To meet a growing call across Canada for a memorial to commemorate those who died in the First World War, the Cabinet of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King suggested in 1921 that a national memorial be built in Canada.[1] The Ottawa Citizen on 19 December 1922 reported that the government was going to announce a plan to erect just such a monument and,[26] in parliament on the last day of the session, the Cabinet requested appropriation for a war memorial to be built in Ottawa.[27] A site in the Gatineau Hills was originally considered but it was determined the best option was the redevelopment and expansion of downtown Ottawa's Connaught Place into a plaza for the memorial,[4] giving it the parliament buildings—the seat of Canadian democracy—as a backdrop.[8] This, Mackenzie King later said, put it in the most visible spot in the city, akin to The Cenotaph and Nelson's Column in London, England.[28]