Is the pandemic killing the idea of the Commonwealth?

When Harry and Meghan went on U.S. television this month, Canada and other Commonwealth countries went through another short-lived debate about whether to move on from the British royal connection.

But the COVID-19 pandemic may beraisingeven more pointedquestions about the relevance of the institution that succeededthe British Empire.

Oprah Winfrey's interview, whichaired on March 7, certainly captured more attention than Queen Elizabeth II's annual speech to the Commonwealth, delivered on the same day. The theme of that speechwas the "spirit of unity" in the face of the pandemic."I hope we shall maintain this renewed sense of closeness and community," she said.

A "Commonwealth Statement on COVID-19" issued in the name of all 54 heads of government made particular mention of "Small Island Developing States":

"As Commonwealth partners, we must make a concerted effort, consistent with national capability, to find solutions to overcome these challenges, including ... providing equitable access to essential medicines."

Indeed, the idea of solidarity is evoked by theword"commonwealth," which Merriam-Webster defines as a political unit "united by compact or tacit agreement of the people for the common good."

But there's a large gap between the language of Commonwealth solidarity and the reality.

Republic to the rescue

When a public health nurse became the first person in Jamaicato receive a COVID vaccinethis month, her shot was a gift not from the U.K.but from a republic that had once been a British colonyitself.

India'sdonation of 50,000doses was "the best news I've heard in a very long time," said Jamaica's Health Minister Dr. Christopher Tufton.

Barbados's PM Mia Mottleyalso had IndianPM Narendra Modito thank for what she called "his quick, decisiveand magnanimous action" after her country received 100,000 free doses.

Afterhe heard that70,000 doses were on their way from India,Dominica's PM Roosevelt Skerritsaid that he"did not imagine that the prayers of my country would be answered so swiftly."

Barbados and Dominica promptly sent some of the vaccines they'd received to Guyana and Saint Lucia.

India has vaccinated fewer than 2 per cent of its own peopleand now faces arise in infectionsthat has forced it to curb its generosity.

On a per capita basis, the U.K. is twenty times as wealthy as India and has vaccinated twenty times as many of its citizens the highest percentage of any large nation. ButIndia is the countrysharingvaccines with Britain's former colonies in the Caribbean.

The Commonwealth was an attempt to create something that would live on after the slow implosion of the British Empire that began with Ireland's War of Independence in 1921 and continues a century later with the more peaceful transformation of Barbados into a republic, scheduled to happen by November2021.

The Commonwealthwas created in 1931, the same year Canada gained more or less full legal autonomy from the United Kingdom.

Although it includes 54 countries, only a core group of 16 "Commonwealth realms" still recognize Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state: Canada,Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and, of course, the U.K.itself.

Generous, but in other ways

It's not that Britain has been ungenerous.In recent years, it's been the most generous supporter of GAVI, the international vaccine alliancenow leading the COVAX initiative to provide vaccines to poorer countries.

"The COVAX Advance Market Commitment is the global mechanism to help developing countries, including qualifying Commonwealth countries, access a coronavirus vaccine,"Tom Walsh of the British High Commission in Ottawa told CBC News.

"The U.K. is leading efforts for global equitable access to COVID vaccines and treatments.The U.K. is working closely with multilateral institutions such as the UN, G7, G20, and with WHO and international partners such as CEPI and Gavi,to ensure developing countries can access COVID-19 vaccines, treatments and tests."

The Commonwealth isa multilateral institution of 54 nations.But it's no longer the institutionthrough whichBritainconducts its most important business nor does Londonfeel particularly beholden to Commonwealth nations when it comes to vaccines.

Membership may or may not have its privileges

At least one former European colonial power did choose to help its old colonies. Portugalisdonating5 per centof the doses it receives under the EU'svaccine-sharing scheme to its former colonies in Africa and East Timor. It made that decision even though those countries declaredindependencedecades ago and there is no Portuguese versionof the Commonwealth.

New Guinea was a colony ofAustralia(not Britain) from 1906 until 1975. When COVID hitfully independent Papua New Guinea, Australiasent vaccines it had acquired in Europeand promised to send more.

"They're our family, they're our friends,they're our neighbours, they're our partners," saidAustralian Prime MinisterScott Morrison.

Something similar happened inself-governing Caribbean island countries that were once Dutch colonies, and that still recognize King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands as their head of state. Sint Maarten, Aruba and Curacao have receiveda considerable amount of supportfrom the Dutch during the pandemic, including large shipments of the Pfizer vaccine.

(The three islands are neithercolonies norfully independent UN members. Theyare considered separate countries but constituent parts of a multinational Kingdom ofthe Netherlands that is a much closer association than theCommonwealth.)

Some Caribbean islands chose to remain full-on colonies of Britain, including the Caymans, the Turks and Caicos and Bermuda, and they have received vaccines from the U.K. with great generosity.

On March 10, Martyn Roper, the British governor of the Caymans, announced on his Facebook page that "by early May, all those over the age of 16 who want to be vaccinated could have received their second dose."

But if being a colony during a pandemic has its advantages, mere membership in the Commonwealth doesn't appear to come withany perks at all.

No reason to ask

Perhaps there is no clearer sign of the fading relevance of the Commonwealth than the fact that Britain didn'toffer to share vaccines with its sister nations andthose nations also didn't bother to ask.

The office of Public Services and Procurement MinisterAnita Anand the minister charged with bringingvaccines to Canada told CBC Newsit's their "understanding that the vaccines produced in the United Kingdom have been, and continue to be, intended for the U.K. population."

Instead, Canada turned for help to the republic next door the countrythat Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls "our nearest ally and closest friend."

And that friend obliged, although the United States has vaccinated a much lower shareof its population than the U.K.

"It's just wonderful that we're able to come to an arrangement for 1.5 million doses coming into this country before the end of March," Anand told CBC News.

And so Canadians will receive a solidarity boost of British vaccine thanks to their American cousins.