The argument was that displaying the portraits was no longer appropriate once B.C. Ferries was divorced from government in 2003, but that explanation failed to mollify traditionalists (as well as those who point out that taxpayer-owned B.C. Ferries is about as private as Britney Spears’ personal life). The Monarchist League of Canada detected republicanism by stealth. The corporation’s phones rang off the hook.

“We have had strong public response today,” said company spokeswoman Deborah Marshall late Tuesday. So, in a display of flexibility rarely seen in such a monolithic enterprise, an executive decision was made to not only restore the portraits to the refurbished vessels, but to place them on new ferries, too.

Excellent. Good for them. The country’s involved in a war in Afghanistan that’s threatening to bring down the government, the national budget is in crisis and is also threatening to bring down the government, and people are worried about twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one is to be used as evidence for the continued existence of the monarchy in Canada.