The mainstream press in Canada (especially its more gossipy forums) have made much of this weekend’s marriage of Peter Phillips, Queen Elizabeth’s eldest grandson and Autumn Kelly, a Canadian girl from a working-class Montreal family. On some level, of course, the wedding had all the elements of your traditional magical fairy tale romance—colonial girl of [...]
Another eccentric oddball republican has stumbled into the media spotlight this week, and with him comes more bad press for Canada’s legitimate republicans.
I distinguish between the “legitimate” and “illegitimate” on the following basis. The legitimate republican is one who seeks to get rid of the Queen because he understands constitutional monarchy to be a poor [...]
Is Prince Charles planning to boycott the Chinese Olympics?
That’s been the big media story this week, but the precise details of the episode remain unclear. Here’s what we know.
On January 28, the Daily Telegraph, one of Britain’s leading newspapers, published a lead story with the headline “Prince Charles’ Olympic-sized snub to China.” The article began [...]
Good PR cannot save a bad idea, but bad PR can very easily cripple a good one. Canada’s republican movement is, as I have previously noted, a minor movement on an obscure issue. It’s thus vital that in this early stage of the game Canadian republicans are able to present themselves, and their cause, as [...]
In the aftermath of the tragic murder of Benazir Bhutto, I, like no doubt countless others, have been spending considerable time trying to learn more about Pakistan, and how exactly the country has fallen to its present desperate lows. Of course, the more you read about Pakistan the more you realize it hasn’t really “fallen” [...]
One of the reasons why I like republicanism is because I like being part of a polarized debate. You can call the issue esoteric or irrelevant, but there’s no denying that a great many people do consider this monarchy-versus-republic business to be serious stuff; a quick glimpse at some of my recent “comments” should make [...]
Rideau Hall announced a slew of new appointments to the Order of Canada yesterday, and, depressingly, the media once again took the opportunity to spread misinformation about how the candidates were chosen.
Since 1957, it has been customary for Her Majesty the Queen to give an annual, televised Christmas greeting. This year marked the 50th anniversary of the tradition, and, more importantly, it was also the first time her message was posted on YouTube.
And it was nice. I’m not contrarian to the point where I would deny that. One thing [...]
Queen Elizabeth II formally became the oldest person to ever serve as monarch of the United Kingdom today. Until now, Queen Victoria held the record at 81 years and 243 days, but the present Queen is now officially one day older.
All commemorations of the Queen’s achievement beg an uncomfortable, underlying question. How much longer until she [...]
I’ve often fought with monarchist editors on Wikipedia over the accuracy of certain statements regarding the political role of the crown in Canada. They (or more specifically, he, since it tends to largely just be a single overzealous person) insist that every mention of a political appointment in Canada be phrased something like this:
So-and-so was [...]
