In the News May 18

Royal Jubilee Tours’ Stop in Canada Not Welcome

The Rest of the Wasteful and Farcical Tour

Heritage Canada announced that during the visit of Prince Charles and Camilla to Ottawa on May 18, Charles will be invested as an Extraordinary Commander of the Order of Military Merit by the Governor General, lay a wreath at the National War Memorial, then meet with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. They then go to an unnamed elementary school, and visit the RCMP musical ride for a special performance. Charles meets with Prince’s Trust Canada to discuss its “skill development and employment programs which support veterans and young people to explore, prepare for and gain access to purposeful green jobs for a sustainable world,” then with “Canadian stakeholders on the importance of sustainable finance in combating climate change and building a net-zero economy.” He has meetings with the Prime Minister and with the Governor General, then a “Platinum Jubilee reception” at the residence of the Governor General in the evening.

On May 19 they go to Yellowknife and visit Dettah, a Dene First Nation community. Charles has discussion with local Chiefs and Elders and Camilla visits Kaw Tay Whee School. Charles meets with Canadian Rangers at Fred Henne Territorial Park and is appointed an Honorary Canadian Ranger. Camilla visits a safe transitional housing centre for women and children. Charles meets with local experts on the Dettah Ice Road to discuss climate change. At the Northern Heritage Centre they meet local food producers and discuss Treaty 11 and view sports and crafts. The visit ends with a Platinum Jubilee Celebration and they leave from Yellowknife in the evening.

Investing Charles as an Extraordinary Commander of the Order of Military Merit? What’s that piece of theatre of the absurd going to cost Canadians? Meeting with the Ukrainian Canadian Congress! Who comes up with such genius ideas? Why not a meeting with the associations of Palestinians demanding the right of return after they were expelled from their lands based on the declaration signed by Lord Balfour in 1917 which announced British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people” without regard for the fate of the Palestinian people. Too extreme perhaps? Learning from Indigenous peoples how to live in and care for nature and the planet while calling for investments which further assault Mother Earth in the name of a green economy? That is about the only signature image the couple and their handlers seem to have come up with for the useless man.

Both the Prince and his handlers may revel in such high positions of power and privilege as to think they can get away with such offensive pageantry but this does not change the fact that: 1) the Crown should pay reparations for all the damages done especially to the Indigenous peoples and 2) the entire institution should be dismantled.

Renewal Update, posted May 18, 2022.