Royalty-free Canada? Poll finds Canadians less favourable of Monarchy
Posted March 6, 2022 8:03 pm.
Last Updated March 7, 2022 3:51 pm.
A new poll suggests Canadians are not as supportive of the Royal Family as they have been in the past.
Nearly half of Canadians are in favour of switching to an elected Head of State instead of the current Monarchy, according to an annual poll from Research Co.
Mario Canseco has been doing this poll every year for over a decade and thinks the numbers represent what’s been a tough year for the Royal Family.
“We had all of the complexities of the Prince Andrew case in the United States, the interview that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex gave to Oprah Winfrey … And there also hasn’t been an opportunity for anybody to visit Canada, which is the kind of thing that usually enhances the way people feel about the Monarchy. So, the numbers are down.”
The notion of Prince William as the next monarch is particularly popular in Atlantic Canada (39%), British Columbia (38%) and Saskatchewan and Manitoba (also 38%). https://t.co/u2beTynBXS
— Mario Canseco (@mario_canseco) March 3, 2022
Last year, the interview with Oprah Winfrey was Prince Harry, and Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex’s, was their first since they stepped down from royal duties. They described painful palace discussions about the colour of their son’s skin, losing royal protection and the intense pressures that led Meghan to contemplate suicide.
Months later, one of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accusers sued Prince Andrew taking accusations that she has repeatedly publicly lodged against him, including that he sexually assaulted her when she was 17, to a formal venue.
Canseco adds numbers for Prince Charles are also way down.
“There is also a larger number of Canadians who would like to have an elected head of state,” he added. “We definitely don’t have a situation where the monarchy is going to be able to sustain that momentum when the heir to the throne is so unpopular in Canada.”
The survey also shows a third of Canadians see the country without a Monarch within the next 20 years. That’s up about 56 per cent since 2019.
– With files from The Associated Press
