As news of Prince William's engagement to Kate Mid-dleton raced across the Internet and lodged itself firmly in the Coast's supermarket magazine racks this week, it took me awhile to remember that this wasn't just celebrity gossip.
To remember that in our oft-forgotten constitutional monarchy, William isn't just the United Kingdom's prince; he's ours. And more meaningfully, that he isn't just the U.K's potential future head of state; he's ours.
And across the country, to judge from news organizations' comment pages, that idea is percolating through our national consciousness. And with it comes a question that emerges at moments, such as royal visits, when we remember that we have, and fund, the royals and their Canadian representatives: do we Canadians actually like this state of affairs? Do we like our constitutional monarchy, our posh, perfectly-mannered royals, our governors general with - as we've realized only too keenly in the last two years - the final word on prorogation?
To judge from this week's commentators and the last several years of opinion polls, there are a number of camps out there.
There are the die-hard romantics who swoon over prince and princess stories, the unabashed anglophiles and the traditionalists who see the royals as a link to Canada's past.
Perhaps even more vehement, there's the other side: anti-monarchists who feel anything from ennui to blistering rage with what they see as an irrelevant, expensive and anachronistic system that values birth over merit and ceremony over real decision making.
Somewhere in the middle, there's a group that would like to see Canada's constitutional monarchy quietly end when we lose our well-respected Queen.
There are arguments to be made on all sides, but I'd like to raise a few in defence of our current system. And yes, full disclosure, I have British Isles blood in my veins and am an avid tea drinker.
But for the annual $50 million price tag, which monarchists will tell you breaks down to the cost of one cup of coffee annually per capita, I think we get reasonable bang for our buck.
In a country with a short history and a notoriously-nebulous cultural identity, we get something historic and concrete that, well, reminds us we're not American.
In a nation of plodding, almost staggeringly-forgettable politicians since the days of dapper Pierre Trudeau, we get heads of state impeccably trained to represent us with dignity and grace.
And in our nice, responsible Canada where we play it safe and don't get a lot of thrills, we get the glamour of royal visits, the mystique of a royal family and the distinctly un-Canadian splendour of a royal wedding.
Given how little $50 million seems to cover in social programs, let alone Canadian identity-building, the royals may be one of the best deals we've got going.
So as morale soars in the beleaguered United Kingdom, as the trinket makers start churning out commemorative Will and Kate merchandize and as supermarket magazine editors around the world map out months and months of photo ops and pre-wedding coverage, I, for one, am intending to enjoy the ride.
Not because we need these royals. Not because bluebloods make any reasonable sense in meritocracies.
But because, for intangible reasons, they make us something more.
