Certainly it’s possible. The argument is that in Canada’s case it is fraught with major difficulties and therefore unlikely for the foreseeable future. The game isn’t worth the candle.
I’ve heard old CBC interviews with people from the mid 1960s. It was amazing how many of those people were truly upset with the idea of replacing the Red Ensign with something that didn’t directly harken back to the UK.
I’ll swap you the Leafs winning the Cup again for the space elevator, but otherwise, amen, brother! 
Having lived in Canada for over a decade, there was absolutely nothing in my daily life that would have been any different, whether or not there was a royal presence watching over me.
There was such a thing as a “crown corporation”, like the CBC or Air Canada, which operated in competition with the private sector, and might have been preserved or supported to a greater extent because of the inertia of the crown, more so than if they were simply called “national services too important to be left to the whims of the profit motive”.
The crown is considered to be more durable and inviolable, in preserving a status quo. If the government or the people wanted to abolish or alter something (like the CBC or Air Canada), having to answer to The Crown was a bit more formidable. Crown corporations typically operate under a mandate to provide service to every Canadian, regardless of whether doing so would be profitable, which I guess is not a bad thing.
It’s often forgotten that those Georges were also monarchs of Hanover. So they were German in the very real sense of being monarchs of a German region.
The relationship between Britain and Hanover in the 18th century is analogous to that between England and Scotland in the 17th. The difference in succession laws with regard to women, which separated the crowns again, is one of those quirks that substantially changed history. Imagine the Queen Victoria and the British-Hanoverian Empire with substantial holdings in Europe!
Not necessarily. I don’t think you can say there is a single path for the development of individual Commonwealth countries. Each one has unique factors in their histories, that influenced their attitude to the monarchy.
One point is whether a Commonwealth country has found it difficult to establish its independence from Britain. The harder the fight for independence, the less likely the country would want to keep the Crown, which could be seen as a symbol of colonialism. Countries like Pakistan, India, Ireland, Kenya and Uganda demonstrate that point. All of them had hard fights for independence, and went for a republican model as quickly as they could. Countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand had fairly easy paths to independence, without any battles, and thus didn’t see the Crown and the British connection as a bad thing (with regional exceptions like Quebec, of course).
Another big difference is whether a country was largely a settlement colony, with British folk largely supplanting the indigenous population, or a resource extraction colony, where a small number of Britishers governed a largely indigenous population. Settlement colonies are more likely to have kept the monarchy because it was not seen as “foreign” by most of the inhabitants at the crucial stage of moving from colony to independence, while resource colonies would be more likely to see the Crown as clearly foreign. Again, India, Pakistan, Ireland, Kenya and Uganda fit this trend, while Canada, Australia and New Zealand had a strong ethnic connection to Britain.
(I’ve not discussed the Caribbean countries, which have several Commonwealth realms, because I’m not that familiar with their histories, but my impression is that they had a relatively easy path to independence, because the resource countries of India and Africa did most of the heavy lifting to establish the de-colonization process.)
As others have said, the royalty has very little impact on the day-to-day life of Canadians, unless you live and/or work in Ottawa and the royals happens to be visiting, then traffic is a bitch.
I’ve always thought that the monarch is (at least theoretically) the last bastion of reason if Parliament runs off its rails.
Princhester’s law: as an online discussion that has anything even tangentially to do with the English Queen grows longer, the probability of it gradually turning into a discussion between the-history-of-the-European-monarchy minutiae-nerds approaches 1.
Oh, sure. The first question is always going to be whether the country wants to be a republic rather than a monarchy. If there’s an appetite for becoming a republic, then there are plenty of precedents as to how it might be done. I accept that in the case of a federal country like Canada there would be further complications, but if the Canadians want a republic, I don’t think those complications would stand in the way of their getting it.
(FWIW, although as an Australian I favour an Australian republic and as an Irishman I come from a long line of republican soldiers, I can see why the Canadians would value the monarchy and wish to retain it. Personally, I wouldn’t expect a Canadian republic any time soon. But if Canadian sentiment on this issue were to change, I don’t the the constititution would be an insurmountable barrier.)
As of 2013, Canada has a population of + 35,000,000 people.
Fewer than 75,000 Canadians could block a constitutional amendment to abolish the monarchy.
Prince Edward Island’s consent would be needed under the unanimity requirement.
PEI has a population of ~ 145,000 people. If over half of PEI’s population voted against abolition of the Crown, the constitutional amendment would be defeated, even if there were large majorities in favour of abolition in all of the other nine provinces.
And are the residents of PEI notably royalist in sentiment?
None of whom were white majority and only one was white ruled.
Was’nt the opposition to the change more from veterans groups and the like? Peoples who had emotional link to the old flag, having fought under it?
Was Britain ruled by Hanoverian kings? Or was Hanover ruled by British kings? I think on the whole, it was mostly the latter.
It’s surprising how rarely you see the same point being made about the Plantagenets. They were certainly at least as French as the Hanoverians were German. And most of the Plantagenets regarded themselves as being primarily French.
Apart from Ireland, of course.
OK, Ireland severed its links with the British monarchy in 1948, a few years before the present Queen acceded, so it’s not technically in a list of countries that she used to be Queen of, but no longer is. But it would be in any list of Commonwealth realms that are now republics.
It is of course true to say that, by and large, what in less politically correct days were known as the “white dominions” have not become republics, whereas the bulk of the “dominions other than white dominions” have. But so what? The question I have been addressing is not whether Canada (or any other realm) should become a republic; it’s whether a realm can become a republic. My point is that there are abundant precedents showing that it can be, and often has been, done. I don’t see that the precedents become invalid or irrelevant because then mostly relate to countries which are not white-majority countries. Do white-majority countries have limited capacity for political evolution?
This article claims that New Zealand is better off precisely because “Monarchs are more effective than presidents precisely because they lack any semblance of legitimacy”.
George I and II were definitely German, culturally speaking. Both were born and raised in Germany. Both married German wives. For George II, English was not even his second language, but his third. He chose to make his military career in the Hanoverian forces, not the British, and did not make his residence in England until the age of 31. He had only been an English resident for about ten years when he became king, and throughout his life he made regular extended visits to Hanover.
George III is probably best thought of as bi-national. He was the first Hanoverian king to have been born in England, but both his parents were German. He was raised in England, but surrounded by German courtiers and household staff. He regarded both German and English as native languages. He always insisted on his Britishness - perhaps a little too volubly, indicating that his predecessors were widely regarded (and perhaps resented) as German, and he wanted to make the point that he was not like them.
George IV, William IV and Victoria, were culturally English much more than German.
They are one of the more socially conservative provinces, and do not have a large immigrant population. In fact Wikipedia summarises as follows:
In any event, the point I was making is that under our Constitution, relatively small numbers of people can block constitutional amendments. Millions of Canadians could vote in favour of a constitutional amendment, but less than 100,000 could defeat it. That is the political reality that our politicians face when considering a constitutional amendment.
Celts, eh? Should have no problem, so!
Fair enough. Point taken.