When Queen Elizabeth II inherited the British throne, there were only a handful of countries in the British Commonwealth. Now there are 54. Countries with populations of all races and colours clamour to join, while Canada shrinks from participation in what some call "colonialism".
Britain declared all members of the Commonwealth autonomous in 1926, and Canada joined the structure as a sovereign nation in 1931. Canada had begun life as British North America, and has became progressively more multi-cultural ever since -- a nation of immigrants. We haven't yet repudiated our parentage though, our descent from "the Mother of Parliaments". We've never given up parliamentary democracy, under which political parties are joined by a peace-inducing loyalty to "the Crown". This means that the opposition party in parliament is, although opposing the governing party, nevertheless a loyal opposition under one Crown, which suppresses the "polarizing" aggression we see in political life elsewhere.
Some citizens of Anglo-Saxon background like to celebrate this heritage, as all other cultures in Canada are encouraged to do with theirs -- yet Anglo-Saxon culture is shunned by some as "colonialist". This is ironic, since the Commonwealth originating in Anglo-Saxon (and European Enlightenment) tradition embodies the principles of human rights, gender equality, freedom of expression, sustainable development, and access to health which the "progressive" political classes in Canada now trumpet (although in fact they're a bit shaky of the freedom-of-expression front ...).
Trade, traditions and values, not a formal constitution, holds the Commonwealth together. Members are represented by High Commissioners and the Head of the Commonwealth is not the monarch of Britain. The Commonwealth Charter formalizes the rights-and-freedom values listed above. These things didn't come out of nowhere however. They came through centuries of historical jostling, struggling and philosophizing in Britain, beginning when titled classes whose taxes supported the Crown and its wars demanded power in parliament, and leading to the trading classes who created wealth and industry doing the same, and then the working classes.
This history used to be taught in schools but few current Canadian politicians, voters and commentators seem to know a thing about it. Schools no longer teach it: History is colonialist. Now we have "history by public consultation", which doesn't work well if equally ignorant and biased participants are committed only to advancing their own self-identity tribe. No wealth of commonality in that.
In this atmosphere, Canadians did little to mark in 2022 the longest-ever reign of any British monarch, that of Queen Elizabeth II, who is in fact the most well-known person in the world, and who counter-intuitively became such precisely by not marking territory and asserting self.
