A Crown of Questions
In 1964, the Irish-born Michael McAteer moved to Canada, where he began a long and distinguished career as a writer for the Toronto Star. By 2013, he was keen to become a Canadian citizen, save for one huge obstacle. The barrier was an existential one — an issue of principle that he was not prepared to overlook. Having met all the required residency criteria, criminal background checks, and knowledge-of-Canada tests, he faced one last procedural step: swearing allegiance to the Queen. The Canadian Citizenship Act, 1985, obligates all permanent residents of Canada over the age of fourteen years wishing to become Canadian citizens to make the following declaration:
I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.[1]
Michael McAteer refused to make this oath of allegiance, stressing that to do so under the compulsion of law would violate his individual rights. As a republican of Irish heritage opposed to the monarchy, he believed the oath violated his freedom of conscience and expression. He argued that “taking an oath to an hereditary monarch who lives abroad would violate my conscience, be a betrayal of my republican heritage, and impede my activities in support of ending the monarchy in Canada.”[2]
Girded with his strength of conviction, McAteer joined forces in July 2013 with two other would-be Canadians, Simone Topey and Dror Bar-Natan, who also had issues respecting the oath. They filed a joint legal application in the Ontario Superior Court, arguing that being compelled to make this oath to the Queen as a requirement of gaining citizenship was an unconstitutional violation of their rights to freedom of expression and religion guaranteed to all citizens and persons subject to Canadian law as guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Mr. McAteer wrote in his deposition that the oath perpetuates a class system, with the monarchy being “anachronistic” and “discriminatory,” and inconsistent with his beliefs in “egalitarianism” and “democracy.” Simone Topey, a Rastafarian, asserted that she regarded the Queen as the head of Babylon, and to be compelled to make any kind of oath to Elizabeth II would “deeply violate her religious belief.” In a similar fashion, Mr. Bar-Natan, an immigrant from Israel, called the oath “repulsive,” due to his belief that the Queen is a symbol of a class system perpetuating inequality.[3]
These litigants were not alone in their rejection of swearing an oath of fealty to the Queen. Many individuals have looked sceptically at the practice, finding it a little odd, maybe even silly, and sometimes deeply offensive. Charles Pascal, writing in the Toronto Star in 2011, had this to say about his experience becoming a new Canadian:
I will soon celebrate the 40th anniversary of my cherished Canadian citizenship. I remember so clearly the meeting in the office of the Quebec judge who posed my skill-testing question. “Ottawa is the capital of Canada,” I answered. He then asked if I would swear an oath to the Queen. “Sure, I guess, if it’s necessary,” I said. “Play along with it, that’s what we do in Quebec,” the judge smiled.[4]
In their first attempt to eliminate the oath to the Queen in 2013, the plaintiffs in the McAteer case saw their claim dismissed. While the oath does appear to infringe upon the right to free expression in the Charter, the court ruled, it does so minimally, whereas the Citizenship Act promotes the valid objective of requiring new citizens to swear or affirm their allegiance to the country’s constitutional structure. Having been rebuffed the first time, the plaintiffs appealed this decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal, where, on August 13, 2014, they lost once again in a unanimous three-judge decision authored by Madam Justice Karen Weiler. In a detailed judgment, this court sided with the arguments presented by legal counsel for the government of Canada. Justice Weiler found that the plaintiffs were adopting a far too literal approach to the oath, failing to distinguish between the Queen as a person and the Queen as head of state. In calling upon prospective citizens to swear an oath to the Queen, the Citizenship Act compels an action that “is an oath to our form of government, as symbolized by the Queen as the apex of our Canadian parliamentary system of constitutional monarchy.” Given this broad interpretation, the appeal judges found that the oath in no way violated any of the plaintiffs’ freedoms of expression or religion in that the oath, properly understood, was simply a symbolic affirmation of loyalty to the Canadian constitution and system of government. After taking the oath, the new citizens would be free to express their disapproval of the monarchy if they so wished and to freely follow their religious beliefs.[5] The oath of allegiance was thus upheld as being fully constitutional, with this upper court overturning the contention that the oath slightly violated the Charter; all applicants for Canadian citizenship were clearly informed that making such an oath was a mandatory precondition for gaining that title.
