The Canadian response in the days following the death of Queen Elizabeth II might best be characterized as one of ambivalence. Which is to say: as political elites have engaged in a rather strained, week-long official mourning, average citizens have mostly responded with something resembling a collective shrug. Unlike Australia, which in 1999 held a referendum that only narrowly voted to maintain ties with the monarchy, Canada has never had a strong republican movement. On the other hand, aside from a few particularly embarrassing characters on social media and a weird monarchist strain running through the Conservative Party, the opposing position isn’t passionately held either — the result being that the issue has rarely been discussed or debated.

That debate, to put it mildly, is long overdue. And, as newly published polling would seem to suggest, Canadians’ general ambivalence may in fact be crystallizing into something a bit more clearly defined. Like most public opinion polls, the data freshly released by Ipsos has its share of ambiguity. Eight in ten respondents, for example, believe that Queen Elizabeth II “did a good job in her role as monarch” while a much narrower majority of 56 percent expressed their confidence that “King Charles III will do a good job in his role as monarch.” The study’s top-line finding, however, is still striking:

Roughly half (54%) agree (20% strongly/33% somewhat) that now that Queen Elizabeth II’s reign has ended, Canada should end its formal ties to the British monarchy. This sentiment is down 5 points from 2021, but up from 44% in 2011.