There were royals in the Caribbean last month. Future King William of England and his consort Catherine visited Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas as a sort of farewell tour. All three independent countries are considering cutting ties with the English monarchy.
Unlike Canada, that ties its constitution in knots to try to stick with the fiction of the crown, these countries do not like looking like vassals.
The young royals were also roundly criticized in Jamaica for not apologizing for slavery. Why they should apologize was not particularly clear. Slavery ended in the British Empire two centuries ago. In fact, as I read it, the Brits bought off the slave owners in 1833 for the loss of their “property.” If that is true, the Brits should be thanked for their thoughtfulness, not criticized.
Instead of criticizing the young royals for slavery, there might be more justification for complaining about the Brits’ encouragement of piracy in the Caribbean and for the world-wide spread of sexually transmitted diseases by Brit sailors.
But overall, Bill and Kate had a lovely trip. The warmth and sunshine of the Caribbean can hardly be preserved and shipped to the dreary British Isles to ward off the doldrums of late winter.
In fact, I have always wondered why Canada did not adopt a few of the Caribbean islands. The island people would be delighted to share in Canada’s Medicare, assistance for families and all those Canadian tourists to keep their economy pumping. The islands could be considered as another province and they would soon be the envy of the rest of the Caribbean.
There was a feeble attempt at the idea a few years back when the Turks and Caicos Islands suggested some sort of deal. The only problem was that while some Canadians took the adoption idea seriously, the Turks and Caicos, with only about 38,000 population, would have been much too small to offer winter holidays to the many Canadians needing a break from our winter.
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Copyright 2022 © Peter Lowry
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