ROTHENBURGER – Get rid of the monarchy? We may as well get rid of hockey
(Image: Mel Rothenburger)
‘I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.’
– Princess Elizabeth, April 21, 1947.
THE WORLD STOPPED on Thursday. The Queen died. There was nothing else.
I never met her, never even saw her except in pictures. Judging by the wall to wall news coverage, I’m the only one.
Everyone from politicians to TV personalities to little girls with flowers has been telling us about the time they “met the Queen.” Local media everywhere, including the Tournament Capital, have been desperately searching for folks who had brushes with Royalty.
The closest I came was meeting a couple of Governors-General (including the current one). But I knew Elizabeth II, sort of, from the day of her coronation. I was eight years old. In those days, the monarchy was important. Nobody questioned its relevance. Everybody was a monarchist.
Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Queen Elizabeth was by all accounts a very decent person, but the monarchy is a vestige of the past. For all their pomp and ceremony, they have had very little historical impact in the last 100 years. These days we are chopping down historical figures (e.g. Sir John A.) that we now deem to be racist or colonial predators. One does not want to dig too deep into the unsavoury dealings of the royals because that too will raise some ugly questions.
Mikhail Gorbachev died this past week and wasn’t even given a state funeral. He had a much bigger impact on history than Queen Elizabeth but he never even made the tabloids. People should take a step back to get some perspective on the royals. It really is a ludicrous spectacle isn’t it?