OTTAWA — When King Charles III delivers the Throne Speech in the Senate tomorrow, he’ll do it from the throne Phil White designed.
“A lot of things are going through my mind,” White said from the basement workshop of his Ottawa home. “‘Will he like it?’ ‘Will he be comparing it to what he sits on at Buckingham Palace?’ I don’t know,” White said, ending the thought with a few chuckles.
Whited retired after 15 years as Canada’s Dominion Sculptor – Parliament’s official carver and supervisor of new carvings, a role created in 1936. Since then, six people have had the job.
When Centre Block closed for renovations, and the Senate Chamber — along with its thrones — were sent for renovations, White was asked to come up with sketches for new thrones, which will be used in the King’s speech on Tuesday in the temporary new Senate Chamber in the Old Ottawa train station. White also designed the one Queen Camilla will sit on.
Towards the end of 2016, he was given mere months to come up with a new design.
“They picked one, it went to the Speaker for approval, which was like a day and a half,” he said. “(It was) lightning fast.”
The new thrones are made of Canadian black walnut and donated English walnut from a forest behind Windsor Castle.
Although he won’t get to meet the King tomorrow, he did meet Queen Elizabeth II in 2010.
He still remembers feeling the nerves as their meeting got closer during the unveiling of a carving he created.
“I was sort of standing with my hand on my arm and my hand on my sleeve.”
It was a pose his wife asked him about when he got home.
“She was watching the whole thing and she said, ‘why are you grabbing your sleeve all the time?’ I said because I was nervous and my hands were sweating … and I didn’t want to shake (the Queen’s hand) with a wet hand.”
Fifteen years later, another monarch will experience one of his creations — a privilege, he acknowledges, to have had the chance to preserve the stories of this country as Dominion Sculptor, stories that will be preserved in and around Parliament.
“(As Dominion Sculptor) you’re representing Canada, to not only Canadians, but to the world,” he said. “I mean – it’s like a million people that come through that every year. And they’re from everywhere ... that’s your opportunity to show them what Canada’s about.”
