Posted by Timothy Humphries on September 7, 2011, 9:00 pm, in reply to "Display of The Queen's portrait to be required in Canadian diplomatic missions"
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This is like some beautiful dream -- I'm afraid to wake up and discover Paul Martin is still Prime Minister and Ms Jean is still pretender to Canada's throne.
What is remarkable about this measure -- in itself astonishing -- is that it brooks no diplomatic "interpretation". And far from being a hortative along the lines of all foreign missions "should" display a portrait of the Queen of Canada, it is an imperative "shall" with a very tight deadline.
Will all these foreign missions (and high commissions) have portraits of Her Majesty in the basement? Perhaps some will need to dust off those magnificent portraits signed Wilding and Karsh that graced our institutions' walls in 1950s.
One can only imagine the grinding and gnashing of teeth this measure will provoke in places like Paris. Oh, to be a fly on the wall!
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