The Vinyl Cafe: The New Zealand Room
18th January 2011 by Andrew Needs, Ottawa | 3 Comments
The New Zealand Room with David Teata prints in the background
This week I am attaching a link to a recent podcast that went out on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio’s programme “The Vinyl Cafe”. This is a weekly programme hosted by author and social commentator Stuart McLean. The Vinyl Cafe has a large Canada-wide audience. I am myself a regular listener in the weekend. Stuart generally broadcasts in front of a live audience and does so from all over the country.
Stuart and I have been engaged in an exchange in recent months which was precipitated by an earlier visit to Ottawa by Stuart, where he commented in some detail during his broadcast, on his visit to the Canadian Parliament and its importance in the context of Canadian democracy and nationhood. Stuart had always wanted to visit the Parliamentary dining room, and was given a tour. As part of this visit he was shown the “New Zealand Room”, the only room in Centre Block named after a country. Why was New Zealand accorded this honour? Well, that small private dining room is lined with Kauri, the most famous of New Zealand’s native timber. This was a gift from the government of New Zealand as the new Parliament was being built after the fire of 1916. Stuart discussed the symbolism around this act at some length and used it as a basis for a wider discussion around some of the key tenets that our two countries value, including: friendship, respect, democracy and law.
What I pointed out to Stuart was that symbol of friendship between two nations, with shared history, culture and values, has continued to play out. Stuart at that stage did not realise that Canada subsequently gifted maple timber to New Zealand, which today lines the Speakers suite in our own old and beautiful Parliament buildings in Wellington.
The most recent encapsulation of this relationship, as mediated through this small dining room in the Canadian Parliament, was in April 2010. New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, visited Ottawa to meet with his counterpart and friend, Stephen Harper. During that visit, PM Key gifted three modern prints by an emerging New Zealand artist, David Teata, to the Parliament of Canada. Appropriately enough, given the connection to the New Zealand Speaker, these art works were officially unveiled in a ceremony some weeks later, by the Speakers of the Canadian Senate and House of Commons That art work now hangs very proudly in the New Zealand Room, a modern day addition to a relationship that has its basis in historical linkages that predates any of us here today, but which has modernised through the twentieth century, with its attendant challenges, but has us no less committed as nations to those key principles upon which our nations are founded.
To listen to the show please visit: http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/vinylcafe_20110115_43803.mp3
I appreciate that you took the time to post this piece. It is good to have the country connections made apparent.
Here’s to continued relations! Knock on wood (kauri or maple).
Good on you Andrew. Incidentally, the weblink to this story on the vinyl cafe was sent to me by a Canadian friend living in Toronto
Reuben
As a Canadian, I am glad to see the “Great Canadian Story Teller” is being enjoyed across the globe. Also, it’s interesting to learn of this connection between our two great countries!