For some Canadians, the queen’s funeral on Monday will stir sadness and evoke personal memories, but for others it is a distant event they plan to miss.
David Edwards, the Anglican bishop of Fredericton, says his mother was born in the same year as Queen Elizabeth and died about five months before her, linking the changes in his family life to the historic end of a 70-year reign.
“Important figures in our lives, when they die, leave a void … a hole in our lives,” he said in an interview earlier this week.
Edwards says he will attend the funeral with a sense of gratitude for the monarch’s life and will likely think about his 1998 meeting with her when he was part of a church group invited to the palace.
“I haven’t met any other monarch. It’s a sad day,” he said.  “She clearly fulfilled her role and her promise to fulfill her duty as queen. In many ways, she was kind of liberated.”
As bishop, he says he expects a simple Church of England funeral, but the service will also represent a symbolic change in church leadership, as King Charles has assumed the role of supreme ruler.
Edwards said he sees the funeral as a healthy exercise for Canadians who often tend to avoid death and mourning.  “It gives people permission to grieve in their lives… We need the whole society to learn how to grieve better,” he said.
Maggie Archibald, 28, a Halifax resident who works for a high-tech industry association, says she will wake up before breakfast to watch the event and will also remember meeting the Queen.
Her encounter came three years ago after she and her sister were chosen to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace.  “She was thoughtful and witty during our four-minute conversation,” Archibald said of the queen. 
“That way I will be able to remember her and grieve along with many others who will stand up and watch.”
The Queen’s coffin was flown from Scotland’s Balmoral Castle to Edinburgh on September 11 and flown to London on Tuesday.  The funeral will be held at 11am local time on Monday in London at Westminster Abbey.
But while some Canadians plan their day around the event, many others have no intention of attending and the day will be like any other.
William Wright, a 20-year-old filmmaker in Charlottetown, said in an interview that he doesn’t dislike the queen or the monarchy, but he doesn’t feel drawn to the funeral ceremony that will unfold.
“I just don’t feel strongly connected to it,” he said.  “It’s not an important part of my life.”
A poll taken last week shows that while many Canadians plan to attend the funeral, the vast majority have not been personally affected by the queen’s death and feel no connection to the monarchy.
The poll by Leger and the Canadian Studies Association found that 77 per cent of respondents said they felt no attachment to the British monarchy.  That compared to 19 percent who did and 4 percent who didn’t know or preferred not to answer.
The results were based on an online survey of 1,565 Canadians between September 9 and 11.  They cannot be assigned a margin of error because internet-based polls are not considered random samples.
Jamie Bradley, who is the Atlantic director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, says that while the queen’s death saddens him, the funeral is an event for another nation to miss.
The 61-year-old baker, who lives in Halifax, said: “I’m not that interested in the funeral of a foreign monarch. She was the Queen of Canada, but the pomp and circumstance will be the UK – the subject, which has very little thought about Canada”.
David Johnson, a political science professor at Cape Breton University who wrote a book titled “Battle Royal: Monarchists vs. Republicans and the Crown of Canada,” said the funeral is nevertheless a historical moment he feels compelled to observe.
The professor said he would attend the ceremony.  “How many times do we get to see the funeral of a monarch who has passed away? It’s a piece of history. It’s an opportunity to show respect for the person, the monarch, who has passed,” he said.
She expects to experience a mixture of sadness and gratitude for her life.  “She is arguably the greatest British and Canadian monarch who ever lived,” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on September 17, 2022.
— With files from Hina Alam in Fredericton.