Needless to say, none of the plaintiffs were happy with this outcome. “It’s an insult to my integrity,” Mr. McAteer told the press, “to take an oath that I don’t believe a word of … I am puzzled that members of the legal profession that sit on the judges’ bench would even suggest that.”[6] Legal counsel for the plaintiffs sought to appeal this case to the Supreme Court of Canada, but, on February 26, 2015, this court refused to hear the case, letting the Ontario Court of Appeal decision stand as the valid statement of law regarding the necessity of the oath of allegiance.
Public response to this widely publicized case revealed Canadians to be divided on this legal outcome. Many expressed support for the court’s decision, stressing that immigrants must be expected to abide by Canadian laws and traditions, and should not be the ones seeking to change these legal obligations. Many others, however, argued that requiring would-be citizens to make an oath to a “foreign” Queen was embarrassing to Canada, highlighting why Canadians need to abolish the monarchy and bring the Canadian constitution up to date with modern liberal democracies.
On November 30, 2015, Dror Bar-Natan finally made history the way he wanted to. On that day he took part in a citizenship ceremony in Toronto, standing before a citizenship judge and swearing true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II. No sooner had the judge proclaimed him a Canadian citizen, however, than Mr. Bar-Natan publicly recanted the “royalty part” of the oath, affirming that his loyalty was to Canada, not to the Queen. In speaking to the media after this much-publicized event, Mr. Bar-Natan likened the oath to something “comparable to hazing, the fact that you are required to stand up and express views that are opposite to yours. I don’t think it is part of Canada to impose political speech on others. To impose opinions on others.”[7]
This legal saga is revealing; it speaks about more than just the ceremony of becoming a Canadian citizen and the mandatory oath that must be a part of this act. To many people living in this country, citizens and non-citizens alike, the monarchy is a sharp bone of contention. It is viewed as elitist and anti-democratic, an embarrassing reminder of our former colonial status and of the worst features of the racist British Empire. The monarchy is also reminiscent, to its critics, of class discrimination and inequality, where some people reign over others by pure accident of birth, while the rest are mere subjects to their authority. No Canadian, by definition, can ever rise to become Canada’s head of state because that position is given, by law, to the head of an aristocratic English family, the House of Windsor.
But to others, the monarchy resonates with symbolism, history, and nobility. As the Canadian courts have affirmed, the Queen is more than just a person. She is the living embodiment of the Canadian state and our constitution. She is a manifestation of the Canadian political and legal order. As such, when an individual pledges his or her allegiance, that new citizen is expressing loyalty and fidelity to all of Canada, its laws and political system, and its people. The Queen is also a living connection to our history of constitutional development and the slow but steady evolution of responsible government and parliamentary democracy, of which the institution of the monarchy is a vital part. The Crown now stands, to its defenders, as a role model promoting a new nobility of spirit: the virtues of community service, of charitable undertakings, of duty to others before self, and of building the bonds of mutual togetherness and concern that tie a society together. This nobility shows individuals that society is greater than the sum of its parts, that we are all members of the same national family, that we share a common heritage as well as a future life together, and that we touch the better angels of our being when we help one another.
No wonder so many Canadians are passionate about the monarchy. Whether they are for it or against it, the monarchy is very much about symbols and history: how we view the past, which traditions we hold dear and which ones we would like to dispense with, and what principles define us. We live in a democratic era where the values of democracy, equality, meritocracy, and accountability are central to political life. Yet we also live in a constitutional monarchy where we have a hereditary head of state, represented in Canada by an appointed governor general and ten provincial lieutenant governors, with the Queen, to this day, legally holding full executive authority in and over Canada in her hands. In other words, we live in a country where people are puzzled and divided over the status of the monarchy, debating what it says about us, whether it is a benefit or a detriment to our political and social life and to our identity as citizens, and whether it should be preserved or abolished.
