Canucks want Royals to spend their own bucks

You know that old saying about fences making good neighbours. Well, paying your own way makes good neighbours, too.

Look, I don’t care where Harry and Megs want to live.

They can go to Victoria, B.C., New Waterford, Cape Breton, or Timbuktu. And I say good for them. They should live their lives however they wish, and if that means dropping the proverbial stink bomb into persnickety royal protocols and forging a new and modern royal role, then great.

I like the initiative, the Megxit as one of the British tabloids has labelled it, and not — I gather — with a sense of kindness or fun. But here’s the thing, Harry and

Megs: pay your own way.

I’d welcome the Duke and Duchess of Sussex here. And that’s not because I’m a royalist. It’s because I’m Canadian. We welcome others to our country and last week we had the very happy occasion of a citizenship ceremony in which people like Tareq Hadhad — who came here from Syria and started the Peace by Chocolate business — became one of us.

I understand that the Sussexes have extra security costs, the Sussexes being who they are. But we are not going to pay — at least if I have anything to say about it.

And I’m not alone. According to that Angus Reid poll released this week, 73 per cent of Canadians do not want to pay for the Royal couple’s security. If this were an official tour of senior Royals, then yes, we would take one for the Commonwealth team and pitch in with security costs. Whether you agree with it or not, they represent a family that produces our heads of state.

But if they come here, it will not be in an official capacity. They want to bust out of that gilded cage and live here independently as private citizens. They want to get away from the hornet’s nest of unrelenting scrutiny, judgment and tabloid racism.

Some — but not all — of that scrutiny comes from the deepseated resentment many British taxpayers feel about paying millions of pounds a year to support wealthy Royals.

It is a great compliment to

Canada that Harry and Megs have chosen here as a place where they believe they can escape that somewhat.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call them Royal refugees and make a grossly inappropriate comparison to Syrians like Hadhad who have escaped unspeakable horrors to make Canada their home. But in some ways, you could say they are taking refuge here. And we can certainly open our arms to them and give them the privacy they crave.

But we are not going to pay for them. We know they are loaded — their combined wealth makes them multimillionaires. They are richer than most Canadians could ever dream of.

Showing up here with that kind of dosh and asking us to pay their way would be like rich cousins from the U.K. coming to stay and asking their hosts to pay their taxis, babysitters and rental costs.

It wouldn’t be long before the welcome was overstayed and there would be under-the-breath whispers about freeloading, and the guests having deep pockets and short arms.

That would soon lead to resentment, judgment and eyeball rolling. This is the last thing Harry and Megs want.

If they aren’t tone-deaf and they choose Canada to live their independent lives, they will muck in like the rest of us to pay their own way.

That is what makes good neighbours.