Op ed piece from the Globe today.
The lovers will agree, the haters not so much.
The lovers will agree, the haters not so much.
DIAMOND JUBILEE
Long to reign over us
Today marks the 60th anniversary of the accession to the
throne of Queen Elizabeth II, and so also represents a milestone
in the life of Canada. In 1951, Princess Elizabeth declared, “We
belong to Canada.” The following year, she was Queen of Canada,
and in the intervening years we have all been witness to the truth
of that statement.
The Queen has shared in major moments in the life of the country.
She opened the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959 with U.S. president
Dwight Eisenhower, during what’s been called the last great royal
progress, a 45-day tour that saw her, with Prince Philip at her side,
travel 15,000 miles across Canada. The Queen attended Expo 67,
opened the Montreal Olympics in 1976 and the 1978 Commonwealth
Games in Edmonton and in Victoria in 1994. She proclaimed
the Constitution Act, 1982, on Parliament Hill, and helped raise the
country’s spirits after the failure of the Meech Lake Accord in 1990,
saying she was “not a fair-weather friend.”
Indeed she has not been.
The Crown is inextricably part of Canada’s national identity, representing
Canada’s traditions and all those old virtues, duty, loyalty,
service and community. But the Crown also represents Canada’s
present, its democratic institutions and the respect for the
rule of law, and if the enormously enthusiastic crowds last summer
for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are any indication, it represents
Canada’s future as well.
The Queen has served this country with dignity, graciousness and
wisdom, and she is deservedly held in great esteem by Canadians.
Not many Canadians remember a time when she was not there,
and many hold personal memories of the sovereign over those six
decades. In many respects, what the poet Ted Hughes once wrote is
true, that they see in this Queen “their life.”
Today, the first of 60,000 Canadians will be honoured by the
Queen and the country, with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.
The medal is deeply meaningful, in that it comes from the monarch
and is also in commemoration of her. So we pause to reflect
on the young woman whose accession occurred in Kenya, at 25,
and her notion of devotion to service, loyalty and larger values of
community, which has remained unaltered throughout her life.
We are in the sunset years of what is likely to be our longest, and
perhaps most successful reign. Even agnostics might on this occasion
be tempted to say God Save the Queen.
