Of Monarch, Madness and Queens

TODAY, in Canada, is Victoria Day.

In fact, it's a civic holiday named after a former Queen of England and after a long, cold winter, this is Canada's kick-off long weekend to summer.

So we wouldn't want to diss it too much.

But hey, it's 2006. IT'S 2006!!!

As a Commonwealth nation settled and colonized by the Brits but finally freed by our own independence in 1967, we still have many monarchial hangovers. And the biggest one of all is that we still, apparently, care about the Queen.

A real queen has a purpose. In the insect world, ant queens have no mode of defence and are guarded by the worker and soldier ants with their lives. The queens are guarded, they're fed, they're cleaned, they're pampered...just like the British Queen.

Except that the ant queen has a purpose. Without her, the ant colony would die because -- hello -- she lays the eggs. She may not be able to move, she may be big and fat and ugly, she may wear stupid hats (just like Queen Elizabeth), but she has a purpose.

And aside from being fodder filler for the British tabloids with trash about her off-spring (Charles, the big-eared wonder, was a hoot with his two sons watching Ozzy Osbourne the other day), what purpose does the British monarch serve?

So on this Victoria Day, I salute the warm weather that has finally arrived, I throw out my admiration for the simple existence of queen ants and bees all over the world and for the billions and billions of eggs they will lay today.

But the Queen, and Canada's continued need to maintain any sort of connection with her or what she stands for? Not so much. Let's jettison the pomp and ceremony and money spent on all those flowers she keeps getting handed by adoring fans and send that cash to Darfur.