On June 2, 1953, in Westminster Abbey, the twenty-six-year-old Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, as well as of her other realms, including Canada. At the end of the hours-long coronation ceremony, as Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher placed the five-pound, solid-gold, precious stone–encrusted St. Edward’s Crown on her head, he addressed the Queen as well as the 7,500 members of the congregation and the millions watching on television: “God crown you with a crown of glory and righteousness.”[8] To monarchists then and now, her crown was — and still is — one of glory. She is the heir to a line of monarchs in British and English history stretching back over a thousand years. She is a descendant of William I, the Conqueror, who was the first English king crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. She is the head of state of the United Kingdom, Canada, and fifteen other member states of the Commonwealth. She is the head of the Commonwealth, and she is the supreme governor of the Church of England. She is the personification of the states over which she reigns, and she is the guardian of their constitutions. She is a manifestation of their political and constitutional evolution, and, as of September 9, 2015, she became the longest reigning monarch in English, British, and Commonwealth history, eclipsing the sixty-three year reign of Victoria. To monarchists, this is glory indeed. As of 2017, thirteen British prime ministers have served under Elizabeth II, the first one being Winston Churchill, while twelve Canadian prime ministers have held this honour, starting with Louis St. Laurent.
When Elizabeth II ascended the throne in 1952 (her coronation came over a year after the death of her father, George VI), she and all her subjects were still very much living in an age of deference. The monarchy was accepted as part of the natural order of things within the British Commonwealth and the still existing British Empire. The monarch was understood to play an important ceremonial role as head of state in her realms. Members of the royal family, moreover, were largely held in awe, respected as role models of class and devotion, duty and courage for all the Queen’s subjects. By the 1960s, however, seeds of dissent were being planted. Social attitudes to power, authority, and privilege were changing throughout the Commonwealth, the Empire, and the broader Western world. The age of deference gave way to an age of increasing scepticism and cynicism, marked by the questioning of authority and privilege; calls for greater democratization, egalitarianism, and meritocracy; and demands for greater transparency and accountability of all those in public life. This enduring age of accountability has presented formidable challenges to the monarchy. It has come under intense media scrutiny, and the members of the royal family have become ripe fodder for tabloid journalism. Arguably, no royal was as exalted or treated so wickedly by the tabloid press as Diana, Princess of Wales. While at one time, and for centuries, the royals were held in venerable rapture by many of their subjects, by the 1970s and 1980s they had become the stuff of comedy and ridicule, made famous by British television’s Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Spitting Image.
The comedy, however, was just a symptom of a growing problem for the royals and the institution of the monarchy. Not only were people beginning to laugh at and about the royal family — although the Queen always tended to be above the fray — they were also beginning to wonder about the monarchy’s legitimacy and value. In Australia, Canada, and some of the other Commonwealth realms, the countries continuing to recognize the reigning British monarch as their head of state, and even in Britain itself, the crown of glory was becoming a crown of questions. Is a hereditary monarchy consistent with a modern liberal democracy? Does the monarchy actually perpetuate the worst aspects of the British class system, with individual achievement taking a backseat to birthright? Does the system of privilege, wealth, and inherited status found within the monarchy contradict the political values of equality, individual initiative, and social fairness found in all these countries? In Canada the questions kept coming. Is it not odd, even insulting, that a Canadian can never aspire, no matter how talented and respected, to be Canada’s head of state? Does the continuation of the monarchy not indicate to Canadians and, indeed, to the whole world that Canada’s political development is stunted and that Canadians are incapable of making a clean break from their former colonial status within an Empire notorious for its racism and abuse of human rights?
These deep questions lead to more specific issues. What do the Queen, the governor general, and the lieutenant governors actually do? Do they possess any real powers or are they merely expensive figureheads, easily discarded? And finally, do Canadians really want to see Prince Charles become Canada’s head of state when his mother passes away? Is it time to put an end to this constitutional anachronism and simply abolish the monarchy in this country, allowing for a Canadian to be selected or elected as our head of state? Is it not time for Canada to become, like most modern countries, a constitutional republic? These questions, and the search for their answers, form the heart of Battle Royal.