Canadians Grumbling At The Cost of The RF and CW.

[StrawberriesSW1]

I thought Australia and Canada are the two Commonwealth countries the RF could bank on but it seems those who know the institution well are Grumbling the cost of the membership and the royal visit.

"In 2017 Charles and Camilla visited for 3 days... only 3 days. It cost Canadian taxpayers $1.4 million for those 3 days. And we didn't even invite them they invited themselves and told us to foot the bill."

"Plus we just printed all new money a few years ago switching to the new polymer bank notes. And the government wants us to print all new ones for Chuck to have his face on there. The new coins just came out in Oct and people are refusing to use them. Wonder why.. wonder how much that set us back..."

" Better still what do Canadians get for their $73 million-plus membership fees? Not even a tee shirt.... this money could help the homeless, improve schools, pay for healthcare, improve infrastructure and housing, and provide better pensions and disability benefits to seniors and the disabled. But no...it gets us absolutely nothing that benefits the country or the people. The monarchy's history in Canada is one of abuse, forced compliance, colonization and stealing resources.

Don't tell us or any other members of the Commonwealth that we don't know anything about the crown and we don't have a right to an opinion about it."
Charles and William in particular just got even richer IHT exempt to make it even sweeter! Lol!
https://twitter.com/FieldsLeaf/status/1735067622285197420?s=19

I don’t think they pay to have Charles as head of state though do they? Apart from visits? They presumably pay p be a member of the commonwealth but I guess they could leave if they felt not value for money.
I agree it is odd to have a foreign monarch at head of your country but don’t blame the British or the monarchy for that.
Blame your own politicians! It clearly suits them or they would actively try and change the system.
australia was all gung ho about kicking out the monarchy when the Queen died. She died and they have since backed away from this position and gone all “ not a priority at moment “
republicans in Australia don’t even seem to have kicked up much of a fuss.
you can’t really get cross at poor old Charles for that. He would probably welcome it.

Plus it probably saves countries money as they don’t have to fund their own president/ head of state!

Prime Ministers don't work for free.

To change the Constitution of countries where the monarch is HoS is complicated and brings a whole raft of issues and challenges that it would take lots of time to deal with.

That's largely the reason the countries don't remove the monarchy. So it's kicking the can down the road and apathy rather than happiness with the current system

I’m not surprised there are republicans in Canada - just as there are in the UK. It would be more odd if there weren’t.

But this one Twitter user is confusing the Commonwealth of Nations membership with having Charles as head of state. They are separate issues - perfectly possible to leave one or the other or both.

Also - any Twitter user who describes themselves in their bio as a Sussex Squadie gets a HUGE eye roll from me when they decide to comment on the UK royal family.

I ‘m not suggesting the U.K. should charge all the countries a fee for having Charles as head of state. I agree that would go down like a bucket of cold sick and would be a politically silly and controversial move but equally countries should stop moaning about the cost of an occasional state visit every few years! They get a bargain!
but I completely they should look to remove Charles as head of state and get and pay for their own definitely. Blame their own politicians for their inaction in achieving this not the U.K.

They aren't actually confusing the two, wordler. The cost of the Crown and the cost of Commonwealth of Nations are separate figures.

The information seems to come from these sources: Cost of the Crown – The Monarchist League of Canada

"This edition of the COST OF CANADA’S CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY estimates that the overall cost of the Canadian Crown in fiscal year 2019-2020 was $58,749,485.52 or $1.55 per Canadian. In constant dollar terms, this represents an approximate decrease of around 5.95% from the last survey."

Monarchy: How much does it cost Canada to have a king? | CTV News

(Edit to add: this is from the Government of Canada website)
Whereas contributions to the Commonwealth of Nations reported by the Canadian government is around $11 million CAD (Canada is the second largest donor to the Commonwealth and contributed a total of $10.86 million to the institution in 2021-2022.) : Canada and the Commonwealth (international.gc.ca)

I’d be interested to see the breakdown of the £58 million. Are they including activities like producing coins etc?
I bet most of the activities would have to go on regardless of who is head of state. Yes I guess they had to put Charles on money now but that could be phased in over x years plus they had 70 years with the queen’s head. What a bargain!

@sashagabadon I think the argument is, is that they already technically do, as they pay for a Prime Minister, plus Lt Govs who represent the Crown, plus sub-Lt. Govs per state. State visits from Charles and other members only add to these expenses. Removing the monarchy would remove all of these representatives (crown, Lt. Gov and sub gov) and these expenses (plus housing, security, expense accounts, etc.), saving them millions that could be invested elsewhere.

But doing so means opening and amending the Constitutions of large countries like Aus and Canada, and dealing with the issues like Indigenous treaties and negotiations, which is much more difficult than smaller countries like in the Caribbean (i.e., Barbados).

I don't think anyone is blaming the UK for anything, that's rather defensive.

But I agree, I see these countries becoming republics, but not in the next 10 years. It may be a while if they go down that road and it will be messy to undo all the ties to the monarchy

Poor Canada. They could really do with that extra cash. Think how many more homeless and depressed people they could get through MAiD with that! And they’re trying to roll it out to teenagers too. £73 million could get that show on the road pretty efficiently. And don’t even get me started on the middle aged men pretending to be women who get so much support there. Think what that kind of cash could do for that most vulnerable and deserving demographic? Maybe once all that is sorted, a few pennies might even trickle through to the First Nations people who are still living under long term “boil water advisories” and have been for decades, wouldn’t want to get too carried away though - far more deserving causes than that!

Canada is turning into a complete crap hole due to the policies of the monstrous Trudeau so quite frankly I would be glad to see the back of them.

Thanks @queentim but they will still need a PM won’t they? They role doesn’t disappear and will need paying for. And then they will need a Head of state to replace Charles that will need all the things a head of state needs. There are plenty of really good arguments as to why Canada should have its own head of state , I just don’t think the financials is a winning one as it’ll probably cost them more!
I think sovereignty, independence, having a Canadian not a Brit that lives thousands of miles away are all much better arguments.
I personally think it’ll be 2 or more decades before Canada or Australia remove the British monarchy. The obvious moment was when the queen died but nothing happened.
my staunch moaning republican NZ cousin couldn’t row back from her anti monarchy position fast enough - cost of living crisis more important apparently.
my position now is stop moaning about it guys! It’s in your power to change it!

So we are now using Twitter as a reliable source of information...excuse me while I stop ROFLing

I'm a royalist and I can't understand why countries like Australia and Canada have the king as HoS. The sooner they vote for independence the better. Staying in the commonwealth is beneficial for everyone and they would still be the opportunity for visits by royalty.

@sashagabadon Yes that's right they wouldn't get rid of the PM, as they are the ones who run the country as head of government. But they could just have the PM perform both roles, just like the President of the USA, who functions as head of government and head of state. Or, similar to Ireland/Barbados, who now has a President (head of state) and Prime Minister (Head of government).

Both options mean that they have people from their own countries representing them rather than someone who assumes it hereditarily overseas.

I definitely think financials is a winning argument, noone could argue saving $56 million/year plus millions in visits is chump change. But definitely financials in combination with a representation arguments is a good one.

But I agree with your cousin, most things just take priority over other actions sometimes. CoL definitely does at the moment. I wouldn't consider these types of conversations or concerns about governance/spending in ones country moaning though, haha.

I think in the future, there will only be a King/Queen of the United Kingdom.
No more Commonwealth realms.