Hey Abbott

Australia and Canada have a lot in common. British heritage, similarly sized lands and population. A peaceful nature save for what we did to our native peoples. But then there are distinct differences. They’re a long way from the rest of the English-speaking world, while we’re pressed up against the U.S. We have Quebec, and they don’t. Our climates are at different ends of the spectrum.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott might seem to be one of them. Australia’s conservative leader is an anti-intellectual populist, in contrast with ours, who’s an emotionless political strategist. But if you're thinking Abbott couldn't get elected here, I have a name for you: Rob Ford.

And like Torontonians, Australians seem to be waking up to the fact that their elected leader is not an entertainer or a statement against traditional politics, he is the actual guy in charge for the foreseeable future. One of the big stories in international politics is a leadership challenge against Abbott by his own party. I’m not sure what is up with Australian politics, since their previous government featured two Prime Ministers being overthrown by their own party. Suddenly it’s hard to blame Stephen Harper for his controlling manner.

Stories about the (eventually unsuccessful) challenge featured a quick rundown of unpopular things he’s done that have lead to poor polling and unrest in his own party. What’s stood out to me is that the final straw was his decision to give a knighthood to Prince Philip. First of all, yes, apparently Australia has its own knighthoods; I didn’t know that either. They're the highest level of the Order of Australia, which is similar to our own Order of Canada.

I really can’t imagine that happening here. If the Prime Minister decided to bestow an Order of Canada or something on a Royal, I doubt there’d be much complaining. Sure, sarcastic intellectuals would make fun of it - I know I’d write a post on it. But I’m sure most people would applaud it. Particularly conservative Canadians, so it definitely wouldn’t lead to trouble for the Prime Minister from his own supporters.

But apparently Australians saw the silliness in giving an honour to a guy who already has all the honours, occupies a ceremonial position, doesn’t really do anything, and is essentially a walking meaningless honour himself. It’s hard to believe that we can be so different despite our similar circumstances. It also makes me think I’m in the wrong sparsely-populated former British colony.

God Save The Queen For Something A Little More Appropriate

I've mentioned before that if it was up to me, Canada would dump the monarchy. I've also subsequently mentioned before that I realise I'm out-voted on the issue, so I won't waste my time flogging that dead horse. However, I think I can make this complaint anyway, if only on a technicality:

Recently, a monarchist group proposed to name a small park in my neighbourhood in honour of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond jubilee.  There are several layers of oddness about this.  First is their need to commemorate a non-event.  They aren't naming the park after her, on the occasion of her jubilee, they are naming it after her jubilee.  The jubilee isn't really an event in itself, it's an anniversary.

And this isn't even the first thing they've named after a jubilee.  A local stretch of road is now known as "Jubilee Drive" in honour of her Golden (50th) Jubilee.  A her reign gets to longer and ever more impressive anniversaries, there are going to be more and more times to commemorate, and they're going to run out of things to name after Jubilees.  Which brings me to the most questionable part...

The park in question is pretty small, and it is dominated by a memorial the firefighters who have died in the line of duty, along with a monument in memory of 9/11.  Naming the park after the queen's jubilee is not necessarily disrespectful, but unless you have a pressing need to find something to name, then the classy thing would be to leave the park to the people honoured by it.

This has me asking, what's up with these people?  They're so desperate to name things after symbolic events in the queen's life that they're muscling-in on deceased firefighters.  I'm glad to see that the whole idea was dropped when the local firefighters' union did not get on board with it.  But merely proposing it is a huge misjudgement in how the monarchy fits into modern society.  And that's the technicality I mentioned: fine, you can have the monarchy as a symbol if you want to (even if it's not the symbol I would have chosen) but it is just a symbol, and has to take a back seat to serious issues.  The royals themselves seem to understand that they need to take a back seat to those who make real sacrifices, it's time Canadians figured that out too.

Our Monarchy's Better If We Kept Together

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.