I'm not a fan of maintaining the Monarchy in Canada. If it was up to me, you'd just as soon see a picture of Scott Thompson on your change as the Queen. But I realise that I'm in the minority here: most Canadians seem to love our British rulers and I can live with that. What bugs me is another issue that's been raised again now that Charles and Camilla are visiting Canada. People are being reminded that the future Charles the Third will one day be our King and they're not comfortable with it. Polls show many Canadians would rather dump the Monarchy than let him rule.
My first problem with that stance is that even though I don't like the Monarchy as an institution, I seem to have a higher opinion of the Royals themselves than most Canadians do. I'm not a particular fan of Charles, but I'm okay with him. My feelings on him are much the same as my opinion of Michael Jackson: strange as he may seem, he's about as normal as any human being could be given what he's grown up with. And I have to emphasise the “human being” part: for all Chuck's quirks at least he is human. People love the Queen, primarily because she doesn't really do anything other than visit places. Anyone that publicly visible for so long without offending anyone must be a machine. I'm still waiting for it to come up in a Dr. Who episode.
But more to the point, I have to ask how committed people really are to the Monarchy. You like the idea of hereditary leadership, as long as it produces a leader you like. Well, then you don't like the Monarchy: putting up with the odd George the Third or Ethelred the Unready is part of the deal. If you want to be led by a popularity contest winner with a super-human capacity for inoffensiveness, that's what democracy is for.
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