Catholics in Bytown built the Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica and it would later become the archdiocese of Ottawa and a National Historic Site of Canada.

Coordinates: 45.42971 °N, 75.69646 °W

This content has been updated on 10 December 2016 at 16 h 12 min.