Canada, Other Former UK Colonies Consider Referendum After King Charles Ascension

Former colonies of the United Kingdom like Canada and the Bahamas who are still in the Commonwealth are considering dropping the British monarchy on Friday, prompted by the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the ascension of King Charles III.

A new poll conducted in Canada shows that over 58% of the population want a referendum in order to reconsider the country’s close ties to the British monarchy weeks after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, with only 56% of respondents believing that Charles will do a good job as monarch, compared to the Queen’s 82% approval rate, according to Global News.

“There’s never been a great deal of enthusiasm about King Charles,” Darrell Bricker from Ipsos Public Affairs, who conducted the poll, said. “People aren’t hostile about the new King, but they’re certainly not as [enamored] with him as they were with his mother.”

In the Bahamas, Prime Minister Phillip Davis announced a referendum to possibly remove King Charles III as head of state after the Queen’s death, months after a contentious visit from William, the Prince of Wales and his wife Kate of the Caribbean was filled with calls of slavery reparations that appeared to be ignored, the Independent reported.

“The only challenge with us moving to a republic is that I can’t, as much as I would wish to do it, I cannot do it without your consent,” he said. “I will have to have a referendum and the Bahamian people will have to say to me, ‘yes’.”

Many activists in the Bahamas had criticized the Caribbean trip as a waste of public resources, and now that Charles is King, activists like Jah Mickey Bowe, who is currently the Vice Chair of the House of Rastafari in the Bahamas, have offered more criticism to the new monarch.

“We don’t see how the celebration of our oppressors helps us any; the royal family should apologise for slavery and bring reparations to all of the Commonwealth countries,” he said. “King Charles III will meet more of those demands on his desk in the near future.”

Despite other former colonies appearing to want to remove the British monarchy as the head of state, Australia’s opinion polls show that over 60% of the people surveyed would like to keep Charles as the head of state instead of becoming a republic, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirming that there are no plans for a referendum in the country, Deutsche Welle reported.