There’s a historical pageantry to it, and a solidness. At every stage of life, that resemblance has intensified.Ĭonstitutional monarchy renders us something bigger than ourselves, the commonweal of the Commonwealth. Who, by the way, turns 92 in June and is still in better shape than me. Maybe that started in public school, with the Queen’s portrait hanging over the classroom, and Elizabeth so strikingly looked like my mom. I, daughter of immigrants from a country with no connection to the British throne, am an ardent monarchist. As someone who has covered courts for decades, I like that criminal cases are referenced as Regina v. A few knaves have repeatedly tried to abolish the oath to the Queen through the courts, and failed. Others, even if they can trace their roots to the Auld Sod, view the institution as a pointless anachronism. Some, clinging to colonial resentments - here and elsewhere - are scathingly antithetical. But I suspect that, for many immigrants and their descendants, monarchy doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Ours is a resoundingly multicultural society and that’s a strength. Historians have catalogued the existence of about 4,200 slaves in Canada between 16, when slavery was abolished in the British Empire. Relations with Caribbean Commonwealth countries are fragile, with escalating demands for slavery reparations. Not happening.īarbados formally removed the Queen as head of state in November and turned itself into a republic. Any amendment relating to the Queen or her line of succession would require unanimous consent of Parliament and all 10 provincial legislatures. The Constitution Act - a landmark 1982 document - entrenched the monarchy within the Canadian system.
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But I take comfort in the incontrovertible fact that it’s a no-go. It was extremely dismaying that a recent Angus Reid poll found a majority of Canadians would ditch the Crown after QEII meets her maker, severing this country from constitutional monarchy. Really, God save the whole majestic kit ’n’ caboodle. If this remarkably enduring monarch wants to put her feet up, limit herself only to “light duties” and virtual audiences - though continuing to play the ponies as a keen connoisseur of horseflesh and bloodstock, everybody hoping she’ll be able to attend the Epsom Derby, which falls on Jubilee weekend - then God bless.Īnd God save the Queen. Increasingly she’s delegated royal calendar events to other senior members of The Firm. In February, she tested positive for COVID. Last October, she spent a rare night in hospital following unspecified tests. But the ravages of aging have slowed the Queen down. The Queen Mother, after all, lived to 101. It should probably come as no surprise that this June the Queen will celebrate her Platinum Jubilee - 70 years on the throne, an almost unfathomable milestone. She’s never much liked stuffy, drafty Buckingham Palace. But she’s actually mostly been staying at Wood Farm, a “modest” cottage on her Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, which her late husband, Prince Philip, made his retirement base after retiring from public life in 2017. The Palace released a lovely photograph of the smiling nonagenarian holding the reins of her two fell ponies, Bybeck Nightingale and Bybeck Katie at Windsor Castle. Queen Elizabeth II quietly observed her 96th birthday on Thursday - the real one, not the official one, which is held in June, primarily for weather reasons, and marked by Trooping the Colour. The extravaganza was a smashing success, my favourite memory the London Philharmonic’s choir belting out “Land of Hope and Glory” on a listing barge in the Thames, in the pouring rain, drenched hair plastered to their faces. Neither a decade later, in 2012, was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The Sovereign was worried that the Jubilee would be a flop. Majesty does have its privileges, including putting upstarts in their place, ever so dryly.
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When Prime Minister Tony Blair was discussing the upcoming Golden Jubilee with the Queen, she gently corrected him: “ MY Golden Jubilee.Īnd when it was suggested to the Queen that, for the Jubilee’s centrepiece weekend, she should take a ride on the new London Eye, she demurred: “I am not a tourist.’’