John Fraser is the founding president of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada and author of The Secret of the Crown and Funeral for a Queen.
You may have heard that Canada’s head of state, King Charles III, will be crowned on May 6th. That’s less than 11 weeks away but in Canada it has not really registered, judging from the yawning silences from the Governor-General, the Prime Minister or any of their colleagues at Canadian Heritage, the ministry tasked with the responsibility of attending to the Canadian Crown.
That may well be what these offices want: as little attention as possible on a bizarre medieval ceremony that seems to some Canadians to have little if any relevance, other than showing now-embarrassing links to a colonial past. If that is, in fact, the reasoning that’s behind the silence and seeming inactivity surrounding our responses to the coronation, then the government should have the courage of its convictions and start a dialogue to turn Canada into a republic. Doing nothing is not just disrespectful to the institution. It’s also pathetic.
It is actually doubtful that a republic is what this government wants, if for no other reason than it would fear facing the ordeal of convincing 13 legislatures to fall in line on a single issue. If that is the case, it should get cracking now because this coronation is a good time to start remaking the public narrative on the Crown in Canada. We can end the virtue signalling of blaming the Crown for our own transgressions and instead deploy the Crown to enable difficult conversations fostering mutual understanding and catalyze popular collaborations on Indigenous reconciliation and racial inclusion. The Crown of Canada is perfectly capable of carrying that weight if the government provides the incentive and, remarkably, it is possibly the safest intermediary to do so.
As for being a symbol of colonialism, the ceremony is dramatically pre-colonial. In essence it is a public manifestation of a sovereign’s promise through solemn oaths to rule honourably and effectively in return for a people’s promise to play their part in upholding the dignity and fair administration of the state. Typical of all Anglican services, the Coronation liturgy is festooned with biblical readings, prayers and anthem texts rooted in both Jewish and Christian scriptures. But there is also a wider embrace here. The formal presentation of the new sovereign to the Four Directions – east, west, north and south – will resonate deeply with anyone who has studied Indigenous spirituality.
At the end of her Coronation Day on June 2, 1953, the Queen addressed all the countries she was just crowned symbolically to rule over: “The ceremonies you have seen today are ancient,” she said, “and some of their origins are veiled in the mists of the past. But their spirit and their meaning shine through the ages … I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you have pledged to mine. Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of that trust.” King Charles will be making much the same pledge. If you have followed his long path to this particular day, complete with misadventures, mistakes and tragedies, but also with remarkable prescience, good intentions and visible courage, there is no way anyone should doubt his sincerity.
In Canada we have yet to know what, if anything, our government will do to take note of this rare event in the life of the country. We don’t know if there will be a traditional coronation medal to honour our hero citizens. We don’t know what celebrations or parallel ceremonies, if any, are planned. We don’t know if the King’s head will be on any of our postage or currency. We don’t even know yet who will go to Westminster Abbey to represent us. The Prime Minister and the Governor-General, I guess, but who else? And what about the lieutenant governors who do so much to keep the concept of a dynamic Crown alive in this country?
Unlike the citizens of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and even republican-minded Australia, where planning is announced and already in place, the peasants and burghers of Canada wait attendance upon His Majesty’s Canadian officials and representatives. And continue to wait. And wait.