Friday 12 June 2009

Concordia Salus

As they say in Montreal.

Once Harriet Harman's "Equality" Bill has banned the Crucifix in schools, on wards, pretty much everywhere, perhaps we could all move to Quebec, where, in May 2008, the Assembly voted unanimously to keep the Crucifix that hangs above the Speaker's Chair and below the Royal Coat of Arms.

Throne and Altar are most intimately connected. With the Crucifix gone, how long for the Royal Coat of Arms? Or vice versa, in fact.

6 comments:

  1. Yes I echo your thoughts.
    Vive Quebec Libre

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  2. Quite apart from the fact that NAFTA is void if Quebec breaks away (not that I am any fan of NAFTA, but they are), the French Canadians are ardent monarchists.

    Their Fleur de Lys is the quintessential French monarchist symbol, reviled by republicans to this day. And in any case, they were ceded to Britain in 1763, so the Revolution of 1789 is no part of their heritage.

    "Her Majesty remains at the head of the State, the living symbol of the roots and continuity of the values we hold in common and those that are our permanent ideals ... She is the one entrusted with the conscience of the nation."

    That appeared in the Autumn 2002 edition of 'Canadian Monarchist News'. Its author was an historian and former Cultural Advisor at Rideau Hall. His name was Fr Jacques Monet SJ.

    So far from the Revolution and its Terror is Quebec that the Assembly there did as I set out.

    Very much like Belgium, in fact.

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  3. The French Canadians are ardent monarchists?

    No, they're not.

    Just last year, the queen was not invited to the big 400th anniversary celebration of the founding of Quebec City, and in fact the Canadian government specifically advised her not to attend. Everyone knew how such a visit would would have been received.

    Hate to burst your bubble, but there it is.

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  4. Yes they are.


    Sorry to burst YOUR bubble.

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  5. I have met several Quebecois and all of them were passionate about Quebec. And rather vitriolic about Canada....and monarchy.

    Pro monarchy Quebecois are probably as rare as pro Serb Muslims and pro Union Irish Catholics.

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  6. Well, the "pro-Serb Muslims" are all the Muslism in Serbia as still permitted to exist, which is far more than is ordinarily publicised in the West. Plus almost all Muslim states as such.

    You know perfectly well that it is axiomatic that somewhere between a quarter and a third of Catholics in Northern Ireland are pro-Union in principle, while the same number again don't care. Only Sinn Fein activists ever deny this in public, and I doubt that even they bother in private, since they certainly never sound terribly convinced.

    In the Republic, it is a none issue; support for a United Ireland there is now negligible, the question simply doesn't arise anymore.

    I know it's difficult for Nationalists in the North to accept that no one in the South wants them, but that has been the case for anything up to two generations now. The Flamands may be about to learn the same painful lesson.

    And the French themselves endlesly despair of the Quebecois. That fleu-de-lys is no lie. Ceded to Britain before the Revolution, which is therefore simply no part of them. Quebec is the Old, Old France, and would no more remove the Royal Coat of Arms than remove the Crucifix.

    Mind you, there is not much republicanism anywhere in Canada. Republican organisations are very recent and very small. The monarchy is one of those things that makes them different from America. And nothing matters more to them than that.

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