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Seems, for some conspicuous monarchists in Canada, their love of Queen Elizabeth II is paper skinny – actually.
That grew to become obvious earlier this week after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared Monday, September 19 a nationwide vacation to look at the passing of “considered one of my favorite folks on the earth”.
“Canada,” Trudeau mentioned, was “in mourning”. Certain, most Canadians, I suppose, have paused to replicate for a second or two on the demise of a 96-year-old English monarch. However I haven’t seen a lot proof that Canada has been gripped by grief or surprised into questioning what’s going to develop into of us now that her bland 73-year-old son, Charles, is king.
As an alternative, from my modest, admittedly republican, perch, Canadians seem like occurring with the vagaries, disappointments, pleasures and mundane calls for of life simply as earlier than.
In the meantime, the likelihood that the entire nation would get pleasure from an sudden vacation on the eve of summer time’s sundown was a contented shock amid the media-manufactured gloom.
I do know. I do know. What an insensitive lout I’m. In my defence, I believe that a lot of my fellow insensitive republican louts in Canada – who, like me, have by no means counted the queen as amongst their “favorite folks on the earth” – welcomed information of the impromptu vacation as nicely.
And but, I felt just a little cheated. Britain – our legendary “motherland” – is devoting 10 days to commemorate the queen’s seven-decade reign. One paltry day, by comparability, appears, at greatest, uncharitable or worse, an inexpensive, royal low cost.
Regardless of the gooey, 24/7 protection by reverential, black-clad personalities who’ve been occurring and on and on recently concerning the touching sight of her late majesty’s religious, grateful topics standing in lengthy, snaking queues, a good variety of Brits would like, reportedly, to look at footie reasonably than a funeral – at house or in a pub.
Insensitive louts.
Alas, Trudeau’s “vacation” to permit bereaved Canadians the chance to mourn – which strikes me as an oxymoron – got here with a caveat. Solely federal public servants would get the day without work to sit down in entrance of a wide-screen, high-resolution telly and look on whereas a bunch of bickering princes and princesses and an accused serial intercourse offender say goodbye to mommy dearest.
One miffed monarchist informed a Canadian TV host: “She was all people’s queen – she wasn’t solely the queen of public sector staff.”
Too true, sir.
Sadly, the miffed monarchist’s convincing logic escaped the discover of Ontario Premier Doug Ford – a media-anointed “populist” who has proved, as soon as extra, that he’s not the “folks’s champion” however a fatuous hypocrite.
Right here is Ford studying from a teleprompter with the sincerity of a model to precise his sorrow on the finish of “a outstanding life”.
“All through her historic reign,” Ford stammered, “she taught us the true that means of selfless service and was revered and admired for her sense of obligation and dedication to charity.”
By Ford’s measure, the distant matriarch of a wealthy, dysfunctional brood of scheming dilettantes born into place and privilege was the revered and admired paragon of service and obligation.
So, how did this true-blue Tory plan to honour an expensive, departed blue-blood’s “selfless” devotion to Canada and past? Predictably, he selected cash over the monarch.
Ford might have adopted Trudeau’s beneficiant lead and given the queen’s – we’re reliably knowledgeable, after all, by the monarchy-adoring tabloid press – devastated legion of working-class followers within the province a shift-free probability not solely to bid her adieu but in addition to wave a miniature Union Jack in unhappy solidarity.
Whereas Doug “everyman” Ford provided the royal household his stilted condolences, the callous curmudgeons on the Canadian Federation of Impartial Enterprise issued a plea with warp-like pace urging provincial authorities to withstand the populist temptation to make September 19 “a statutory paid vacation”.
I recognise that it might be a contact early for an allusion to Christmas. Nonetheless, it’s irresistible. Channelling the delightfully candid Ebenezer Scrooge, the federation’s unmoved president, Dan Kelly, cried: Bah humbug!
Capitalists are usually not sentimentalists three hundred and sixty five days of the 12 months.
The proposed vacation would, he moaned, be “deeply unfair” and price “billions” to already “struggling” companies recovering from the pandemic.
The “request” was a blunt order wrapped in a terse press launch. Having recovered from delivering his taxing, one-minute-long eulogy, Ford heard it – loud and clear – and like all premier who is aware of who he solutions to, he did what he was informed to do.
It’s no vacation for you (and me), Ontario. We get a “day of mourning” which features a voluntary second of silence at 1pm to cease and contemplate “the outstanding lifetime of Queen Elizabeth II and her unrelenting dedication to service and obligation.”
Such was Ford’s enthusiasm for the “day of mourning” that he recycled the identical speech he made on the day of the queen’s demise to advertise the thought.
Ford and stingy firm ought to admit it: The almighty buck will at all times be king.
I don’t know what my fellow Ontarians will or received’t do for 60 seconds at 1 o’clock on Monday. I do, nevertheless, know this: the province will – to borrow considered one of Ford’s insipid catchphrases – be open for enterprise.
Maybe the unicorns utilizing money will discover some solace within the information that every time they attain for a crisp, plastic $20 be aware, they may perpetually be reminded of Queen Elizabeth’s elegant – albeit pixilated for safety functions – picture.
In my opinion, I’ll take a well-earned move on the supply of a second of silence to ponder the crown’s “legacy”. Barely over every week in the past, I devoted a column to the British monarchy’s brutish historical past of violence, racism, slavery and wholesale pillaging of scores of largely non-white colonies within the identify of queen and nation.
That stolen bounty can be on show once more because the queen makes her gradual, sombre solution to her last resting place in a glittery present of pomp and circumstance that a military of celeb journalists will swoon over like giddy schoolchildren.
As for Premier Ford, decked out in a black tie and swimsuit with a commemorative ribbon and pin mounted to a lapel, he introduced on Wednesday that the provincial legislature would, in impact, start a six-week vacation – instantly.
Bah humbug, I say.
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially replicate Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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