Who should be king of Northern Ontario?

• Author: Robinson, David
• Position: Economically Speaking

As we start Canada's 150th year, it is interesting to notice that, for 99 of those years, a queen has reigned over our home and native land. When Elizabeth's reign ends there will be entertaining talk about the role of the monarch in the Canadian political system. That raises a question about who should be king or queen of Northern Ontario. There is, after all, a strong argument that Northern Ontario has never had a legitimate monarch. If we don't have a legitimate monarch, maybe we should pick one when Elizabeth goes.

And this raises the larger question of how our North should be governed. All around us it seems governments have gone off the rails. The American presidency has become a laughingstock. Canadian governments are almost as erratic. One week, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne betrays both her own principles and the City of Toronto on the issue of road tolls. The next week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reneges on his campaign promises about electoral reform. In both cases, their gutless decisions run against the opinion of experts, and in both cases they signal serious problems with the way democracy works. If the whole edifice of democracy really is this rickety, maybe it is because the foundations are a mess.

Canada has had quite a few kings. For example, nine French kings controlled Canadian territory from 1534 to 1763, when Louis XV finally handed his North American territories to Mad George III. George is the guy who lost most of Britain's American Colonies.

George wasn't the first British pretender to the throne of Northern Ontario. The feeble reign of British kings began in 1497 when John Cabot arrogantly laid claim to Newfoundland in 1497 for the King and the Pope. Newfoundland turned out to be irrelevant because Jacques Cartier came along in 1534 and claimed all of Kanata for France.

The first halfway credible king of Northern Ontario was Merry Charles II. In 1670, he took it on himself to approve the charter for the governor and Company of Adventurers. He gave a third of a continent to his cousin, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, without discussing the matter with the residents at the time. We are still trying to clean up that mess.

At that point, the true heart of British Canada was Northern Ontario. The French-controlled territories weren't added to the British...