The King and I

Jeff Green | May 28, 2025

With all respect to the majority of those reading this article, people who who support the role of the monarchy in Canada, bringing in King Charles to deliver the throne speech this week leaves me cold.

It does not seem to me to be a good way to demonstrate strength in the face of some of the statements made by the US President over the last six months, about Canada being a prime candidate to join the United States.

Having the ceremonial King of another country read a “throne speech” encompassing our new government’s agenda is a funny way to demonstrate sovereignty, in my view.

Predictably, the Bloc Quebecois, still smarting from the battle of the plains of Abraham and two lost referenda, will boycott the proceedings. This also goes against the goal of demonstrating Canadian unity in the face of the American
threat.

The strategy of inviting the King of England (and by extension, Canada as well) to read a speech in person that would otherwise have been read in his name by Mary Simon, is certainly questionable.

The fact that Mary Simon is a respected Indigenous leader who is from Canada, and has roots in this country that run deeper than either of the sides who fought in the battle of the Plains of Abraham back in 1759, makes bringing the King of England ironic at best, insulting at worst.

There are millions of Canadians who trace their origins to neither the United Kingdom nor France. This is a large swath of the Canadian population, about 55%. A small, and growing, majority of Canadians have ancestors who came to Canada after 1867 from all corners of the world, in wave after wave of immigration.

My own family arrived early in the 19th Century from Eastern Europe.

I am part of the 3rd generation of our families that were born in Canada, and on her fathers side my wife is of the second. Our families have struggled, failed and succeeded in equal measure along the way as has the country, and I feel that we are fully of this country. Just like families who have been here for longer and shorter periods of time, we have worked and paid taxes, and built the country to what it is now, as much as anyone else. We are also as responsible for its failures, as much as anyone else.

With all due respect to King Charles, and Queen Camilla, it is difficult, no it is impossible, for me to relate to him as my head of state.

I do not spend time advocating against the role of the monarchy in Canada, since it is not really a battle that is worth fighting. And the people who like the monarchy seem to really like it.

But the misguided plan to bring an ailing King across the ocean for 24 hours, just to respond to some foolishness coming from the imperial power to the south, is certainly triggering for those of us who see the monarchy as a vestige of our subjugation
to a former imperial power.

Why can we not grow up and assert our own sovereignty as an independent country?