Canada
Perspectives --be heard-- or click the graphic for other topics. -Rules-F.A.Q.--121 Chat-report: Poll finds Canada disenchanted with British royals - CANADA chat! -canadian chat - WORLD - Forums
(although with the number of dual US-Canadian Citizens residing in Canada, as well as the cultural AND economic integration on both sides of the Border, Canada is like America's- as well as Britain's brother)
Imperator-Dei wrote: Mazel Schlimazel wrote:
yeah, yeah, yeah... You (Or rather the British, as Canadians didn't exist as a legal nationality or even solid identity back then) burned down our white house, lol.
AH but the modern provinced of Ontario and Quebec were known as Upper and Lower CANADA! and most fo the army in the begining was Militia from these provinces...
Still, you were not a country or nationality yet back then, much less even a dominion.
It was America vs. The Then-Great British Empire (a truly even match, considering Britain's global eminence back in the 19th century), not America vs. the country of Canada....
Mazel Schlimazel wrote: Imperator-Dei wrote: Mazel Schlimazel wrote:
yeah, yeah, yeah... You (Or rather the British, as Canadians didn't exist as a legal nationality or even solid identity back then) burned down our white house, lol.
AH but the modern provinced of Ontario and Quebec were known as Upper and Lower CANADA! and most fo the army in the begining was Militia from these provinces...
Still, you were not a country or nationality yet back then, much less even a dominion.
It was America vs. The Then-Great British Empire (a truly even match, considering Britain's global eminence back in the 19th century), not America vs. the country of Canada.... No but we were Canadians
Imperator-Dei wrote: Mazel Schlimazel wrote: Imperator-Dei wrote: Mazel Schlimazel wrote:
yeah, yeah, yeah... You (Or rather the British, as Canadians didn't exist as a legal nationality or even solid identity back then) burned down our white house, lol.
AH but the modern provinced of Ontario and Quebec were known as Upper and Lower CANADA! and most fo the army in the begining was Militia from these provinces...
Still, you were not a country or nationality yet back then, much less even a dominion.
It was America vs. The Then-Great British Empire (a truly even match, considering Britain's global eminence back in the 19th century), not America vs. the country of Canada.... No but we were Canadians
Think what you like.. You were a mix of nominal British colonists and their loyalist United Empire brethren. It was the then-awesome and globally powerful British Empire vs. a fledgling, as-of-yet young and militarily vulernable (unlike later..) republic.
Imperator-Dei wrote: people who participated from Upper and lower Canada were Canadians, like saying people from Nova Scotia are Nova Scotians...
Yes, but you were still British subjects in every sense of the word, completely backed as part of a far-reaching Empire that at the time surpassed the sheer strength of a fledgling America by multiple times. You had no legal status as a separate sovereign nationality, nor did you even regard yourself as an autonomous nation or people from Britain at the time.
Mazel Schlimazel wrote: Imperator-Dei wrote: people who participated from Upper and lower Canada were Canadians, like saying people from Nova Scotia are Nova Scotians...
Yes, but you were still British subjects in every sense of the word, completely backed as part of a far-reaching Empire that at the time surpassed the sheer strength of a fledgling America by multiple times. You had no legal status as a separate sovereign nationality, nor did you even regard yourself as an autonomous nation or people from Britain at the time.
Mr Mazel, nothing froths a nationalist Canadian's mouth more than the mention of the War of 1812.
Calgary Libertarian wrote: Mazel Schlimazel wrote: Imperator-Dei wrote: people who participated from Upper and lower Canada were Canadians, like saying people from Nova Scotia are Nova Scotians...
Yes, but you were still British subjects in every sense of the word, completely backed as part of a far-reaching Empire that at the time surpassed the sheer strength of a fledgling America by multiple times. You had no legal status as a separate sovereign nationality, nor did you even regard yourself as an autonomous nation or people from Britain at the time.
Mr Mazel, nothing froths a nationalist Canadian's mouth more than the mention of the War of 1812.
.... I've heard the "We Burned Down the White House" slogan (although it was technically the British who did it) multiple times from Canadians.
