The fragile fabric of Confederation has been torn — and not by politicians.

A massive century-old oil painting called The Fathers of Confederation hanging over the grand staircase at Queen’s Park was ripped when a work crew tearing down scaffolding from a paint job banged a sharp edge into the canvas.

Unless you’d rather believe that one of the fathers — Edward Whelan of Prince Edward Island — suddenly sprung to life and kicked a hole two or three fingers wide.

Read more:Do restorations always improve aging or damaged works of art?

The oblong tear is just off the toe of Whelan’s boot in the lower left corner of the 6-by-3.5-metre piece unveiled by artist Fredrick S. Challener in 1919 after two years of work.

“It’s just a shame,” said Alicia Coutts of Toronto Art Restoration Inc., who was travelling in Germany on holiday when she got a query from the Archives of Ontario about doing repairs.

Reached by the Star in Bremen, Coutts could not estimate how much the project could cost until she returns to Canada in two weeks.

“Art conservation is expensive. It has to be perfect. It has to last forever,” she said Wednesday.

Forever has proven tough for the painting, which depicts the Quebec Conference of 1864 and features such historic notables as John A. Macdonald, later Canada’s first prime minister, and George Brown, founder of the Globe and Mail.

The damaged piece is a carefully crafted copy of the original by famous portrait artist Robert Harris, who was commissioned to paint it by the Canadian government in 1883 and 1884.

But, tragically, it burned in the 1916 fire that destroyed Parliament in Ottawa. Challener worked from Harris’s preparatory drawings to complete the copy viewed by thousands of tourists a year on tours of the Legislature.

The painting — which hangs two storeys up and is located across the hall from the Legislative chamber where MPPs meet — will have to come down for the repair, said Coutts, whose firm handled “at least” two dozen punctures from clients last year.

“It’s a pretty involved process. I just don’t know how involved yet.”

The accident occurred Monday night with a crew from a private company that has done work in the building before without incident, a Legislature official said.

“It’s unfortunate,” Jelena Bajcetic said, noting that a decision on who pays the bill will be worked out between the company and the Archives of Ontario.

The Ministry of Government and Consumer Services said the painting will be sent offsite for the repair work at a cost yet to be determined.

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“We will ensure that the necessary restoration is completed so that the painting can be returned as soon as possible,” said a spokeswoman, Anne-Marie Flanagan.

Looking at the damage, it’s hard to tell if there’s a flap of torn canvas hanging behind the painting that could be salvaged as part of the repair.

Typically, paintings get damaged in transit when protective boxes are impaled or when they’re left leaning against chairs and other objects, leaving them susceptible to accidents, Coutts said.

The history behind Challener’s copy dates to 17 days in October 1864, when delegates from what are now Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. gathered in Quebec City.

It was a follow-up meeting to one the previous month in Charlottetown, P.E.I., on a union of the provinces in British North America — an idea to which the Maritime provinces were receptive.

The men who later became known as the fathers of Confederation talked about the structure of government, including representation by population or rep by pop, a Senate based on regional equality, preserving ties with Great Britain and the appointment of a governor general by the Crown across the Atlantic.

A total of 72 resolutions emerged from the Quebec meeting and they became the basis of a constitution, according to the Legislature’s notes describing the painting.

The “Quebec Resolutions” were presented to the British government at a conference in London in 1866 and became key parts of the British North America Act passed by the British Parliament in March of 1867.

That set the stage for Canada’s birth less than four months later on July 1.

The painting is one of about 2,700 in the Archives of Ontario collection, which includes portraits of premiers and other pieces of art adorning the walls of the Legislature and other government buildings.

Correction –August 24, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that misstated the year of the London Conference.