I was more or less indifferent to the Queen and the royal family and all that went along with it, because our awkward democracy, tied up with the British monarchy, has been reasonably successful. With the passing of Queen Elizabeth, it gives me pause to think, is it time to chuck all that? We’re big kids now. I feel that Canada has changed so much in my lifetime and I have to question the monarchy. Is it time to cut the colonial ties?
Of course getting agreement across the provinces on anything is extremely difficult, and cutting ties to the British monarchy calls for a serious rethinking of our political system that goes beyond eliminating the role of Governor General and provincial counterparts. What about the Senate? Do we need one? What should its role be in the future?
Meanwhile, we have other problems to cope with. It looks like the Tories here are going to elect a leader with some scary ideas and ties to the ugly far right. This is alarming to me, especially after watching over 70 million people in America twice vote for a President who has all the hallmarks of a two-bit con man. I suspect some of our immediate challenges will dwarf dialog around a monarchy-free future for Canada. Still, if we’re going to have that discussion, we ought to start now.
Charles may be the King of Canada, whatever that means, but he’s not my king. Of that I’m sure.
Thoughts?
27th Street 
Myself, i don’t see a particularly compelling reason to change our system of governance from a parliamentary democracy based upon a constitutional monarchy when, as you noted, it has been reasonably successful in serving our needs. Would we really be better off if the monarch were to be replaced by a ceremonial head of state, such as Israel? And if not with a powerless head of state who holds a Canadian passport, i cannot see how we would be better off becoming a republic.
i believe the changes we could make that would improve how we are governed have to do with changing how we pick election winners from first past the post to a ranked ballot system requiring the winner to have at least 50% plus 1 of the votes and i would like to see elections be publicly financed.
And while we are at it, let us get rid of the not-withstanding clause.