I’m a monarchist if I can be bothered, otherwise yawn whatever. I agree with the whole separation of Head of Government and Head of State; the amount of adulation given the Office of the president of the USA is worrisome. It’s cleaner to separate the politician from the symbolism.
I’ll note that the Queen acts in her Canadian parliamentary duties as the Queen of Canada, not the Queen of the UK. The offices of the Crowns of the different Commonwealth Realms are theoretically separate, even though they are held by the same person. When the Queen presided over the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway. she did so as the Queen of Canada.
Canada has been slowly ‘Canadianizing’ various symbolic things. A lot of this happened during and after the 1960s, with things like the change from Royal Mail to Canada Post, and from Dominion Day to Canada Day. There is now a Canadian style of heraldry, for example. We are slowly combining our settler and immigrant roots with our native roots, and coming up with something new.
If we are to maintain the monarchy in Canada, I say we should Canadianize it all the way. The Globe and Mail suggested having the members of the Order of Canada elect the Governeor General as a formal Head of State, severing the last connection to the UK. That’s a thought. But we could go further: we start off with a Duke of Toronto and a comté de Montréal and a 一等伯 of Vancouver and a Grand Chief of Manitoba! Out of all the names and titles from all the nations that have contributed to Canada, let something unique emerge, something born in this land.
Are you forgetting the Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal? From Wikipedia:
If we do get a Duke of Toronto though, I’d like to submit an application for, oh, say, Duke of Southern Alberta. Nice addition to the resume and all that; and of course, I will rule fairly and reasonably.
While I remember, at least four British Colonies/Dependencies/Dominions still have the Union Jack on their flag- New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, and Tuvalu. The list gets longer when you start including all the States of Australia (but not the ACT or Northern Territory), the Canadian provinces that still use it (Three of them including British Colombia, IIRC), the various remaining British [del]Colonies[/del] Overseas Territories, the Cook Islands, and several other places (right down to city level) in what was once the British Empire that have incorporated the Union Jack into their flag somewhere.
I should mention that I was referring to former British Colonies/Dependencies etc when mentioning Australia/NZ et al… Another excellent reason not to be trying to do three things at once when you want to appear knowledgeable about something.
I prefer having the royals to having a president. Which makes me an Australian monarchist, I suppose. For similar reasons to those already mentioned in this thread.
I don’t really care either way, but I can’t see any real change if we did go republican so why bother?
The one thing I wanted to mention with regards to the flag, is any time a change is mentioned, you will invariably get a massive hue and cry from the RSL (returned serviceman’s league). Who take a stance of “This is the flag our diggers fought and died under so it can’t be changed”
Yep, we get along fine without a president, and our governors and governors general seem to be more than adequate for cutting ribbons, visiting disaster areas, and sacking the occasional Prime Minister. We have to re-tool Lizzy Windsor’s head on the coins every 20 years or so. If we had presidents there would be a lot more coin work for the mint to do, which would have to cost us.
We’d have to retool the coinage, true, but we’d probably do what other western democracies do and use famous dead people for the “heads” side, not living people.
And while new coins do have the aged Lizzie, coins from the 60s/70s are still very common and still legal. I just checked my pocket change and found a 1966 5c and a 1968 20c.
No. There was only a brief period ( a couple of months, I believe) where both coinages were in circulation. I think the Brits kept their pre-decimal coinage in circulation a lot longer, years for some coins.
After they were withdrawn from circulation, you could exchange old for new at banks: not sure if that’s still possible, it’s been 45 years since decimalisation and pre-dec coins are worth more than face value to collectors now. Not a lot more, in general, but enough so that you’d sell to coin shops rather than exchange at the bank.
Hmmm, pre-dec notes (and possibly coins too) arestill legal tender and can be exchanged at the RBA.
All banks will exchange the old paper decimal notes for newer polymer ones, I believe. The paper notes are still accepted as currency, but they’re very rare.
Aus copper coins (1c & 2c) were withdrawn in 1992 but can still be exchanged, though they’re worth slightly more as copper scrap. I believe it’s technically illegal to sell them for scrap, though.
I tried to sell a paper $5 note for more than $5 once, but failed. I still have it, somewhere, I think. I have plenty of 1c and 2c coins.
I’ve never heard a really good argument against constitutional monarchy on the Commonwealth model. The monarch simply can’t do anything harmful, and the attempt would end the monarchy. So why would anyone even care?
