…..creeping republican thwarted….
Creeping republicanism has been turned around in Canada by the quick action of the Monarchist League of Canada.
Under the headline “Protests force Canadian ferry to put Queen Elizabeth pics back up”)” Agence France Presse reported on 13 February 2008 that five years after portraits of Queen Elizabeth II began vanishing from Canada's west coast ferries, “someone finally noticed, monarchists complained, and the company has agreed to reinstate the Queen on all of its 36 ships.”
"People from coast to coast protested," said Keith Roy, head of the Vancouver branch of the Monarchist League of Canada.
A spokeswoman for the ferry company said that they began to remove the photographs when their structure changed from a public to a semi-independent corporation and they were no longer “ part of government."
But the company received so many emails and phone calls “from customers disappointed with our decision to remove the portraits, that we have made the decision to put the portraits back," the spokeswoman, Deborah Marshall told AFP.
The return prompted a “spirited debate” on the newspaper site timescolonist.com between “soulless, wretched republicans” and “unabashed monarchists,” declared Times Colonist columnist, Jack Knox,
[email protected] in the Times Colonist on 15 February, 2007.
How often in Australia have you read a columnist who proudly says he is a constitutional monarchist?
….a slight to The Queen…
This all began, according to AFP, when a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation noticed the absence of the traditional pictures and called the Monarchist League for comment.
Monarchists "thought this was totally a slight to the queen, personally, and a slight to the sovereign and the constitutional monarchy of Canada," Mr. Roy said. "People support the idea of a constitutional monarchy as a uniquely Canadian institution unlike an American-style republic."
Australian monarchists feel similarly, particularly when an attempt was made to suppress the playing of the Royal Anthem at the Commonwealth Games.
…if only the ABC would…
In any event, this is a superb result achieved by the Monarchist League of Canada. We warmly congratulate Mr Roy, and the Dominion Chairman, Mr. Bob Finch. In the tradition of their organisation, we Australian monarchists would wish to award a Crown to both.
We do hope the ABC will follow the example of the CBC and go around the country reporting all instances of creeping republicanism.