Happy birthday Liz, and so long...
6/20/2006
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor celebrated her 80th birthday on the weekend—and the old gal still looks and acts like a million bucks, or rather 500 million bucks, to be slightly more accurate.
Queen Elizabeth actually turned 80 back in April, but when you are queen you can throw a party anytime you like and no one will complain.
Throughout her more than 50 years on the British throne, Elizabeth has been monarch of 32 nations. Today roughly 128 million people live in the 16 countries of which she is head of state, and she is the world’s second-longest-serving head of state after King Bhumibol of Thailand.
In the United Kingdom, her official title is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. In the interest of space, I will refer to Her Majesty from here on simply as Liz.
I have nothing personally against Liz. She has done rather well over the years, considering she was born into incredible wealth, married her second cousin at age 21, and became the world’s most powerful Queen at the tender age of 26.
She likes dogs, horses and gin, is rarely ill, and seems to do a fair job of overseeing her kingdom and all its realms. Her fellow Brits love and respect her and she has rarely, if ever, been an embarrassment to herself, her family, and her country.
The most widely traveled head of state in history, she also seems to like Canada, and has visited our shores more than 20 times, more than any other.
Even though I like Liz, her influence over us is little more than ceremonial. She has become an institution unto herself, a glittering white billboard for the antiquated, wasteful and unnecessary notion of divine right, privilege and the monarchy.
For this reason, I would like to see her face removed from our money.
And that even goes for the 1960s portraits when she was young and vivacious and fond of dresses that accentuated her nice rack, of jewels, that is.
I was hoping she might retire sometime soon, and take her smiling face off our coins and bills, but that doesn’t seem likely. From the looks of things, she is going to outlive me. Liz, however, can’t live forever, and it is my hope that when the next monarch is crowned, we issue bank notes and coins with the heads of great Canadians on them.
Canada stands on its own two feet in this world, and there are plenty of Canadians—Frederick Banting, John Candy, Emily Carr, Tommy Douglas, Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky, John Molson, Laura Secord, or even Pierre Trudeau—more deserving of the back of a loonie than Charles and his big ears.