Graeme Menzies: We need a royally new approach toward Canadian culture

The monarchy is a great gift to Canada. We should use it.

By: Graeme Menzies

There is so much that a new government needs to do once installed (for surely it is understood the present government is in its dying days). Among the least obvious, but in my view among the most important, is a soup-to-nuts overhaul of Heritage Canada and the adoption of a new attitude toward Canadian culture generally.

And a renewed celebration of our monarchy is an excellent place to start.

Under the Trudeau government, Canadians have been told their culture sucks. Pierre Burton, were he alive and seeking to get published today, would be a lonely man stacking up manuscripts that would never see the light of day. He most certainly would not be recognized with an Order of Canada. The stories he told of the Klondike, Vimy Ridge, and The Last Spike were all true but his protagonists and their aims are not the sort anyone in Heritage Canada wants to talk about today. Robertson Davies’ fictional works likewise would probably also fail to meet the approval of today’s approved cultural czars. Too white by far. I understand Anne of Green Gables is getting a makeover. Too ginger.

Statues of Macdonald, Cook, Victoria and more have been either toppled, vandalized, beheaded, or removed to storage during the Trudeau era. Ottawa’s Langevin Block, at a snap of Trudeau’s fingers, smoothed that name away from its sandstone edifice. The name “Langevin,” once a metonym for the Prime Minister’s office, is now a synonym for “Voldermort” — He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The national anthem was changed with no public consultation. The Canadian flag was hung in shameful recognition of a self-confessed ongoing genocide where charges are yet to have been laid. Some now see it as a hate symbol. The Canadian passport design has been washed clean of old images of Canada and turned into something more like the placemat children get at the International House of Pancakes.

The role of the Crown in Canada has been given a particularly cold shoulder by Trudeau. He’s first in line at the funerals and wedding parties, and quick to boast of his lifelong friendship with members of the royal family, but of all Canada’s 23 prime ministers Justin Trudeau is the one who has done his best to erase them from Canadian cultural identity. His record appointing governors-General suggests he’s been actively doing his best to tarnish that office.

Trudeau was the first prime minister not to approve the traditional Jubilee Medal for her late majesty Queen Elizabeth II — Canada’s loyal and beloved monarch for over 70 years. Under his watch, the anticipated Canada 150 Medal was also quashed. Later, under pressure, he agreed at the very last minute that a medal should be issued to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III; but other than a couple lines about it in a news release last May, nothing has come of it. Not a single medal has been produced or issued.

This is where a post-Trudeau government must really seize the day. The monarchy is a great gift to Canada. It’s probably the single most important thing that distinguishes Canada from the United States. Take it away and we’re just Puerto Rico — another American protectorate, waiting for the day it gains statehood and a star on the flag.

It is foolish to think any serving prime minister will ever command the respect and affection of the majority of citizens; but Queen Elizabeth often did and there’s no reason to think King Charles cannot do so as well. The past visits to Canada by William and Kate, the future King and Queen of Canada, have been nothing short of sensational.

But the next prime minister will have to act on this. Constitutional monarchy, such as we have, is a gift not to be ignored. It is to be embraced and folded fully into a forward-looking vision of a new, proud, strong nation. To begin with, the next prime minister should ask the King, or the Prince of Wales, to visit Canada annually. The presentation of Orders of Canada should be timed to coincide with these visits. I would even go so far as to suggest Canada reinstate knighthoods. If Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney can be knighted then why can we not have Sir Randy Bachman and Dame Joni Mitchell?

The King of Canada can also play an important and useful role toward Canada’s reconciliation efforts. Trudeau and his radicals have done much to make it seem the Crown and Indigenous peoples are incompatible but a closer review of history books would suggest otherwise. It wasn’t the King who came up with the Indian Act — our elected political leaders did that. The statue of Tecumseh in Windsor is marvelous, but there should be another in Ottawa and it should be unveiled by the King. Same for Chief Maquinna who, apart from a likeness chiseled into the exterior of the British Columbia Legislative Library Building, has no statue, and I’ll bet dollars to donuts he is virtually unknown to most Canadians. That should be changed.

Most Canadians would rather see the King unveil a statue like that than the current, or the next, prime minister. When a prime minister is involved, it’s political. When the monarch does it, we can all get behind it. It’s unifying.

Engaging our monarch in activities like this would send a greater and more positive symbol of reconciliation than Trudeau’s endless shame sessions, name changes, and theatrics.

I accept the old Canada is gone. It’s been gone at least since Trudeau said it was back. There is no use trying to bring back the old Canada of Burton and Davies. The toppled statues will likely never again see the light of day. The “two founding nations” concept of Canada still lingers in the corridors of power but it is also well on its way to being a thing of the past. That Canada is long gone. But a new Canada is just around the corner. We should get excited about that, and get serious about building it.

Then maybe we can be proud again, and maybe we can be united again too.

Graeme Menzies is a marketing communications professional with experience in arts and cultural affairs.

---

The Line is entirely reader funded — no federal subsidy for us! If you value our work and worry about what will happen when the conventional media finishes collapsing, please make a donation today.

---

The Line is Canada’s last, best hope for irreverent commentary. We reject bullshit. We love lively writing. Please consider supporting us by subscribing. Follow us on Twitter @the_lineca. Fight with us on Facebook. Pitch us something:  lineeditor@protonmail.com.