A news story from the Telegraph in Britain suggested on Monday that Canada's leading monarchist organization wants to relocate Prince Harry to Ottawa and install him as "king of Canada" -a notion the chairman of the Monarchist League calls "absurd."
"It's not practical, it's not doable and it's not desirable, frankly," says Robert Finch. "I've worked so hard to build up relationships with the palace and Clarence House. They're going to look at this and think, 'What the heck is going on over there?' It makes us look like whackos and that's not who we are."
Quoting a Quebec spokesperson for the league, the Telegraph story suggested Canadian monarchists want Prince William to rotate residence every six months between London and realm countries such as Canada and Australia, or that they want to see various members of the Royal Family doled out like collector's items among Commonwealth countries.
"It's just completely fraught with impracticalities and things most people don't want or care about," Finch says. "Nobody asked the question, 'Hey, Harry, do you want to come to Canada?' Why is anybody going to up and move across the world to live their life?"
He blames an international game of broken telephone for the bizarre story. A league spokesman gave an interview to a French reporter who broached the idea of a different king or queen and the member mentioned fringe ideas that have been floated by a very few people, Finch says, but the British report ran with it as the mainstream view in Canada.
"I think it's the silliest thing people can talk about," Finch says. "That is a discussion that's left for a few -and I mean a very few -academics."
I think someone was watching South Park and thought it was a documentary.
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Turn up the good, turn down the suck!
Canada already has an elected head of state in practice. Everything above the PM is nothing more than a quaint tradition; a relic from a time long since passed.
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Why we already have King Harper 1
Quebec has King Layton
We don't need any more Kings
In other "requests" can we get the ball rolling on Jarome Iginla International Airport????
PLEASE?
This is an country that was created by our English forefathers (excluding Qubec) and should remain so. Its one of the few ties to our past and a great tradition to have.
I bet in 200 years people will wish we'd left the Monarchy alone, because we'll have Hu Jintao on our money then.
You've got to protect your heritage to some degree, I think. This country would not exist as we know it were it not for the efforts of our British and French forefathers, and to deny that simply because it was a long time ago and adds $2 to our taxes each year is short-sighted and disrespectful, IMO.
You've got to protect your heritage to some degree, I think. This country would not exist as we know it were it not for the efforts of our British and French forefathers, and to deny that simply because it was a long time ago and adds $2 to our taxes each year is short-sighted and disrespectful, IMO.
Was it short-sighted and disrespectful for Paul Revere, who warned, uh, the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free?
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So were they. In fact, Paul Revere never said "The British are coming!", partly because the American revolutionaries considered themselves British also.
Accepting that the monarchy is an irrelevancy in modern Canada is not the same as forgetting that it was relevant in the past. There is nothing disrespectful about that at all.
Long live the King... of Canada
