TO LOSE A CROWN

 

(Here is an open letter to Charles III, King of Canada, written a few hours before His arrival among His Canadian subjects, to deliver a very important and very official speech in Ottawa, the capital city of His Canadian Kingdom, at the invitation of His Prime Minister, Mark Carney, newly elected as His very honorable position a few weeks ago, in the wake of the fearful trading war initiated a few months ago by our not very trustworthy neighbor to the south, the President of the United States of America, once a puny and backward part of the British Empire, now a giant and wealthy Republic half in awe of the Second Coming of its Savior-in-Chief and Commander-par-excellence, Donald Trump.)

 

Dear King of Canada,

Sometimes, the best way to lose a crown is to show it.

While many Canadians will certainly be pleased by Your two-days visit among Your subjects, there are some who might feel otherwise. Do You know that not every Canadian is proud to live in a British realm, instead of an independent, self-governing Republic?

Presently, as You know, Canada is simply one of the fifteen kingdoms that You are responsible for. All that all responsibility is probably too much of a burden for a single person to bear, even for you, a king by divine right. Moreover, fifteen crowns must be difficult to juggle above Your head, one above the other, without losing any when You turn this way or that, wherever You are, when exercising Your royal functions, among Your royal subjects, in all Your royal domains, distributed over the whole wide world.

Some inhabitants of this northern land, you know, are dreaming of something else: they wish to see, one day, the creation of something completely different, a Canadian Republic, a political entity that would be owned, not by a foreign king living in a foreign country, but by its citizens, the true and rightful owners of their country. That Canadian Republic will shine with a thousand rays of light all over the northern part of this continent, and its creation will correct many wrongs of the past, since the Canadian Republic will also be la République canadienne, and will hopefully be accompanied by la république autonome du Québec and la république autonome d'Acadie. Moreover, its creation would also be a good way to recognize the contributions of the very first populations who lived in this part of the continent, the First Nations, bringing them extended powers to use by their representatives and, whenever possible, extended territories to live on.

If that came to pass, one day, the Canadian Crown would become something that belong to our past, a chapter of our common history, a distant memory of a Canada transformed at last, a pleasant remembrance for some, an unpleasant one for others, a symbol of greatness for some, a symbol of servitude for others, because then, by that time, all of us inhabitants of this northern land, we would have become citizens of our own country, Canada.

CM