the great debate i: republicans vs. the crown
“Certainly, if we were devising a system of government for the twenty-first century, we should not come up with what we have now: The arrangements are antique, undemocratic and illogical.”
— Jeremy Paxman, 2007.
“The Crown is the embodiment of the interests of the whole people, the indispensable centre of the whole parliamentary democratic order, the guardian of the Constitution, ultimately the sole protection of the people if M.P.s or M.L.A.s or ministers forget their duty and try to become masters, not servants.”
— Eugene Forsey, 1974.
An existential question haunts all monarchists. If we could wipe the slate clean and draft new twenty-first century constitutions fully in keeping with the principles of democracy, equality, and accountability, would people agree to a hereditary monarch as their head of state? And would any significant number of people in Canada agree that such a head of state for us should derive from an English aristocratic family? Even in Britain, is it possible to imagine that any substantial number of people would agree to vest the authority, prestige, privilege, and wealth of a hereditary monarchy in the hands of the Windsor family?
Just to ask these questions is to answer them. It is difficult to believe that a majority of people today would ever opt for the existing monarchical system. As British republican Jeremy Paxman asserts, the current system is anti-democratic, elitist, classist, and discriminatory against all those who are neither Anglicans nor Windsors. Reeking of unwarranted privilege, the monarchy to him is an unaccountable, embarrassing, and archaic vestige of an aristocratic, imperialist, and often racist, past, which should have no place in the constitution of a thoroughly modern, open, multicultural, egalitarian, meritocratic, and democratic society.[1] To ardent republicans in the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth realms, a clear alternative presents itself. If the very existence of the British monarchy is so dramatically out of touch with the modern realities of these countries, the people of these lands should act as reasonable and rational citizens, and work toward its abolition. They should strive to replace it with national heads of state who would be truly representative and accountable to the people. Republicans perceive such acts of constitutional reform to be a long-desired and long overdue process of social and political maturation whereby the people thrust off stale and demeaning traditions of inferiority and become, themselves, the true sovereigns of their states.
This description makes the shift to republicanism sound quite easy, and so obvious as to be seemingly indisputable. And yet, constitutional reform of this type is heavily laden with challenges. One such obstacle is the powerful collective voice of monarchists. Just as there are republican movements throughout Britain and the Commonwealth realms, so too are there monarchist organizations. They give voice to those who defend not only the interests and actions of the royal family but also the constitutional order found in the United Kingdom and parts of the Commonwealth. Just as there are myriad arguments against monarchism coming from republican challengers to the constitutional status quo, so too are there many and varied defences raised in favour of monarchy. Defenders of a monarch as head of state in these Commonwealth realms feel compelled to preserve a constitutional order that is both modern and alive while boasting an ancestry of over a thousand years. Canadian journalist and monarchist Andrew Coyne has often claimed that to abolish the monarchy in Canada would be to reject five centuries of monarchical/constitutional tradition in this country. This tradition has seen the country evolve into a modern, liberal, democratic, and multicultural society, committed to the rule of law and the promotion of justice and equality. The history of the Crown in Canada is intimately connected to this process of constitutional and democratic transformation.[2] Far from inhibiting the development of Canadian democracy, the Crown and its representatives have been instrumental in promoting its evolution and acting as its guardian.
Not only is this deeply rooted dispute ongoing, it is also likely to rise in intensity as Elizabeth II’s long reign draws to a close and Charles, Prince of Wales, ascends the throne. Or will he? Will Charles relinquish his right of succession prior to this event, allowing his son, William, to become king, joined by his queen, Catherine, to become the new, younger face of monarchy for the first half of the twenty-first century? Or will Canadians move to abolish the monarchy in this country upon the death of Elizabeth II, severing what republicans here see as the last colonial link to an archaic past and its anachronistic institutions?
Much is at stake in this debate, and it is one that will engulf us as Elizabeth II’s reign comes to its close. The debate is also framed and publicized by well-established interest groups. The leading organization on the loyalist side is the Monarchist League of Canada. Their main opponent is Citizens for a Canadian Republic (CCR). As these two sides have engaged in heated verbal skirmishes with each other for decades, three key types of arguments have come to define the battle lines: constitutional, historical, and personal. The first two — constitutional and historical — very much appeal to the mind, and they are the focus of this chapter; the latter — the personal — resonates much more with the heart, and we will look at it in the following chapter.