But I know it's all in good intention.
Not like most nationalist Canadians actually hate America.. They just like to poke at it in good fun, much the same way that many nationalist Americans wrongfully accuse Canada of being a "pinko-feminist-communist haven for drunk hockey players, interbred chimeras resulting from human-beaver marriages, and being 'too cold' for any kind of activity."
Mazel Schlimazel wrote: Calgary Libertarian wrote: Mr Mazel, nothing froths a nationalist Canadian's mouth more than the mention of the War of 1812.
.... I've heard the "We Burned Down the White House" slogan (although it was technically the British who did it) multiple times from Canadians.
'Tis true, but I will not offer up excuses for the public school system. I dare say most Canadian students today would be hard-pressed to spell "Canadian" without being spotted all of the vowels.
yeah, yeah, yeah... You (Or rather the British, as Canadians didn't exist as a legal nationality or even solid identity back then) burned down our white house, lol.
But the republic survived, we broke even with Britain in the 1812 war (neither side "won") I think that's debatable. In the treaty of Ghent, the American's were guaranteed free trade, unimpeded by the British Navy, and the British promised to stop incensing the frontier tribes. Overall the war resulted in a rise in respect for American sovereignty and independence from the imperial powers.
As for Britain, they held on to their Canadian colonies, and probably lost interest in policing American trade after the Napoleonic wars were over. I think both sides won, in a way.
You make sense.
Yes, both sides "won" the 1812 war. The only power that lost decisively and objectively was Napoleonic France.
I also think that the war was less one sided then many Canadians like to make it seem. Britain was eager to force a peace, because the American's were hell on their shipping lanes. And Canadians are taught mostly of the invasion of Washington, rarely the failed attempt at Baltimore.
And yes, the decline of Napoleon allowed for both sides to get what they wanted, so a lot of reasons for the conflict just ceased to exist.
We need more people like you and I , who respect one another's nations and view each other with balanced eyes!
I mean seriously... It's f*cking North America. Can't we all get along?
Ah yes. Symbiosis with America has been good to us Canucks.
The whole concept of monarchies is anachronistic. Why should I bow to someone because of the family they were born into, much less call them "Majesty". That medieval nonsense has no place in the 21st century.
The last time I was in Britain, Canadians had to stand in the same passport line as the all the other non-Brit, non-EU rabble. What up with that? I might as well be from Mexico for all the good it does me in Britain. Screw that.
yeah, yeah, yeah... You (Or rather the British, as Canadians didn't exist as a legal nationality or even solid identity back then) burned down our white house, lol.
But the republic survived, we broke even with Britain in the 1812 war (neither side "won") I think that's debatable. In the treaty of Ghent, the American's were guaranteed free trade, unimpeded by the British Navy, and the British promised to stop incensing the frontier tribes. Overall the war resulted in a rise in respect for American sovereignty and independence from the imperial powers.
As for Britain, they held on to their Canadian colonies, and probably lost interest in policing American trade after the Napoleonic wars were over. I think both sides won, in a way.
You make sense.
Yes, both sides "won" the 1812 war. The only power that lost decisively and objectively was Napoleonic France.
I also think that the war was less one sided then many Canadians like to make it seem. Britain was eager to force a peace, because the American's were hell on their shipping lanes. And Canadians are taught mostly of the invasion of Washington, rarely the failed attempt at Baltimore.
And yes, the decline of Napoleon allowed for both sides to get what they wanted, so a lot of reasons for the conflict just ceased to exist.
We need more people like you and I , who respect one another's nations and view each other with balanced eyes!
I mean seriously... It's f*cking North America. Can't we all get along?
Ah yes. Symbiosis with America has been good to us Canucks.
^ Not feeling the love for Mexico huh?
Why! I love Mexico too!
I think Mexico, despite its challenges with organized crime and poverty, is a great country with a fascinating history and a beautiful culture too, to boot! (both indigenous and spanish)
But there are no Mexican flag emoticons here, senior!
yeah, yeah, yeah... You (Or rather the British, as Canadians didn't exist as a legal nationality or even solid identity back then) burned down our white house, lol.
