Who will we put on our money?
Leave it to the youngsters to have terrible ideas.
When it was discovered that the Young Liberals declared its resolution to end the monarchy in Canada as a priority at the Biennial Convention in Ottawa this week, many people were shocked and upset. Coming shortly before a resolution to legalize pot, it was obvious what was really going on at the Young Liberals policy meeting when they thought to put forward such a radical resolution.
While some smugly noted how amusing it is that the Liberals would even consider debating the monarchy, an institution far more popular among Canadians than the party itself according to some polls, most did not bother to tackle the real concerns surrounding the abolition of the monarchy in Canada. Concerns as wide ranging as “who else could we pay for a totally symbolic service?” and “who will we put on our money?”
And frankly, when such hard-hitting and insightful questions are asked, most people realize that we could never abolish the monarchy. It would just leave us with too many problems, everything from trying to sell now-meaningless Will and Kate china on eBay to the imposition of even more democracy on our country. One election every four years is inconvenient enough for me, thank you very much.
Along with that, it would probably seriously hurt the Queen’s feelings. She seems like such a nice old lady, the shock of Canada telling her to go back to her giant palace in Britain might cause her serious distress, and if I learned anything from talking with my racist grandmother, it’s that the best thing to do is not distress the elderly regardless of how wrong we might think they are. It’s best to just be nice to them, ignore their shortcomings, and make them comfortable for the little time they have remaining.
Of course, the most distressing thing about even talking about abolishing the monarchy is that it forces us to consider a Canada without a monarchy. Such a nightmare scenario would see us voting for the person who is supposed to represent us on a world stage. What if we got it wrong? What if we voted for someone like Stephen Harper to represent us to the world, someone so patently obtuse on matters of women’s rights and climate change? At least with someone like the Queen, it’s difficult to see what she thinks about anything aside from quail hunting (loves) and Princess Diana (hates).
So before the Young Liberals try to shove their crazy scheme to end the monarchy down Canada’s throat, they should consider the implications that such a proposal entails. It’s not simply a resolution that would provide us with the right to choose our own head of state that we could hold accountable for its actions. It is a massive headache that would require us to figure out which former Prime Ministers belongs on our coins – if it came down to it, I’d wager Tupper, Turner, Clark, Campbell, and Bowell would make a nice set – and that would make the uniquely Canadian activity of building shrines in their studies to a foreign woman seem just weird and vaguely creepy. Even considering removing the monarchy ad the Young Liberals suggest is a step in the wrong direction.
It’s best to just not think about the implications of the monarchy at all.
Edward Dodd
Op-Ed Editor
WTF? Shitty article, dude…