The supposedly non-partisan civil servants at the Department of Foreign Affairs are quickly undoing any changes brought in by the Conservatives and former Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.
They want to make sure there is no trace of Conservatives, so much so that they even took down a portrait of the Queen that was in the lobby of the building.
The good folks at Global Affairs would rather walk into work looking at the brightly coloured painting of Alfred Pellan than the portrait of our head of state.
They are wrong and this decision needs to be reversed.
More, including a petition here.
Signed.
What next, portraits of Che Guevara and Karl Marx?
After what, a century and a half or so of Department of Foreign Affairs it is now global Affairs? Kommissar of Global Affairs next?
“The supposedly non-partisan civil servants at the Department of Foreign Affairs are quickly undoing any changes brought in by the Conservatives and former Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.”
Do you think Baird personally climbed up a 14′ extension ladder to swap out the lobby artwork? No? Then the actual work of replacing Canada West Canada East with the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II in 2011 was also carried out by those same civil servants. Were they partisan then?
These changes are always approved by the Minister’s office. If it was acceptable in 2011 to replace the Pellan paintings with the Queen’s portrait (itself an undoing of the Liberal Party’s original choice of lobby artwork, in 1973), then it’s equally acceptable to do the reverse now.
There are going to be sooooo many other battles to fight with this soon to be McGuinty/Wynne-like spendthrift, nepotistic, elitist, pandering-to-its-base “progressive” Liberal gov’t…best to save energy for the battles that may truly matter….
The Crown is a symbolic constraint on government power and therefore is very offensive to those suffering from strong totalitarian impulses.
Point taken, Kt.
But about partisanship (that’s the complete antithesis of what the civil service is supposed to be in our system of government) did civil servants do this for the Conservatives when they replaced P.M. Martin’s government in 2006?
http://www.therebel.media/civil_servants_cheer_justin_trudeau
Pick your battles. This isn’t one.
Pick your battles, and know the enemy. If this is not something to fight over, it is something to note about the new government, including the same old civil service.
I agree, that fawning display was totally inappropriate.
The left do not pick their battles. It is full scale attack at all levels all the time. That’s how and why they win. Take note of that. There is no battle too small for the left. Right needs to fight back with the same strategy twice as hard.
Save energy ? No, never give up.
“Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.” – Conan
Actually I am pretty sure that quote came from Genghis Khan – a real historical figure – and was plagarized by Dino for his rather poorly made movie starring Arnie as a fictional barbarian.
WTF is Alfred Pelian? Pellan?
Out on the Wet coast, nothing much has changed in our office, mind you we work with public and proponents so we are always the last to know something is afoot.
Soon in america they will replace portiats of the founding fathers and replace them with pictures of Obama,Trayvon Martin,Micheal Brown and other such glorified crinimals
I lost all respect for the Queen and her heirs when she signed PET’s constitution. All the blather about the monarchy stopping runaway government etc died the minute she picked up the pen.
Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t help thinking there’s a little extra effrontery in the act of removing a symbol of historical/tradition personage, than there is by removing fridge-art adorning the halls of our institutions. There’s a certain dignity to maintaining our early and still practicably relevant heritage. Display our Queen, who possesses essentially little more than a symbolic benign authority over our governance, or contend with the corrupt sensibilities of the Laurentien Elite represented by art which only a select few “cultured” people will say they appreciate for nothing aside its aesthetic value. In this case the real significance is in the discarding of a distinct traditional symbol and a desire to replace it by anything that was not.
While there is only one Royal Head of State, there may be thousands of Canadiana paintings eligible in the same way those by Pellan were chosen. Perhaps the same individual(s) responsible for ordering the Queen’s portrait removal might consider taking down those dreary Prime Ministers’ portraits in the Halls of Parliament to replace them with the works of Lorna Mills. Make the place more pleasant. Now that would be real “change.”
Just sayin’
For the Marxist public sector unionized snivel service, this was not an election but a good old fashioned soviet-styled political purge.
