An Ontario Liberal MP spent Saturday debuting her family’s unique coat of arms in Ottawa, merging together her and her husband’s backgrounds and shared histories serving the Canadian public.
Giovanna Mingarelli publicly unveiled the coat of arms at the Royal Heraldry Symposium’s 60th anniversary at the Chateau Laurier on Oct. 31, with the design submitted to the Chancellery of Honours at Rideau Hall.
In a speech at the event, she said it blended her Italian family’s background with that of her Korean-Canadian husband Brandon Lee, a director general at Global Affairs who previously served as a consul general for Canada in the U.S.
“Because when Brandon and I began thinking about what our coat of arms should represent over the last 16 years, we realized that heritage is not simply something we inherit. It is something we are entrusted with,” she explained.
The coat features a Joseon dragon, a peony and a lotus, all of which have a distinct meaning for the couple.
Mingarelli said the Joseon dragon “evokes the royal court, dignity, authority and history,” while the the peony “carries associations with nobility, beauty and prosperity.” The lotus has a place in Korean that can “represent transformation, compassion and the ability to rise above difficult circumstances,” she said.
Mingarelli is a first term MP that represents the Prescott– Russell–Cumberland riding in the National Capital Region. She’s the first woman to represent the riding.
She said the coat of arms can “contain centuries of history in a single image,” and for hers, it “brings together Italy, Korea and Canada.”
That includes bringing together “European heraldic tradition and Korean symbolism… [and] Franciscan and Buddhist influences,” Mingarelli explained.
