New citizen takes stand against swearing allegiance to the Queen

Another one:

Srabon Salim loves Canada. The Queen? Not so much.

Immediately after taking the oath during a citizenship ceremony in Prince George on Friday, he presented a letter to the judge announcing he has disavowed his pledge of allegiance to the Queen.

“My core values can’t accept the medieval idea of monarchy in 2016 as it creates social divisions and hereditary hierarchy in social privileges,” Salim says in the letter, which he also sent to John McCallum, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. “I highly regard that every child’s birth is royal for every parent. It is hard for me to regard someone as ‘royal’ simply because he/she was born in a so-called ‘royal’ family. I like to look at my three little boys with a high pride of self esteem that they are socially equal to any other member in this Canadian society.”

A mechanical engineer at Canfor Pulp, Salim, 38, grew up in Bangladesh but has also lived in Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia, the Philippines, the Netherlands and even England before he and his wife, Famina, 32, decided Canada is where they want to settle down.

It was while studying for the citizenship test that he learned he would have to swear allegiance to the Queen.

“We had been looking forward to staying in this country and then this pledge thing,” Salim said in an interview. “It was actually bothering me…I thought that I have to do something about this.”

Source: New citizen takes stand against swearing allegiance to the Queen