As I said earlier, even the presidency or elections have several rounds and are for 5-10 years. The step that will change country for decades is more simple than that, that is just strange.
England had territories all over the world, that is not ruling the world. Many European countries had territories as well, Spanish would won this contest, I would say.
Thousand years? You sure?
But England can do whatever they want, I just said that it is strange that less important things have more control mechanisms than the more important things. Thats all, no need to quarrel.
You obviously have not taken much world history. Have you never heard of "The sun never sets on the British Empire?"
I grew up in a classroom with a world map full of pink. A huge amount of pink. Pink was every place that was a part of the British Empire, which later became the Commonwealth.
Canada was never a "territory" of Britain. We started as a colony, which means that we gave a lot of raw material to England. Which they paid for. And they helped us with military and defense, laws (until 1982, our laws basically had to be approved by England. At that point, our constitution was repatriated, by Trudeau Sr.) Since then we have been a country ruled by the judiciary, as opposed to a democracy, which Britain respected. Until just before Confederation, Canadians traveled freely to Britain as British subjects. Think an earlier EU, but with much tighter bonds and respect.
We still have the Queen as head of state, although other than some royal visits by various members of the Royal family, the ties are more historical, and certainly not business.
But, we got an excellent start as a nation because of our ties to Britain, and many Canadians, including myself have British ancestors.
No, Canada was never a territory. And neither were most of the other major countries of the Commonwealth. I am very excited about Britain leaving the EU. It is a concept which was doomed for failure. I read Merkel, the German Chancellor believes that the EU is the only thing that stops major wars in Europe. What a joke! We have bigger fish to worry about in the world pond, when it comes to war, than historical countries in Europe.