Not My Queen

Today, Canada celebrates Victoria Day.

Fireworks. Cottage traffic. Beer store lineups. A long weekend wrapped in mythology pretending empire was polite.

But Victoria was not my queen.

She was the monarch of an empire that starved Ireland, crushed cultures, exported conquest across the world, and wrapped domination in the language of civilization and Christianity.

I was born in Scotland. My father’s people were Lowland Scots and Rangers supporters. My mother’s people were Irish Catholic. Different histories. Different loyalties. Different wounds. But neither side of my family came out of empire untouched.

And before someone says “that was a different time,” spare me.

There were people resisting it then too. Priests. Workers. Rebels. Poets. Ordinary mothers trying to protect their children and dignity from powerful people calling exploitation progress.

History is not innocent because powerful people won.

Canada still struggles with this truth.

We love reconciliation ceremonies, but panic when reconciliation costs pride. We acknowledge land while defending systems built on theft. We condemn racism abroad while romanticizing the British Empire at home like it was some enlightened tea party with nicer accents.

It wasn’t.

Empire always calls violence order.

That doesn’t mean I hate Canada. Quite the opposite.

I love this country enough to tell the truth about it.

I love the immigrant story. I love working-class people. I love Indigenous resilience. I love the strange miracle that people from every corner of the earth somehow built lives together here.

But mature nations stop worshipping myths eventually.

They grow up.

Victoria Day tells us to celebrate power. I’m more interested in remembering the people power crushed trying to protect their language, culture, faith, children, and dignity.

Not my queen.

And not my empire.