Yo Canada

  Anyone who knows me knows my feelings on monarchies. Whether it's the Brits, Saudis, or Japanese, being forced to bow to someone because of their parentage or marital status offends my democratic sensibilities. A modern leader's respect should be earned by good deeds and the nation's votes instead of an antiquated decree that claims King or Queen so-and-so was chosen by this god or that one. The Divine Right of Kings states that a Saudi king must be Muslim and a British one must be Protestant and to question such things is to question their respective imaginary friends and questioning the will of their respective spacemen is blasphemy.

  Now folks, I have spent most of my life residing in Canada, becoming highly aware of the peculiar relationship our nation has with the inbred patriarchy across the Atlantic. First off, we have our institutions. The fact that we have the Royal Canadian Armed Forces means that we can be called upon to protect the Queen if someone bombs her island; if fact, she's the commander-in-chief of several military regiments. We also have the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Legion, and the Royal Canadian Mint. If you cross the border into Canada, the first thing you will notice in the customs office is an enormous portrait of the Royal relic herself. Until about 40 years ago schoolkids in English Canada had to sing God Save The Queen, and the person who has never once been elected for her position's image hangs in a lot of educational venues.

  Kids today know who the Queen is and little girls still imagine finding their Prince Charming, but very little else about the monarchy that their parents are forced to pay to support. The British monarchy is the darling of old white people who fondly remember the days when Aboriginals were relegated to reserves and Christianity was preached in schools. Make no mistake- old Canucks, many of whom were born in Britain, love the Royals. They also resent loudmouth homos like me who refuse to honour the caste system instituted upon us by foreigners. To them I'm a disrespectful frog who doesn't know her place in the societal pecking order; a troublemaker whose thoughts are inciteful and possibly treasonous.

  So now we have this latest, wondrous Royal event. A lucky girl gets to marry her Prince and everyone in the commonwealth is supposed to celebrate with the peculiar patriarchy and, of course, spend lots of money doing so. The Royal Canadian Mint has event produced coins honouring the engagement of a couple who is only remarkable because the male has nobility and we do not. The Mint is so proud of their revolutionary way of making a coin that they're not going to share the way it was created nor the cost to Canadians or anyone else. All the mint wants us to know is that these people are so much better than us that they get to have their faces on the coinage of a foreign nation. That and that you should want to buy these things because even if you're a paediatric neurosurgeon, William is so much better than you because his grandparents were cousins that descended from a tyrannical queen who also ascended to her leadership position because of the luck of the uterus. We're supposed to feel lucky to have the supposed honour of sharing in a wedding that we're not really invited to attend.

  Am I the only person who believes that non-elected leadership is contrary to democracy? What I do know for a fact is that holding foreign rulers, particularly monarchs, as heads of state is not consistent with a truly independent nation. Canada is a tremendously prosperous country that escaped the global financial meltdown relatively unscathed. Now imagine if we didn't have to foot the bill for the Governor-General, royal vacations, weird ceremonies, guard details, and the rest of the many, many taxes related to this foreign monarchy that we pay. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but maybe if we weren't paying for non-Canadians to pretend they rule over us, we could afford a few more of those new fancy-schmancy fighter jets P.M. Harper has his eye on.

  It's my hope that our generation will finally be brave enough to say that sexism, religious discrimination, and unearned leadership are values that Canadians will not support. Ascension by birth, unwarranted appointments, and ornamental humans are bourgeois British things that insult the ingenuity, spirit, and toughness that have always made Canadians distinct from the fair-skinned folks across the pond. It's time to drop out of the Commonwealth and get someone who wouldn't last a day in our Arctic off of our coins.

Down with colonialism. Vive la Canada.