4 — Sunday, January 21, 1996 ~ North Shore News

s over republic

Collins

THIS COUNTRY ’s liberal
intellectuals, who are short
on intellect, have decided
we should become a repub-
lic. But considering what
they have done for Canada
already we should give them
the finger.

The Globe & Mail. Canada’s
“national newspaper,” kicked off
the new year with an appeal for
republicanism; the Joronto Star
has been that way for decades and
The Vancouver Sun nibbles ner-
vously at the same cake,

Allan Fotheringham takes a run
at the monarchy whenever he's
hard up for something to write
about and Peter Newman is also a
member of that ratpack.

“The time has come to declare
a repubiic,” was the headline over
a recent article of his in
Maclean's.

Newman quoted a leading
Montreal businessman who said:

“This (becoming a republic)
would give people a great chance
to rethink what Canada is all
about.”

Doesn‘t he know what we are
all about? Thanks to the deep
thinkers we are like a flock of
shocked sheep wondering who
stole our fleece.

It is of course true that times
change, often for the worse, When
I landed in Montreal, Quebec was
still attached to Canada.

«In Ontario I drove down roads
that were proudly marked “The
King’s Highway.” In Victoria 1
. went to a movie and everyone
stood up when God Save The King
was played.

‘ When Elizabeth was crowned,
a reporter on the Calgary Herald .
‘told me he had tears in his eyes
.when ‘he saw the coronation cere-
_ mony on TV.

All of which is now a big laugh
.to'the Newmaas, Fotheringhams
_ and other brains. But ul can tell.
you this:

In those days no one needed to
tell Canadians: what they were all

‘about. They knew.
‘« “They knew they counted and
that with any luck the 20th centu-
ry really would belong to them, as
Wilfred Laurier had hoped. '

. They knew they were free, and
didn’t have to look over their -

. shoulders! when they spoke “bad
_ thoughts.” They also knew they

" were as good as and perhaps bet-
ter than the next man.

They knew, too, that the
monarchical system had given
them a sight more freedom than
most republics ever dreamed of.
And they had just fought a war to

TAOIST

TAICHI

other hand

prove it.

The system is called the King
(or Queen) through Parliament,
the monarch being the source of
law and the final, non-political
arbiter in times of constitutional
crisis,

It is a system that has benefi-
cial mystery, which politicians
never have. Which is why, even if
only subconsciously, people
turned out in their tens of thou-
sands to cheer the Queen when
she came here in 1994 for the
Commonwealth Games.

Her “mystery” caused The
Vancouver Sun to back off when it
planned at that time to run
excerpts from a scurrilous book on
the royals.

The Sun's Barbara Yaffe is
another deep thinker. When the
Queen was in Victoria she wrote a
piece headed, “God save (us from)

our gracious Queen.”

Yaffe believes that ditching the
monarchy would go a long way
toward keeping Quebec in Canada.

Sorry, but even if we were a
ragbag republic now, the “intellec-
tuals” in Quebec would still want
to go, It’s a matter of race, lan-
guage and power.

Much is made of the fact that
Australia’s leading demagoguc,
Prime Minister Paul Keating,
wants to dump the monarchy. But
I learned during my recent visit
there that his former buddy, Bill
Hayden, wants to keep it.

Hayden was once a top Labor
minister. He is now the governor-
general. | interviewed him down
there in 1972 when he too was a
republicari. He was still one when
he became the Queen's representa-
tive. But now he has changed his
mind.

God save us. Not from the
Queen but from the “intellectuals.”

They have given us, or averted
their gaze from, the multicult
madness, human wrongs Gestapos,
official racial discrimination,
sodomy rampant, and political
purity. And they never stood up to
Quebec.

Nex thing on their menu: votes
for Ctiftord Olson & Co.

In 1789, in France. their
scheming forebears produced The
Terror; in 1917 the Communist
revolution; in 1933 Hitler; in 1958
Castro: in 1949 Mao. And so on.

Give me the Queen any time.
Or even Chuck and Di.

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