Ottawa is marking the 50th anniversary of the CN Tower with a new commemorative toonie, recasting a once-criticized concrete structure as a lasting symbol of Canadian pride.Blacklock's Reporter says cabinet approved the $2 coin this week, directing the Royal Canadian Mint to issue a design featuring a dark blue reflection of the CN Tower and the inscription “50 Years,” according to a federal regulatory filing.“These coins will provide the Canadian population the opportunity to engage with and learn more about the story of a national icon and the symbol of national pride that stood as the world’s tallest freestanding structure for over three decades,” the Department of Finance said in its Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement.Federal officials said the tower emerged during a period of explosive growth in Toronto, when the city’s population more than doubled between 1950 and 1970. What began as a practical telecommunications project quickly evolved into a statement about the country’s ambitions. The structure was built tall enough to broadcast signals above an expanding skyline, but also to showcase Canada’s engineering skill and Toronto’s rise as the nation’s largest city..The CN Tower officially opened on October 1, 1976, with then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau presiding over the ceremony. A time capsule buried at the site included telegrams from every provincial premier, an old Canadian National Railway ticket and the names of the ironworkers, tradespeople and labourers who built the tower.At 1,815 feet, the CN Tower overtook Moscow’s Ostankino Tower as the world’s tallest freestanding structure, a title it held until Dubai’s Burj Khalifa was completed in 2009. Finance officials continue to describe it as one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks.Not everyone was impressed at the time. Toronto architect and alderman Colin Vaughan dismissed the finished project in 1976 as an “unexciting” structure whose form was lost in what he called ordinary design choices throughout the building..The tower was originally budgeted at $24 million in 1972 but ultimately cost Canadian National Railways $57 million, roughly $296 million in today’s dollars. Admission to the observation deck initially cost $2.75. Today, visitors pay up to $59.The CN Tower remains taxpayer-owned through Canada Lands Company Ltd. and has since been certified as a national green building by the Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada.