Kreist, I detest these scum.
There may be some other things the Trudeau Liberals might want to change to get rid of all traces of our British heritage. How about renaming Prince Edward Island and British Columbia to something more “global”?
The petty act of taking down the Queen’s portrait so early in their mandate tells us their priorities are in line with their anti monarchy history as a party, they’ll start small and reach a full crescendo as their term unfolds. We may have trouble recognizing the Canada we have known, our roots will be covered up, we will stand for nothing,and become a nation of “communities”.
People have no idea what they’ve voted for, all they heard was “change” and that meant something different for each person, rude awakenings are on their way.
Wait until there’s a 1% Public Art Surtax applied to provide a revenue stream for those leftist activists too unemployable to even qualify for a public service job. Calgary’s already got that. The Liberal grease is coming in time for Christmas!
What happened to Common Ground, no divisiveness and no meaness? They are determined to erase all of Harper’s legacy from bringing back the long form, moving the site for the victims of communism monument to probably bringing back the Wheat Board.
Liz J @ 12:42 PM – “The petty act of taking down the Queen’s portrait so early in their mandate tells us their priorities are in line with their anti monarchy history as a party”
So true Liz. A country can’t have 2 Queens – A drama queen and a real one – one has to go.
Bingo!
She had no choice and was bound by law to sign the da*m piece if toilet paper.
It’s their version of the Obama tantrum of sending the Churchill bust back. Next up? A dvd of Justin’s favorite speeches.
Another bingo.
Feb 2015: Guess who’s picture was on Canada’s postage stamps?
Communist, terrorist Nelson Mandela.
Guess who was Prime Minister at that time?
We shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve taken down the picture of the Queen. The Liberals have a history of wanting to suppress Canada’s history. They dismantled the military combining all sections under one umbrella(the Canadian Armed Forces) and taking away the title the Royal Canadian Air Force much to the dismay of veterans who had served. But soon there won’t be any left to complain so they won’t care. Instead the airforce was called the “air element” under the CAF and we had a bunch of green uniformed men running around looking much like Mao’s army. They brought in a Canadian flag and folks it is “red”, the liberal colour and no blue. Hawaii is at least proud of its British heritage. And now our immigration is such that we’ll soon have the Ayatola Jomeini’s alias Trudeau’s picture hanging in the new Global Affairs Ministry. Beware, Canada will change and I ask our young people “do they care about Canada’s history”? How much does our education system teach and what does it teach besides sex education. I’m very pessimistic about Canada’s future and this action is symbolically for me just the beginning.
I don’t claim to be an art critic, but imho,those paintings are CRAP!
My Wife,who IS an artist,says they are typical “Quebec” style paintings. I won’t argue the point.
They could have kept the Queen’s pic up on the wall, and placed the Quebecois paintings on either side of H.M, who could complain about THAT?
But no,they HAD to take the Royal’s pic down. This is another Quebec/Liberal spit-in-the-face to British Canadian tradition, miserable little f***ing bigots.
“How about renaming Prince Edward Island and British Columbia to something more “global”?
I agree completely, about time we modernized things.
May I suggest “Northern Columbia” and “Pierre Elliot Trudeau Island”.
Prince Justin Island. Anything Non-Europian Columbia.
Petitions aren’t going to do any good. We, the people who always have to pick up the bill for this type of kaka, need to figure out a way to starve the beast until it learns to respect other people’s money.
Signatures are pointless, the only way the portrait gets restored is with a palace coup and when the streets run red with Lieberal blood.
I tried to sign the petition, but just got redirected to the top of the page at therebel. Anyone else have this happen?
“Signatures are pointless, the only way the portrait gets restored is with a palace coup…”
True. But our docile, cowardly, and servile population will no longer think, let alone act.
Another reason to hang our heads on Remembrance Day.
In a few years, this will be a portrait of a total dickhead for a king and a hideous irrelevant cow as “queen”.
Like I said, pick your battles.
If Prince Chucky is crowned the britsh empire is doomed