The Speaker's Reception Room


Interior of Speaker's Reception Room (51841 bytes)  

Large and elegantly decorated, the Manitoba Room is reserved for official functions. Also called the Chandelier Room, the formal events held in this area often include a receiving line consisting of the Lieutenant-Governor, the Premier, the Speaker of the House, and their respective spouses.

Three beautiful brass and Czechoslovakian crystal chandeliers hang from the room's barrel-vaulted ceiling. Along the exterior wall, two glass display cases contain five books listing the members of Canada's Armed Forces and merchant marines who died in the Nile Expedition, the South African War, the First and Second World Wars, and the Korean War. These books are exact replicas of the original Books of Remembrance kept in the Peace Tower in Ottawa. A page of these books is turned each day to ensure the names of the dead are kept alive in the minds of the living.

 

Hand carved table base (5669 bytes)

This hand carved piece forms the base of the tables.

 

King George V (18540 bytes)

Queen Mary (46245 bytes)

The floor of the Manitoba Room is Tennessee marble tessellated with squares of verde antique marble. Large oil portraits of King George V and Queen Mary grace the end walls, painted by V.A. Long in 1915. Newer portraits of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh hang on the room's interior wall. These more recent works were commissioned in 1962 and painted by Dennis Fildes, a royal portraitist in London, England.