Make Prince Harry Our King, Canadian Monarchists Say

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge may be arriving in Canada later this week, but royalists in Canada have come up with a longer-term solution for royals in their country: Install Prince Harry as their king.

They want the Prince, who is third in line to the throne, to set up home in the capital of Ottawa, giving the Royal family a permanent presence and silencing those who believe the country should have an elected head of state, the Telegraph reported.

Etienne Boisvert, the Quebec provincial spokesman for the Monarchist League of Canada, said the Royal family was an institution that knows how to reinvent itself and believes now might be the time for change.

Prince Harry, who has virtually no chance of becoming king, could set himself up here and found a Canadian branch of the Royal family, Boisvert said. Or, the future kind could rotate - six months in Canada, six in Australia, six in London.

Boisvert, a French-speaking Quebecois, is not amongst the majority, as many francophones are indifferent to the Royal family; the Duke and Duchess have been warned they may be encountered with vocal protest from republicans and French-speaking separatists.

The Quebecois Resistance Network, for instance, is planning a William, Get Lost protest to disrupt the visit, saying the royal couple's presence is meant to offend and humiliate separatists.

Boisvert disagrees, saying the Royal family presents a unifying force in a country with varying regional differences.

The concepts of liberty and democracy are fundamentally British, he said. They brought a parliamentary system of government, democracy and the doctrine of individual rights to North America.

A spokesman for St. James's Palace declined to comment on the suggestion that Prince Harry should set up his own court in Ottawa.