The Harper government decided to restore the word "royal" to our air force and navy after some years of absence. It also decided to remove two monumental paintings from the entrance hall of the Lester B. Pearson Building, headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, after 40 years of their presence. The pictures have been replaced with a photograph of the Queen.
Are these two moves related? Obviously, yes: Both are designed to contribute to a larger consciousness of the Crown's place in our national identity. But whatever the merits in restoring the historic term "royal" to our armed forces, they don't extend to causing the disappearance of two grand oil paintings by Alfred Pellan from the halls of our foreign ministry.
To understand why the removal of the Pellans is a bad idea, one needs to go back to the Ottawa scene some half a century ago. For the foreign ministry, it was the best of times and the worst of times. It was the best of times (our "golden age") because of our diplomatic contributions toward resolving the Suez crisis and building the postwar international order. But it was the worst of times because the foreign ministry had no physical home.
As it grew mightily during its halcyon years, its offices were spread out all over the capital. So the government decided to create a magnificent new place on Ottawa's grand avenue to bring the presence of a self-confident, outward-looking Canada to the attention of all those foreign ambassadors, high-level officials, delegations and leaders who came to the capital to deal with the government.
The building proved to be a vast disappointment. Rather than an inspired expression of Canada in the world, what went up on Sussex Drive, at the conflux of the great waterways running through the city, was a pedestrian structure whose message projected mediocrity. Instead of spiritually soaring, it squatted on its site like a giant ziggurat, dark and alienating.
Most disappointing of all was the enormous entrance hall, a vast cold space with a huge intimidating wall that confronted all who entered the building. But a solution soon appeared to the department's then senior officers. (Full disclosure: We were among them.)
At an earlier, enlightened time, the government had acquired directly from the Quebec artist – then little known but later internationally acclaimed (and staunchly federalist) – two huge colourful paintings for its new embassy in Rio de Janeiro. When the embassy moved some years later to the new capital of Brasilia, there was no room for the paintings. So they were returned to Ottawa, where they disappeared into the bowels of the Pearson building.
What better way to meet the challenge of that building's lugubrious long wall than to hang the two magnificent Pellans at its very centre. With their brilliant primary colours, they illuminated the entire space and remained there for nearly 40 years, their soaring beauty to be complemented by the flags of all nations erected in the front of the entrance hall.
With their grand themes of "Canada West Canada East," including mountains, totem poles and rural activity, they conveyed a sense of our country's vast size. In their scenes of Quebec, Western Canada and our indigenous people, they reflected our history and the cultural and demographic character of our nationhood. In their artistic quality, they represented a Canada that was bold and creative.
There are many places for a photograph of the Queen to be prominently displayed in the lobby of the Pearson building. The monarchy is part of our Constitution, and it's appropriate that a portrait of the Queen be exhibited there – and there's certainly ample space. But the Pellans represent our dynamism as a pioneering people and the vitality of a burgeoning North American nation.
So please, Prime Minister, restore the Pellans to their historic place. No two images tell the story of Canada better. No photograph of royalty can project as well as they do the pride we rightly take in our culture and our achievements.
Allan Gotlieb, a former Canadian ambassador to the United States and an undersecretary of state for external affairs, is a senior adviser at Bennett Jones LLP. Thomas Delworth is a former Canadian ambassador to Germany.