The king and his kingdom

The Crown is the subliminal institution that permeates Canada’s institutional infrastructure. There is a magic and charisma to the office that transcends the personality that wears the crown. They rise above the ideological chasms among its citizen partisans.

King Charles III, left, and Queen Camilla, pictured at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa during their visit to Canada on May 26, 2025. Unlike Americans, Canadians do not look up to their big-C Constitution as a sacred text formulated by 'We the People,' the opening words of the preamble to the American Constitution, writes Nelson Wiseman.The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia

Opinion

BY NELSON WISEMAN

August 3, 2026

TORONTO—My reading of the law and the Constitution is that the King of Canada, a resident of the United Kingdom, is not a Canadian citizen and may not vote (and doesn’t want to). He can, however, dismiss his Canadian government (but also doesn’t want to). In truly extr...

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