But the republic survived, we broke even with Britain in the 1812 war (neither side "won") I think that's debatable. In the treaty of Ghent, the American's were guaranteed free trade, unimpeded by the British Navy, and the British promised to stop incensing the frontier tribes. Overall the war resulted in a rise in respect for American sovereignty and independence from the imperial powers.
As for Britain, they held on to their Canadian colonies, and probably lost interest in policing American trade after the Napoleonic wars were over. I think both sides won, in a way.
You make sense.
Yes, both sides "won" the 1812 war. The only power that lost decisively and objectively was Napoleonic France.
I also think that the war was less one sided then many Canadians like to make it seem. Britain was eager to force a peace, because the American's were hell on their shipping lanes. And Canadians are taught mostly of the invasion of Washington, rarely the failed attempt at Baltimore.
And yes, the decline of Napoleon allowed for both sides to get what they wanted, so a lot of reasons for the conflict just ceased to exist.
We need more people like you and I , who respect one another's nations and view each other with balanced eyes!
I mean seriously... It's f*cking North America. Can't we all get along?
Ah yes. Symbiosis with America has been good to us Canucks.
^ Not feeling the love for Mexico huh?
Why! I love Mexico too!
I think Mexico, despite its challenges with organized crime and poverty, is a great country with a fascinating history and a beautiful culture too, to boot! (both indigenous and spanish)
But there are no Mexican flag emoticons here, senior!
Ah. Well I guess the American flag kinda, sorta counts
"Prince Charles and Camilla are visiting, and most Canadians don't really care"
By Janice Kennedy, The Ottawa Citizen November 1, 2009 7:43 AM
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, will visit 12 cities during their 11-day visit to Canada. The trip will include several days in the Ottawa area.
Photograph by: Chris Jackson, Getty Images
Oh dear. There's consternation in the monarchist camp. Friends of the Royal Family are fretting.
On the eve of the visit by Their Royal Highnesses, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall -- Charles and Camilla arrive in Canada tomorrow -- a survey conducted for Canadian royalty-lovers has revealed that most Canadians a) don't care about Charles, and b) don't care about the monarchy.
Tut-tutters are warning of "grave consequences" if this apathy isn't addressed.
But here's the question: why should Canadians care?
The sum total of what's happening over the next 10 days is that, at great cost, we're hosting a pair of foreign dignitaries. True, legally and constitutionally, these British visitors are the future King of Canada and his wife. But the reality is, they're just another couple of celebrities. And not particularly sparkling ones at that.
In his youth, Bonnie Prince Charlie (Version 2.0) exuded some glamour as heir to Britain's fabulous throne and new husband of Diana Spencer -- a status that eventually generated its own juicy tabloid content as the marriage disintegrated.
In short, Charles used to be interesting, but not intrinsically. Now? Not so much.
Now, he's little more than a relic of faded notoriety. Now, apart from his unearned birthright and his touchingly earnest desire to be useful in the world, he's really just another eccentric with too much money, a habit of fiddling with his gold cufflinks and the demeanour of one who says "wot-wot?" a lot.
As a minor international celebrity, he'll draw modest crowds while he ushers Camilla around his future Canadian realm and racks up fancy bills for his host, the Canadian taxpayer. There will indeed be the usual gaggle of loyalists, people who collect coronation teacups and Royal Wedding Wedgwood.
But the bulk of those watching from the curb will be no more staunchly loyal than any curious onlooker. Who doesn't enjoy a spot of glitter on a drab November day?
In fact, as last week's survey makes clear, Charles and the Royal Family are irrelevant to Canadians.
This nation is no longer a wilderness outpost of hardy British souls toiling away for love of Queen and empire. We are no longer a collection of Susanna Moodies, toasting dear Victoria after a day of hauling water from the river and chopping down forests. Nor are we the privileged lads and ladies of the Family Compact who showed the same devotion after a day of watching the servants hew wood and draw water.
That storied past may be fascinating, even inspiring. But it's not our present.
