kieko t1_jd0todb wrote on March 21, 2023 at 12:30 AM

Reply to comment by Best_Call_2267 in TIL: The Government of Canada has an office that creates coats of arms for Canadian citizens, and that all Canadian Citizens may apply to the Governor General for a coat of arms and even an officially-recognized personal flag by ryguy_1

Why do you ask?

Best_Call_2267 t1_jd0uder wrote on March 21, 2023 at 12:35 AM

I've heard stuff about Canadian/American history recently that Canadians were loyalists during the US Revolution. That even loyalist Yanks moved North and the French colonists of Canada were loyal to Britain while the French themselves helped the Yanks. On top of the fact Canada only got full independence relatively late (1860s?)

All quite interesting! Though it feels kind of weird that Canadians (who seem like igloo-Americans) would be loyalist or even Monarchist. Cos Americans seem very, VERY republican.

So I just wondered.

kieko t1_jd15owq wrote on March 21, 2023 at 1:57 AM

> All quite interesting! Though it feels kind of weird that Canadians (who seem like igloo-Americans) would be loyalist or even Monarchist. Cos Americans seem very, VERY republican.

Well while it may suprise some (Canadians included) the US and Canada are completely different countries, with completely different histories.

Canada negotiated independence from the British Empire, but maintained a constitutional monarchy. The US formed by 13 colonies who very much did not want to be part of The British Empire, and this occurred almost 100 years previous. The colonies to the north did not chose this path, so its rather unsurprising actually that the country doesn't have the same views as the US on this topic. They specifically chose to retain the crown.

And independence in Canada was incremental. While we were a distinct Dominion in 1867, our foreign policy was still controlled by the UK until just after the first world war (we were brought in because the BE told us we had to go), but by WWII that was Canada independently choosing to declare war in support of the UK.

It wasn't until 1984 that Prime Minister Trudeau (the Elder) patriated our constitution from the UK establishing The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And with all of that we chose to remain a Constitutional Monarchy. Our head of state is our own (our Monarch is the Monarch of Canada independent of the other realms), though they are represented in country by the Governor General and are mainly a figurehead.

There are flaws, but my opinion is the method we have is better than the republican model the US has adopted and in its current form. Not to say that neither political systems could use improvement. Our system has problems that the US doesn't have, and the US has problems that we don't have, specifically because of these differences. But I would pick our system over the US system any day of the week.