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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s eyes grew teary and his voice cracked with emotion as he informed his fellow countrymen of the death of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.
“Canada is in mourning,” he said solemnly. “She was one of my favorite people in the world.”
Many Americans may not realize it, but Canada is still tied to the British monarchy. Queen Elizabeth served as Canada’s head of state for nearly half of its time as a country and remained a popular figure among Canadians right up until her death on Sept. 8 at age 96.
Her popularity, however, did not translate to the monarchy itself. Fifty-eight percent of Canadians polled by Ipsos just a few days after the queen’s death said the time has come for Canada to hold a referendum on ending its formal ties to the British throne.
It’s not just the Canadians who are rethinking their connection to the crown. The queen’s death also raises questions about the future of the Commonwealth, an association of 56 countries that include the 14 in which the British monarch remains their head of state. Calls for them to break away and form a republic are likely to spread now that the queen’s reign has ended and her eldest son, King Charles III, has ascended to the throne, analysts said.
“Her absence, combined with recent developments in British politics, gives these countries certainly an opening, even perhaps an impetus, to start thinking about breaking away,” said Mark Vail, an expert on British politics and history at Wake Forest University.
The Commonwealth won’t collapse tomorrow, said Sue Onslow, director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London, but “the processes of change are accelerating.”
For many, change is long overdue.
In the countries over which she reigned as head of state, the queen’s rule was mostly ceremonial. She had no role in the day-to-day operations of government. Those decisions were left to those countries’ prime ministers and parliaments. But countries pay membership dues to the Commonwealth that go not to the monarchy but to the entity that runs the organization.
Last November, Barbados officially ended nearly 400 years of British rule when it removed Queen Elizabeth as its head of state and swore in its own president in a ceremony in which Prince Charles – now King Charles III – was the guest of honor.
The queen’s grandson, Prince William, and his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, were met with protests and calls for slavery reparations last spring when they embarked upon a tour of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas.
