On September 8, 2022, Charles III became monarch of Canada and fourteen other commonwealth realms around the world. Given that he’s a seventy-four-year-old with years of scandal behind him and is still working nearly a decade beyond the retirement age for most Canadians, why are we surprised that people in this country appear to be greeting his upgrade to King of Canada with a shrug rather than cheer?
There are some issues that add context to the storyline of apathy. Indifference to Charles appears to stem, in part, from years of neglect by the federal government as well as an increasingly murky understanding of the role of the Crown in Canada. How can citizens have a serious discussion about the head of state and the Crown when so many people here don’t understand his position in this country, the monarch’s role in our constitutional system, or the Crown’s?
