Illustration by Leone Brander, Design Director
It seems there’s more on the minds of William and Kate as they unpack from their weeklong Canadian tour than the oversized maple leaf hat they lugged back for the Queen. In an unexpected turn of events, the couple revealed they used the tour as more than just an opportunity to become immersed in the overly apologetic culture of the Great White North, and have been covertly scoping out various university campuses across the country, including UVic.
Why would they be spending so much time slumming in college tours when there are babies to kiss and speeches to pretend to be interested in? For Charlotte and George, of course.
“In today’s world, it’s never too early to start thinking about your child’s future,” said Martin Davies, the royals’ public relations manager, in an exclusive Martlet interview. After taking an indignant sip from his earl grey, he continued. “As for the choice of Canada . . . well, Brexit was a bit of an American-level fuck-up, so it was in the best interest of clinging to some semblance of a worldly but superior reputation to look abroad. Canada was the obvious choice, mostly on account of how it’s got all the traditional mannerisms of England, with only a fourth of the bigotry and xenophobia.”
Montreal’s McGill University had been on the table for a little while, Davies admitted, but not for very long. “I mean, Quebec? Come on. Might as well ship them straight off to southern Ireland, or worse, France.”
But, why UVic? While not the most prestigious school in Canada, it does have one advantage over the competition: it isn’t an icy tundra in the winter. In fact, William and Kate are quite satisfied that the climate of Victoria would allow for their children to be continuously drizzled with rain while pursuing their education, which they hope could be a pleasant reminder of home. Also, with the sheer number of deer roaming the campus, the kids can feel like they’re royalty in a Disney movie, and not of a country that no longer needs or necessarily wants their input in the governing process.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seemed to do all he could to make the royal family feel right at home. In keeping with the grand tradition of colonization and quietly disregarding the livelihood of Indigenous people that the British themselves established precedent for, Trudeau approved the Pacific NorthWest LNG project, despite the direct denouncement from the Indigenous people he had previously promised to rebuild relations with.
It’s nice to know that in today’s modern, ever changing world, although monarchs may have become outdated figureheads, George and Charlotte will be able to return to a city bearing the name of their great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, as well as the culturally insensitive diplomacy of her era.
