Monarchist league hopes Canadians give King Charles III a chance

The Monarchist League of Canada is hoping Canadians will give the new head of the Commonwealth a chance.

Following Queen Elizabeth II’s death Thursday morning, her eldest son, formerly the Prince of Wales, Charles acceded the throne and became King. Next in line is son, Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge.

The regional coordinator for Western Canada, Keith Roy, says while King Charles III isn’t as popular a figure as the Queen, he is more than up to the task of becoming a monarch.

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“I think given the opportunity, if people can cast aside maybe some of their previous judgments of Charles they’ll be pleasantly surprised at how he performs as a king and for the good of Canada,” Roy told CityNews.

Roy says he would encourage people to be loyal to “their” King, adding the push to become a republic would be dangerous.

“To drop our system of government because you liked one person and you don’t like the next puts you in a system like America, where it’s very fragile and it could fall apart any day because of who’s there,” he explained.

Roy says King Charles has spent his entire life preparing for this moment, and is well-positioned to take over from the Queen.

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“It’s not like we don’t know who Charles is. No one has trained longer to be King than Charles — his entire life he has been training to become the King.”

Charles is very well educated on global issues, Roy declares.

“If you think of arguably two of the biggest issues facing our world, climate change, and Islamic extremism, Charles is widely regarded as an expert on both of those.”

Roy thinks many skeptics will be pleasantly surprised by how effective Charles will be as King.

“He’s an interesting connecting figure between the West and the Islamic countries. He was ‘green’ before ‘green’ was cool. He was that nerdy, eco-gardener that everybody made fun of,” Roy said. “But now, [when we] look at the world, they’re the number one issue that most countries are talking about and Charles is very well positioned to provide insight on those issues.”

With files from Martin MacMahon and John Ackermann