The existence of a hereditary monarchy in a modern liberal democracy offends democracy itself. This line of attack has been offered by such critics as Jeremy Paxman, Michael Bliss, and John D. Whyte.[3] One of the core principles of democratic rule is that executive and legislative leaders, including the head of state, should be elected. This principle ensures that leaders become leaders through the consent of the citizenry, that they must retain the consent of the governed if they are to remain as leaders, and that citizens maintain the right to remove leaders in whom they no longer have confidence.
Hereditary monarchy, in principle, contradicts all of these democratic norms. The head of state is not elected, he or she is in no formal way accountable to the elected representatives of the people, and he or she can only be removed from office through extraordinary constitutional manoeuvres. In the circumstances facing Canada, moreover, where the headship of state is vested in the historic royal family of the United Kingdom, the monarchical principle also means, as CCR have said, that “no Canadian citizen can ever aspire to be head of state of our own country.”[4] To republicans, this fact is doubly ironic and disturbing. The head of state is supposed to be the figurehead of the nation and the symbolic head of the Canadian family. He or she is supposed to be someone who represents and promotes all that is good, noble, and virtuous about Canada and Canadians. Yet, given the nature of the monarchy, this person, the Queen, is not a Canadian; she does not reside in Canada; she has not lived the Canadian experience. Unless the monarchy is abolished, no Canadian will ever be able to play this role, because the Act of Settlement, 1701 places the succession firmly in the hands of the English House of Windsor. To republicans, this law is insulting. It undermines the long and hard-fought quest for Canada to be independent from our former colonial master. Far from being a unifying figure, the British monarch serves to divide Canadians between monarchists and republicans, while symbolically telling all Canadians that they are still inferior to this aristocratic English family.
The hereditary principle itself is scorned by republicans. For very good reason, we don’t have hereditary airline pilots or brain surgeons, so why do we continue to have hereditary heads of state? The American revolutionary Thomas Paine skewered the idea as early as 1776:
To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradation and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity. For all men being originally equals, no one by birth could have a right to set up his own family in perpetual preference to all others for ever, and tho’ himself might deserve some decent degree of honours of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them. One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of hereditary right in Kings, is that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule, by giving mankind an ASS FOR A LION.[5]
In a modern liberal democracy grounded on the principles of equality and meritocracy, everyone is legally equal to every other person. No one is to be discriminated against on the basis of innate human characteristics. In such a nation, success in life is based on individual merit, determination, and work ethic. Social advancement, access to education, wealth, and upward mobility should be based on individual intelligence and hard work, not inherited privilege.
Monarchy turns its back on these egalitarian ideals. With monarchy, birth is everything. George, the young son of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, provided he lives long enough and the monarchy in Canada has not been abolished, will one day be king of Canada. If he ever ascends this throne, it will not be because he is exceptionally bright or clever or intelligent or well educated or sensitive or wise, though he may be all of these things, but because he was the first child born to his parents. An accident of birth will place him on the throne, and, long before that, the very fact of who he is will give him access to wealth and privilege that most people can only dream about. Monarchy thus stands as the epitome of elitism in a society professing to be egalitarian. Even though the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees that all Canadians are “equal before and under the law,” the monarchy symbolizes and perpetuates the worst of the British system of unequal class hierarchy and discrimination, with enormous wealth and privilege going to a select few. Many aspiring Canadian citizens who have come to Canada from any number of countries (including the United Kingdom) to escape archaic but still very real systems of class distinction, find themselves having to swear allegiance to a monarch standing at the very apex of the British class system. “The truth is,” writes Margaret Wente, “that the monarchy stands for much that has held Canada back. It embodies the triumph of inheritance over merit, of blood over brains, of mindless ritual over innovation. The monarchy reminds us to defer to authority and remember our place. In Quebec the Royals are regarded as an insult.”[6]
Wente’s last point highlights a common challenge to the preservation of the monarchy in Canada. The institution has never been popular in Quebec for obvious historical and cultural reasons. In all of Canada, French Canadians show the highest enthusiasm for abolishing the monarchy outright. To many republicans, such abolition would actually be a service to building Canadian national unity. If most English Canadians were to join with their fellow French-Canadian citizens and vote to abolish the monarchy in this country, this action would send a powerful signal to French Canada. It would proclaim that Canada is now completely independent from the United Kingdom and the last vestige of British colonialism has been finally expunged from our constitution and our society.[7]
It is not only the monarchy’s link to a dubious imperialist past that drives many republicans to desire a separation from the monarchy; to its critics, another feature of the British monarchy is deeply troubling. The sovereign is supreme governor of the Church of England, so must be an Anglican. Historically, the Act of Settlement, 1701 prohibited any member of the royal family ascending the throne if he or she were married to a Roman Catholic. In 2011, the United Kingdom Parliament modified these requirements, with the agreement of the other Commonwealth realms, rescinding the rule of male primogeniture and the prohibition on the sovereign being married to a Roman Catholic. This amendment, however, made no alteration to the requirement that, as titular head of the Church of England, the sovereign has to be Anglican.
