The Royal Tour

I have been following the Royal Tour of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge these past few days. It is remarkable how much the coverage is reminiscent of that in 1939, when King George VI and his consort Queen Elizabeth toured Canada. There is the same freshness and display of affection which I have noted while researching The King's Puzzle. And I enjoy seeing so much emphasis placed on our British traditions and military history during their travels. Makes me feel that the Canada of pre-1968 is coming back.

Of course, there are the naysayers who bash the Monarchy. But in that regard, I turn to my friend Bill Gairdner's words regarding our Canadian legal system:

"It needs criticism and ongoing improvement. But compared to the legal systems of other cultures? No contest! To Mother England we owe most of the freedoms and the common law rights that we too often take for granted. Superior is the British-based right to private property we have known since the twelfth century. Superior are the individual freedoms and rights to protection from Statism that were enshrined in Magna Carta in 1215, and improved and defended ever since (well, until 1982 in Canada). [Observe] the contrast between the British-based common law system and the French-based code law system, and the superiority of the former. That all who have thrown in their lot with the English bottom-up common law system are free to do anything that is not prohibited by the law is an extraordinary inheritance of the English people. We are presumed free by birth and by inherited right. This stands in stark opposition to the dictates found in so many top-down nations of history where citizens are permitted to do only what is specified--or altered by judges--in a written code. Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms [thank you, Pierre Trudeau--I.W.] has seriously undermined our proud legal tradition."