Posted by Ian McKechnie on October 28, 2009, 8:27 am, in reply to "Re: Do Canadians Really Dislike The Heir This Much?"
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The Queen is, of course, in good health and it is unlikely that the current reign will come to to a close in the next couple of years. Still, Canadians seem to dwell on the negative nature of the monarchy and I understand this cynicism to fall into two categories:
1) The issue of independence: Canadians have got it into their heads that sharing a Sovereign and Royal Family with other countries is somehow a barrier to "true independence." The most recent edition of the Canadian Monarchist News reports the following, which seems to rebuke this:
"A “liberal and left-leaning” High Court justice in Australia, he tells us, prefers a head of state who “could transcend national boundaries” rather than one who “catered to ‘narrow nationalism’”, and fears that “a president would be less restrained in his or her use of the reserve power than a governor-general, and that a presidency would invite a more expensive, pompous and vulgar use of symbols and ceremony”
(p. 218)."
Exactly. A transnational monarch has more symbolic relevance to a transnational society. As one CBC poster says, "As time goes on, these old monarchists will continue to dwindle until we are left with people with pure, un-divided canadian hearts and souls." This sort of bigotry is troubling.
2) The issue of cost: Canadians seem to think they pay for each vacuum cleaner at Sandringham, when I have always gathered we only pay for the monarchy in its Canadian context. Again, the CBC posters make an issue out of this: "Canada is like a child who refuses to let go of her mother's skirttail and leave the house because she fears standing alone and the shadow of the bogey man outside the door. The monarchy is archaic, cost us $50 mil a year (which doesn't include what it'll cost us to replace our money when Liz kicks the can), and let's not forget our head of state lives in a foreign country."
It was recently announced, too, that a new federal Liberal staff member is Mr. Peter Donolo, one of Canada's most powerful republicans. Republicans are like earthquakes; some are small and only shift the system a little bit, while others do everything possible to make their presence known and cause unecessary social and political division as they subduct the monarchy under that tectonic plate called false, bigoted nationalism. I agree, flamboyant republicanism is drawing near. 
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