Prince William – The Concordian

Student Miranda Benoit had the chance to meet with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to discuss mental health

Nineteen student leaders from Jack.org, Canada’s only national network of young leaders working to end the stigma of mental health, met with The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on Oct. 1. Concordia student Miranda Benoit was one of them.

Benoit, 22, recently moved here from Newfoundland to start her masters degree in psychology. Growing up in a stigma-free environment, she said she was encouraged to talk about mental health. However, she noticed many people around her did not have the same type of environment growing up—so she joined Jack.org. “Jack.org was a wonderful way for me to advocate that other people should also have that right,” Benoit said.

During her studies at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Benoit found the Jack.org chapter of Grenfell Campus. She is now a volunteer at the Concordia chapter. It was her active involvement with the organization that got her an invitation to meet Their Royal Highnesses.

“It was very exciting,” she said about being given the opportunity. “I think it was a little bit of luck and hard work mixed together.”

Before meeting royalty, the group of nineteen students had to practice their formalities when it came time to meet Their Royal Highnesses. “Some of us met in Toronto for a training on how to address them, and also the safety of being on a boat since we were going to sail one with them,” Benoit said.

While in Toronto, the students also helped organize the upcoming Jack.org Summit that will be hosted there this spring.

When the group landed in Victoria, Benoit said she was nervous, but in the best possible way. “I think it’s huge to have people that are so well-known, with such big following, advocate mental health, she said. “[It] really puts the topic on the big stage.”

Their Royal Highnesses are active advocates themselves, she said. The Duke and Duchess are very much involved with the United Kingdom’s mental health organization called “Heads Together,” which aims to change the national conversation on mental health and wellbeing and provide vital assistance for people struggling with mental illness.

“Based on the interactions, they seemed much more interested in learning from us—to understand what our perspective on mental health was,” said Benoit.

The students and their guests of honour were on the boat for an hour. Benoit said The Duke and the Duchess were down to earth as they were taking time with each students to learn from them.

Now that Benoit is back in Montreal, she’s excited to take on the new projects that the Concordia chapter has in store. Their next big event is participating in the Mental Health Walk, organized by Montreal Walks for Mental Health Foundation, a four kilometer walk to help raise public awareness about mental health and eliminate stigma and discrimination towards people living with mental illness. For more information, visit www.mtlwalks.com.

Ever since Prince William married Kate Middleton, the world has been abuzz about a new member to the royal family. For those of us less inclined to gossip, all this fuss over the “royal baby bump” can get pretty annoying.

But on the political stage, this little fetus is bringing up a big debate. For over 600 years, the laws of succession for the British Crown have remained unchanged. Until now.

Last December, about a week after Buckingham Palace officially announced the Duchess of Cambridge was with child, the government tabled a bill to stop the practice of giving males priority in line for the throne—and they’re asking every Commonwealth country to do the same. This would mean that should Prince William’s child be a girl, she would not be displaced if their second child was a boy.

Bill C-53, also known as the Succession to the Throne Act of 2013, has already passed through Canada’s House of Commons and is pending approval in the Senate. In Britain, it too passed swiftly through the House, but has stagnated in their upper chamber, known as the House of Lords.

In total, 16 countries have to make the constitutional changes in order for them to work in tandem. However, in at least one country, the changes are being met with resistance: Australia has a vocal conservative movement and the bill may need to be put to a vote in a national referendum.

Australian constitutional expert Anne Twomey said that “Queensland has objected to the Commonwealth’s proposed legislation, not because it objects to the potential outcome in relation to royal succession, but because it is concerned that such a law will subordinate the State Crown to Commonwealth control.”

The implications of Australia, or any other country in the Commonwealth, failing to pass the bill could have negative effects. Should a second baby be born a boy, it would mean two countries could acknowledge a different successor to the throne.

“If they don’t pass [the succession bill], there are two options,” explained Yukub Halabi, a professor of Political Science at Concordia University. “The first is that they agree on common ground. The second, if they really can’t agree, is dissolution of the Commonwealth, or that one country would leave.”

“However, it’s not really a valid possibility,” added Halabi. “It’s very unlikely that they’ll recognize two separate monarchs.”

In addition to those skeptical that the bill won’t pass, there are many who think the entire debate is unnecessary.

“There’s really no significance to it,” said Julie Michaud, administrator for the Concordia-based 2110 Centre for Gender Advocacy. “Symbolic gender equality in an unequal system doesn’t do anything for women all over the world. We should be focusing on striving for equality for all women, not just in small circles in the ruling class. I think it says something about the world that we still have symbolic, inherited power: a small family sponging off the state is unacceptable in any way.”

More importantly, why do we care so much about this in the first place? The British monarchy hasn’t held any actual power in almost a century. Whether one of them has the newest handbag or what they’re wearing as a Halloween costume, they repeatedly make headline news. For a group of people who have no talents, no legal authority, no realistic claim to power, there’s a disproportionately high amount of people who care about what toothbrush they use. Is our generation so obsessed with the idea of a Cinderella story that we’ve completely lost touch with reality?

“We have an assumption that just because something is traditional, that it’s worth protecting,” said Michaud. “What would have become of the civil rights movement then?”

Ultimately, if there’s only one thing that’s clear, it’s this: baby fever never sets on the British Empire.