We have Whigs and Tories, republicans and monarchists, settlers and Indigenous people, French and English and many other tongues. Trump understands none of this. All he sees is oil, water, and minerals.

Canada is an Atlantic nation, founded by French and English settlers, who occupied the territory of First Nations. Not easy to assimilate into a US melting pot. Why isn't a French monarch invited to also contribute to the throne speech? The last one was quite rightly beheaded.

I'm a republican (small "r"!) but I'm happy to see King Charles deliver the throne speech. The event will underscore that the only source of imperialist danger right now, Trump's US, is entangling itself in a conflict that has implications both within and beyond our borders.

Carney also writes that "Civic virtue and public spirit atrophy with disuse and grow like muscles with regular exercise." We all need to exercise the muscles of civic virtue and public spiritedness so that we can turn the corner on toxic polarization and divisiveness.

I'm not surprised. On p. 145 of Carney's book Values, he writes: “According to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, virtue is something we cultivate with practice: ‘We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.’”