Thursday, November 10, 2011

It's Time to Rethink the Monarchy's Role in Canada

At the upcoming Liberal convention in January, one resolution being brought forward is 114: Canadian Identity in the 21st Century.

The resolution sets out to define Canadian sovereignty, independent of the British Royal Family.

They bring up some very interesting points, many that I was not aware of.
WHEREAS Canadians believe in earning one’s position in life and not being simply born into privilege;

WHEREAS our head of state should be a true representative of the People of Canada;

WHEREAS Canada prides itself in being a democratic nation, with democratic institutions;

WHEREAS foreign law bars individuals not of the Anglican faith from rising to the position of head of state of Canada;

WHEREAS Canada’s head of state should conform to Canadian laws of gender and religious equality represented in the Charter of Rights and Freedom;

WHEREAS Canadians pay more to maintain the monarchy than the British;

WHEREAS an unelected individual can and is prepared to supersede the will of the Parliament;

BE IT RESOLVED that the Liberal Party of Canada, urge the Parliament of Canada to form an all party committee to study the implementation of instituting a Canadian head of state popularly elected and sever formal ties with the British Crown.
The timing of this resolution is important, because there is a group of individuals, committed to reaffirming our ties to the British Crown.  They are behind the renaming of our navy to the Royal Canadian Navy, antiquated and misleading.  We are no longer part of the British military, nor do we have a monarch, despite what Stephen Harper thinks or would like.

One of my readers contacted me about doing a piece on this now influential Monarchist League.  They are in the news quite a bit, no doubt behind Rob Ford's musings about putting the Queen's picture back in public buildings.  They are also pushing to have another patch added to our ugly Olympic uniforms, that look like those worn by Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.

The patch would be to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's 60 year reign.

That should be up to the Brits to decide whether or not to put it on their uniforms.  It has no place on ours.

I've been doing a bit of digging and so far what I've learned of this Monarchist League is quite troubling, so I will be posting some info soon.

Don't get me wrong.  Most of the rank and file are just people who like the nostalgia.  However, there is an agenda.  Not one that most Canadians would support.

I hope the resolution passes, but more importantly that it raises awareness to the archaic ties to a family that we pay more to support than the country where the family hails.  They are wealthy enough.  They don't need us.

Time to re-share my favourite video, representing the Canada we knew and loved, before Stephen Harper got his hands on it.

[Song & video produced by Julia Bentley & Andrew Gunadie]

7 comments:

  1. My friend, Sam, came up with a good quote: "A monarchy has no place in a nation dedicated to the principles of democracy and the equal rights of all persons"

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  2. I am not a monarchist but, as the Queen/King is our only defense against SH making himself dictator-for-life, let's keep things the way they are.

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  3. On the contrary, rawaonca, the Queen/King actually happens to be a dictator-for-life, since they aren't elected yet hold power over this "country". Why should any power be held in the hands of someone unelected to begin with?

    You know when Prince Charles becomes King? When the Old Hen of England dies!

    What you have said couldn't be more oxymoronic or stupid!

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  4. @mikailus
    What I said was neither oxymoronic or stupid.
    The Monarch has no say in Canadian affairs. However, if SH goes too far and pisses off too many of us we can ask her to dissolve Parliament and she will.

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  5. I think its good for this to be discussed, considering that we have the Conservatives pushing a heavily monarchist agenda, and I'm more moderate. However, I'd like to point out one problem with the argument against the monarchy: the fact that it costs us more per capita than it does the UK.

    Now, I take issue with this, because it isn't like we're sending cheques to Buckingham palace. What the money pays for actually has very little to do with the monarchy. It pays for our honours system. It pays for heritage sites (official residences), which are still used by our viceroys (and some government departments), but would cost us still if they were vacant. It pays for a lovely park in Ottawa. It pays for state visits and diplomatic functions, which surely you aren't suggesting we should do away with (unless you *want* to be isolated in the world).

    The reason we pay more isn't some submissiveness to monarchic rule. It's because we are a federation, while the UK is a unitary state. We have to pay for 11 governments, they pay for one. Removing the monarchy would have very little effect on these costs, since whatever we put in the monarchy's place would have the same costs.

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  6. The arguments about cost of the monarchy are simple: We pay to bring the Royals over to visit us. We pay when the Royals "acts on behalf" of Canada.

    The costs of the Government, parks, residences, etc... are not relavant to the discussion.

    Why do we need to pay to have basically two heads of state, one that does the job, is a Canadian, our GG; and another one who has very little to do with the job, lives in another country, is not a Canadian, the Monarch.

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  7. "WHEREAS Canadians believe in earning one’s position in life and not being simply born into privilege;"

    And yet we grant citizenship (and all its attendant rights) to newborns and allow sons and daughters to inherit their parent's property. Like it or not, being born in Canada DOES mean being born into privilege. But lets look at what upholding elected presidents means. It means placing a person with a very specific set of skills at the top. Skill sets that may not be possessed by everyone (I, for one, am a terrible public speaker) who might seek to win an election. The monarchy provides no guarantee that the person at the top will have those skills. We've had a stutterer in the past and the future holds an unpopular nerd. But still they do the job to the best of their ability. Far from emphasizing inequality the monarchy, by its selection based on accident of birth, reaffirms that no matter your skills you can still contribute to your country (and do a good job of it too).

    "WHEREAS our head of state should be a true representative of the People of Canada;"

    And what is that exactly? I'm sure your conception of a 'true' representative of Canada is different than mine and both of ours is different than Harper's. And so on and so forth.

    "WHEREAS Canada prides itself in being a democratic nation, with democratic institutions;"

    Of which the monarchy is a part.

    "WHEREAS foreign law bars individuals not of the Anglican faith from rising to the position of head of state of Canada;"

    I'm sure this will be worked out in the fullness of time. Although as a matter of interest it was actually a Parliament that imposed this on the monarch. You might argue the monarchy is the victim here.

    "WHEREAS Canada’s head of state should conform to Canadian laws of gender and religious equality represented in the Charter of Rights and Freedom;"

    Done.

    "WHEREAS Canadians pay more to maintain the monarchy than the British;"

    This is a function of federalism. We pay more for all aspects of our government (executive, legislative, judicial).

    "WHEREAS an unelected individual can and is prepared to supersede the will of the Parliament;"

    What if I told you there was an entire cabal of them? And they in fact HAVE overridden the will of Parliament? I am of course referring to the Supreme Court which does on occasion override laws. This is neither controversial nor unwelcome as sometimes Parliament gets out of line. I don't see much in the way of calls to elect them however.

    "and sever formal ties with the British Crown."

    I'm not even going to get into why this is wrong.

    "The timing of this resolution is important, because there is a group of individuals, committed to reaffirming our ties to the British Crown."

    No such group exists. Perhaps you mean a group trying to reaffirm the Canadian Crown?

    "nor do we have a monarch"

    Ignoring reality isn't going to change reality (although at the quantum level...No! Stay focused).

    Now let's go in a different direction. Monarchies have been becoming republics for years without any concrete evidence republics are a better form of government. It took them two hundred years but academic research is finally being done comparing them. I write a continuing series of articles on this research. Feel free to better inform yourself:
    http://maplemonarchists.weebly.com/blog/the-academic-study-of-monarchy
    http://maplemonarchists.weebly.com/blog/crowned-democracy-an-update-on-the-state-of-academic-research-on-monarchy
    http://maplemonarchists.weebly.com/blog/we-must-go-deeper-an-update-on-the-state-of-academic-research-on-monarchy

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