Time to start thinking about Post Elizabethan Canada

by Tony Wilson

My only real-life experience with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 2nd was during her 1971 tour to mark B.C.’s 100th year in Confederation. I was a drummer with the Lansdowne Junior High School Band in Victoria, which was royally tasked with playing some music for the Queen near the Provincial Museum. As she strolled by, a gust of wind came out of nowhere, and my sheet music lofted above fellow drummer Iain Benson (of the B.C. Bar), toward trombonist Dave Reid (also of the B.C. Bar), past French Horn player Terry King (also of the B.C. Bar), eventually blowing almost as close to the Queen as the shoe that was recently winged at George W. Bush. The Queen looked at me as if it was my fault (it was), and I’m sure she’d be amazed to know that so many members of the same Junior High School band that played for her in 1971 eventually became B.C. lawyers.

Since that windy day almost 40 years ago, I’ve had to deal with Her Majesty in numerous pleasant ways, including taking oaths, drafting contracts and registering trademarks in her name. By all accounts, Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl, but she doesn’t have a lot to say for Canada anymore; a country that has more or less outgrown the monarchy of its grandparents. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-monarchy. It’s just that it’s not our monarchy. “But it’s the mother country,” I hear some of you say. So why have the Queen as our Head of State, the monarch of a country that won’t let us get off the plane at Heathrow without a passport? Some mother! Some country!

There really isn’t much left that binds Canada to the U.K. anymore. It’s a great place to visit, but the country of A-Levels, cricket, Lordships and Knighthoods seems just too far removed from the world of Alberta oil, Quebec, and the Stanley Cup. (Face it. Anaheim is more of a hockey town than London is.) And if you read the U.K. papers on the web as much as I do, you’ll know the Brits are more interested in Europe and the U.S. than with anything that happens in Canada. Prince Charles seems to be a fairly nice chap, despite talking to trees, and his thing with polo. He does good charitable work, and I recall he was once married to a Princess. But the world of polo and Princesses is the world of my long dead English grandparents, who came to Canada to colonize it as part of the Empire. The sun has set on that Empire.

The Queen is 83, and God Save Her. Keep her photograph up in the lobby of government buildings to confuse the Americans. Keep her picture on the money to confuse us. Allow her ostensible doppelganger, the Governor General to prorogue Parliament in her name to confuse the media.

But when she passes on, as she must, so must we. We must sever the formal constitutional relationship we have with the House of Windsor and send King Charles a diplomatic note (by polo pony express!), that he and his heirs won’t be Kings of Canada or its provinces. We’ll keep our membership in the Commonwealth. We’ll keep the “British” in British Columbia. We’ll even keep giving out QC’s. But we’ll find a new name for the Governor General and the Crown, and with good wishes and good intentions, it’ll be the right time to say good-bye, so long, and Good Luck Chuck when the Elizabethan era ends.

You see, Charlie don’t skate. He plays polo. And that kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

Vancouver Franchise Lawyer Tony Wilson practices at Boughton Law Corporation in Vancouver, and has written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans Magazine and Canadian Lawyer. twilson@boughton.ca | www.boughton.ca/people/lawyers/tony_wilson

This article was published in the February 2009 issue of BarTalk. © 2009 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.