“In celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday, the Ottawa Citizen is rolling out one fact each day for 150 days until July 1, highlighting the odd, the fascinating and the important bits of Ottawa history you might not know about.”
This article, “The Capital Builders: How ‘Karsh of Ottawa’ captured the world’s most famous people in photos” by Citizen reporter Blair Crawford includes a video of the current Speaker of the House of Commons, Geoff Regan, enthusiastically retelling the story of the making of Karsh’s Churchill portrait.
“Today, Churchill still glowers from the wall of the Speaker’s chamber. When then-British prime minister Tony Blair visited Ottawa in 2001 to address Parliament, he thought the Churchill photo had been put up in his honour.
“Blair was astonished to learn that it wasn’t taken in Britain, that it was taken in Canada, right here in this very room,” Regan said. “He changed his speech so he could make mention of it.”