The Prince of Wales has told Commonwealth leaders that keeping the Queen as head of state ... is “a matter for each member country to decide”.
Charles made the comments during the opening ceremony of a summit of Commonwealth prime ministers and presidents in Rwanda. He said he believed such fundamental changes could be made “calmly and without rancour.”
About the time the future king made this acknowledgment, I came across an old note in my files. Its from a twenty ten-year-old column by Chantal Hébert (Toronto Star, October 5 2012):
It is mostly in the margins that political branding is most effective these days and the Conservatives have proven particularly adept on that front. In the process, they have turned their party into a monarchist vehicle. But who speaks for the growing legions of Canadians who have no British roots and no inclination to see their country as a natural part of the anglophile compact that so recently spearheaded the misguided war on Iraq? It is hard to think of a stance that would go a longer way to reconnect the federal Liberals with Quebec and with many of the constituencies that make up the New Canada than the offer of a strong post-monarchy vision of the country.
This was published about six months before Justin Trudeau took up the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. But if Hébert was trying to offer him a policy hint, his strategy geniuses evidently missed it.
Maybe an opportunity for the next one?