It is time to say goodbye to our indisputably British monarch. And it's time to replace that monarch with an indisputably Canadian head of state -- legally, culturally, constitutionally and no longer merely the "de facto" noted recently by Rideau Hall.
Predictably, conservative alarmists warn of dire consequences for such rashness, as if we'd be severing the limb of our own past and then bleeding to death. Some, like Calgary Herald columnist Naomi Lakritz, actually predict that a monarchy-free Canada would "only be able to identify itself as U.S. Lite." Except that it's not a limb we're severing. We won't bleed to death.
The power of the monarch -- yes (sigh), our official head of state -- is primarily and effectively symbolic, like the power associated with heads of state in numerous modern democracies around the world. So worrying about the modalities of choosing a head of state is pointless.
In Canada, if we ever got off our duffs and decided to add symbolic independence to actual independence, we could even maintain the process we have now for finding governors general, with governments appointing well-regarded Canadians to the post for fixed terms.
Those figures' authority would derive from and reside permanently in the people and nation of Canada, not in an anachronistic echo of our history.
This is not to diminish our past, which all Canadians have a duty to know and to cherish. A citizen whose roots are Asian or Eastern European should be as familiar with the social and political context of Confederation in British North America as one whose ethnicity is drawn from the British Isles. Or the fields of France. A vibrant nation is built on a collective understanding of how we've arrived here from there.
When we finally got around to Canadianizing our governors general in 1952, 85 years after Confederation, there was no turning back. After Vincent Massey, the very notion of having some Londoner come and occupy Rideau Hall was unthinkable.
Isn't it time now to finish off the job, to thoroughly Canadianize the head-of-state position by thoroughly dumping our foreign monarchy?
It was heartening to read that a third of last week's respondents believed the Queen would be Canada's last monarch. But that won't happen by itself, if it happens at all.
Sadly, we've sunk into national stagnation in recent decades, possibly because we're afraid of what happens every time we open Pandora's constitutional box, possibly because we're lazy. Or possibly because we've just stopped caring.
Where the monarchy is concerned, we've drifted into a great ennui. Surveys suggest that we're indifferent to silly visits by foreign dignitaries trying to appear Canadian. But we seem to be just as indifferent to changing the structure that perpetuates the travesty.
Canada's royal link has rusted out
Visit by Charles brings obsolete connection back into political focus
Finally. Finally. Finally.
At last. Next month we are going to have some help, in the visit of Prince Charles and his second wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, some useful aid in this strange little relationship with our head-of-state who lives in a castle across a large ocean.
Charles is not terribly interested in Canada – he has not been here for eight years. But I think it will, by its end, be maybe the most useful and educational experience in our decision with someone who apparently (supposedly) will become King of Canada.
The future king of Canada? Prince Charles poses for a portrait to mark his 60th birthday, November 14, 2008.
HUGO BURNAND/AP FILE PHOTO
In the 1980s, this scribbler was stationed for five years in Washington. It is, in fact, an artificial capital in that – unlike natural capitals such as London, Paris or Rome that represent their essential populace makeup – the majority of the population is black, far outnumbering the white folk who are the politicians, the government workers, the lobbyists.
I was determined to find the real Americans and set a goal for myself: to find over my five-year term all 50 of the American states. I almost succeeded, finding 47 of them, mostly by car.
The Americans are the most friendly people on Earth, all of them treating this stranger most graciously, until I revealed that I was from Canada. Somewhat puzzled, they backed off a bit, still gracious, but regarded me with somewhat of a different approach, knowing with some vague ignorance that we still had a connection with Mummy England.
This being natural, since the Excited States of America became the most powerful nation on Earth because of winning a war against their British colonial masters, some centuries back. They were polite, but they looked at me differently.
In 1981, I was in London to cover the marriage of Prince Charles to his much younger and beautiful bride. As luck would have it, my press seat in Westminster Abbey overlooked the altar and I could see, just 25 feet away below me, the mother of the groom. And I was astonished, throughout the whole ceremony, by the grim visage of Queen Elizabeth. Not the beaming, proud face that one would think be apparent on this joyous occasion of her son's marriage. But a joyless face without a smile throughout. In retrospect years later, it was easy to surmise that there was a premonition of something sad that was going to happen – and did.
