Canadians greet the coronation with a muted response.

TORONTO — Despite its status as Canada’s head of state, only modest festivities are scheduled this weekend for the coronation of King Charles III in the nation’s capital, Ottawa, and attendance is expected to be much lower than typical for other Canadian public celebrations .

Last May, Charles’ most recent visit to the country attracted little news media attention and hundreds instead of thousands.

When he became king five months later following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, his ascension to the throne in the country was greeted with such a shrug that Mary Simon, the king’s representative to Canada, recently commented on it. interview with the national broadcaster. She also quoted polls of public opinion in which respondents viewed Charles unfavorably.

“We have to give him the chance to show that he is a good leader,” said Ms. Simon, the Governor General of Canada. This weekend, she is part of a delegation from Canada, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several Indigenous leaders, attending the coronation ceremony in London.

At a time when some other Commonwealth countries are considering cutting ties, Canada’s relationship with the British Crown is the subject of recurring public debate. But that fear never matured into rebellion — in part because replacing the monarchy would require a gargantuan effort to amend Canada’s constitution, raising complicated issues regarding the validity of the crown’s treaties with indigenous peoples.

Quebec, originally a francophone colony that Britain conquered in 1763, has taken some steps to reduce the crown’s presence. In December, the province proposed it as optional elected officials take an oath loyalty to the king. But Quebec was also once a stronghold of loyalism to the monarchy, one with a 200-year history of staunch attachment to the crown, said Damien-Claude Bélanger, a history professor at the University of Ottawa who is writing a book on the subject.

Historically, the province’s upper class rallied around the monarchy as a bourgeois, neutral institution that represented stability, he said.

“We’ve had nothing but monarchical continuity in our political system since the early 1700s,” he said, “and that stability means something to some people.”