CHARLES III COMES TO CANADA

Something will happen today that doesn’t happen very often, if at all.

Parliament re-opens today, or at least that part of it known as the House of Commons, and all the recently elected MPs, or Members of Parliament, will take their seats and ready themselves for the Throne Speech, or Speech From the Throne, an event that officially opens any new session of Parliament.

The Throne Speech is usually a task undertaken by the Governor-General, in this case the Right Honourable Mary Simon, on behalf of the sitting monarch.

But today, Governor-General Simon will yield that privilege to the monarch himself, in this case King Charles III, King of England and Great Britain, and also King of Canada.

To my knowledge, a reigning monarch has read the Throne Speech twice in our nation’s history, with Charles’ mother Elizabeth II having done so both times, once shortly after taking the throne, and the second in 1977.

So why now?

Charles has been to Canada many times in his life, back when he was the Prince of Wales and heir to the throne.  But with the passing of his mother, he became King, and so now trips to far-flung dominions like Canada take on added significance.  And no time ranks as perhaps more significant than the current political and economic crisis foisted upon us by a lunatic elected president by a population that’s lost their collective minds.

King Charles is in Canada as Head of State.  He will be featured on American television news.  And the whole thing will absolutely come to the attention of Donald Trump, who appears to have one, yet significant weakness worth noting, that being that the man, for some reason, is gaga when it comes to the British Royal Family.

Charles has come at the behest of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who enjoyed a previous familiarity with the King and other royals while he was tending to his duties as a Canadian in charge of the Bank of England.  Especially during the Brexit Crisis where the British decided to shoot themselves in the foot to satisfy a bunch of right-wing barking dogs who purposely conflated British involvement in the European Union with the so-called demise of British sovereignty over its own affairs.

The politics of this visit is clear.

Trump fawns over the Royal Family.  Charles is the King of Canada.  Trump muses about making Canada the fifty-first state and economically annexing us into the United States.  But to do so, musing or otherwise, puts Agent Orange in potential conflict with King Charles, since Charles is the official Head of the Canadian state.

So having the King read the throne speech is as much for Trump as it is for anyone, and arguable more so.  Because as a fanboy, Trump probably never realized Canada’s constitutional set-up, which is completely understandable, since he doesn’t have much of a working knowledge of his own nation’s constitution.  But if there’s one thing Trump respects, it’s royalty, possibly because it’s his ultimate dream to be royalty himself.  But that’s a birth thing, a heredity thing, and sadly for Trump, his parents don’t have the royal blood that he craves for himself.  Instead, they just passed along some deeply flawed chromosomes.

What makes this Royal Visit even more noteworthy is the fact that Charles has cancer, in that he’s fighting it right now.  And while he looks to be holding his own against such a formidable enemy, we can’t really say we know all the ins-and-outs of it.  So for he and his wife, Queen Camilla, to attend Canada at such a critical time says a lot about the man and the situation into which he’s stepping.  

Canadians have always had mixed views on the Royal Family’s connection to Canada, with many wanting to rid the nation of its royal connection, while others, more traditionalists, would prefer to see the Royals remain as Canada’s sovereign.  Those opposing opinions had been skewing towards the former group and away from the latter, that is until recently.

A recent poll has shown a dramatic up-tick in support of the Royal Family, and of the Sovereign remaining as Head of State, albeit the role is more ceremonial than anything else.  But in this case, the Royals are ceremonial in the sense that they’re not often required for the running of the country, and serve as figure-heads, not unlike the situation in Great Britain proper.  

Ceremonial or not, figure-head or not, and whether folks like it or not, the Royal Family is ceremonial until they’re not, and the King’s presence in Canada is more than just a ceremonial showing of the colours.  It’s a naked political statement by both the Royal Family and the Government of Canada, one directed south of the border.

It wouldn’t be the first time a British King came to the rescue of Canada versus predations coming from the United States.  The Americans attacked us during their revolution, they attacked us in 1812 and again in 1814, and threatened to attack us during their own Civil War.  The fifty-first state nonsense, and talk of annexation, is just the latest affront to us at the hands of our erstwhile friends and neighbours in America.

All I can say is something that I don’t believe I’ve ever said before.

Long live the King.

Of Canada.