As a Canadian, the whole thing is so bizarre because he is the supreme leader of our country. It literally says I must pledge allegiance to him on my citizenship certificate. Yes, of course I understand the whole thing is theater and he has no actual power, but that's why I think the whole charade is bizarre to begin with.
Sorry, it wasn't meant as a direct comment to you, more of a comment on the thread in general.
Still though, using the words "supreme leader" about any constitutional monarch in a liberal democracy sounds so weird to me, that's a title for dictators, which is the complete opposite of what they are. They're heads of state, and they are completely dependent on popular support for their reigns.
> As a Canadian, the whole thing is so bizarre because he is the supreme leader of our country.
I agree, I don't understand why any former colony would want to keep that.
The case for the UK is that they've been doing the king thing for 1100 years now, it's an integral part of the land and the people and the history, and that gives it symbolic value that contributes to the power or cohesiveness of the nation state.
> I don't understand why any former colony would want to keep that.
Me neither, but Canada was specifically formed by people who wanted to keep that. Otherwise they would have just joined the USA at the start...
The comment I was responding to, which makes no sense, made the non sequitur that "Americans seem to think that constitutional monarchs are like the president of the US" because he only read the first half of my sentence.
QE II wasn't a bad monarch, and that was probably a big factor in the UK keeping its monarchy during the 20th century where democracy was the big trend.