The point I'm trying to make is that the visit of Prince Charles will be very valuable about Canada making up its mind about itself. We're not much into royal visits anymore. Especially since they don't come around very often (Camilla has never been to Canada) and in attempting to struggle out of a recession most of us have more important things on our mind.
Here we are, an advanced country, a member of the G8 and the G20, and still with this strange hook – unlike our fellow members – to another nation far away. They regard us with a mild puzzlement, as my American hosts viewed me three decades ago.
Governor-General Michaëlle Jean was accused a few weeks back of a major "gaffe" in referring to herself in a speech in far-off Paris as our head-of-state. The chaps who write editorials for the two "national" papers – the guys who would be unemployed if "should" and "must" were removed from the dictionary – went absolutely bananas over this, as if the death penalty were applied to jaywalkers.
I would suggest it wasn't such an accident at all; it may have been a hint to see how Canadians would react. The problem is that the editorial writers don't read the lowly sports pages. It turns out the constitution of the International Olympic Committee requires that every Olympic Games can be opened only by the head-of-state of the host country.
Queen Elizabeth, no doubt knowing the mobs of international photogs would demand a shot of her in a ski chairlift in Vancouver next February at the Winter Olympics, informed Ottawa some months back that she wouldn't be making the trip and asked our Gee-Gee to fill in for her.
The question arises: If Michaëlle Jean can be the host when all the nations of the world gather in Vancouver, why cannot she fill in the same role when the grandees of the G8 and the G20 convene in Ontario next summer for their annual meeting? Let's be consistent.
Prince Charles is going through a bad patch, looking more and more as the man-without-a-job. There is the troublesome glitch on this tour –ignoring completely Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta – early polling showing there would be a disastrous lack of crowds there.
He is now 60. Good Queen Bess, a fine lady I have met several times, is 83 and in good health. The Queen Mum, we all remember, lasted to 101. The odds say that Charles will be well into his 70s before he inherits the job.
Let us suggest (i.e. predict) that the heir-to-the-throne will be surprised (i.e. astonished) at the muted reaction to his arrival here. Already his formal appearances are in the rent-a-crowd panic state to get bums in seats.
It's going to be embarrassing. In this new century, why does Canada just not grow up? Chop the goofy link.
Allan Fotheringham is a veteran political columnist and author of eight books. drfoth@sympatico.ca
stevecanuck wrote: The whole concept of monarchies is anachronistic. Why should I bow to someone because of the family they were born into, much less call them "Majesty". That medieval nonsense has no place in the 21st century.
The last time I was in Britain, Canadians had to stand in the same passport line as the all the other non-Brit, non-EU rabble. What up with that? I might as well be from Mexico for all the good it does me in Britain. Screw that.
The notion of a foreign monarchy, as benign and constitutional as it is, spits directly into the face of what is purported to be "Canadian equality". (as does the unelected senate)
Why shouldn't a Canadian Citizen of any origin and creed be able to aspire to the highest constitutional office and seat in the Land?
It wouldn't make Canada more American.. It would make Canada more Canadian. And you guys would have a head of state who is truly Canadian, while being similarly limited to only Ceremonial and Reserve powers. (the prime minister and his/her cabinet would remain, in effect, the active executive)
Free speech & free membership. Profanity prohibited.
Spammers beware: ads cost US 5000 per post or PM plus our legal fees to collect it.
Dedicated volunteer moderators make this site possible! They're not representatives of this company (except admin).
Account disabled? If you break site rules we may ban you. Email mods if in error. For legal email click terms.
.... I've heard the "We Burned Down the White House" slogan (although it was technically the British who did it) multiple times from Canadians.
![[usa]](/forums/themes/default/usa.gif)
![[love]](/forums/themes/default/love003.gif)
![[can]](/forums/themes/default/canada.gif)
![[bounce]](/forums/themes/default/1syellow1.gif)
![[grin]](/forums/themes/default/grinning-smiley-007.gif)
![[confused]](/forums/themes/default/confused-smiley-001.gif)