To Canadian republicans, this limiting religious component is offensive. As CCR argues, “Canada’s head of state should conform to Canadian laws of religious equality.” While the 2011 reforms are good, though long overdue, the problem remains that the monarchy, by law, discriminates against all religions other than the Anglican one, preventing “members of the Roman Catholic faith … Jews, Hindus, Muslims or anyone not a member of that Protestant denomination from becoming Canada’s head of state.” To the CCR, the very institution of the monarchy and the monarch herself stand in violation of the Canadian constitution because “Section 15(1) of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms expressly forbids discrimination on the basis of ‘race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.’”[8]
The solution to these and other failings, according to republicans, is for the institution itself to be abolished in Canada, with most republicans willing to wait for Elizabeth II’s reign to end before effecting this change to the Canadian constitution. The disestablishment of the royal family in Canada would then allow for Canadians to choose their own head of state. Here, a number of options present themselves. A radical one would be to completely change the Canadian system of government, ending our parliamentary tradition and opting for an American-style congressional form of government with a directly elected president, as found in the United States. This president would be both head of government and head of state. Most republicans in Canada, however, endorse the maintenance of our parliamentary tradition, simply wishing to elevate the role of the governor general to head of state. This latter option is the position of the CCR and republicans such as John Whyte, Michael Bliss, and Edward McWhinney.[9]
Establishing the governor general as Canada’s head of state, though, requires more than just adding these words to the job description. As it stands now, the governor general is appointed by the Queen. Were the monarchy defunct, who would appoint or select the new governor general? Would the governor be appointed by the prime minister, as is the current custom? Or, would she or he be appointed by a select committee of notable Canadians reporting to the prime minister? A majority vote in the House of Commons? The Senate? A decision of the joint House of Commons and the Senate? Agreement of the prime minister and the premiers? Or should the new head of state be directly elected by the Canadian people? On these matters, republicans differ. It is fair to say, though, that most republicans now tend to support the idea of a directly elected head of state, with this official being termed either the governor general, or more simply the governor.
The republican arguments raised against the monarchy on constitutional grounds are many and powerful, and they are hard to refute. Nevertheless, the loyalist defence of monarchy in Canada is equally rooted in the constitution. Monarchists simply bring a very different perspective to the fundamental rules and principles governing this country: one highlighting the monarchy’s contribution to Canadian democracy while also warning about the political consequences of changing the constitutional status quo.
The monarchist defence of the Crown-as-monarch as head of state is based in a traditional syllogism: the country needs a head of state; the head of state has always been a monarch; therefore the country needs a monarch as head of state. While this logic is completely illogical to a republican, it satisfies the monarchists’ reverence for the past and their need for a sense of order. The principle of hereditary monarchy always ensures that there is a head of state, that the people know who the next head of state will be, and that this next head of state has been trained and prepared for the duties that he or she has been fated to undertake. As John Fraser writes:
The hereditary principle, which upsets many people, seems to me to be a blessing. We embrace our historical links and eliminate any worry about the succession because it simply happens, just like that. The famous proclamation “The King is dead, long live the King” is deployed not because God says so, or a foreign power says so, or because the forces of history say so. It is because we the people in Canada say so; we will it to happen that way.[10]
Republicans contest this defence as nothing more than a lame justification for an archaic selection process insulting to democratic principles and historical understanding. When, republicans will ask, were Canadians ever given a choice as to whether we “willed” the selection of our head of state to be done in this manner? To monarchists, however, the principle and practice of hereditary leadership has virtue, perfectly suiting the monarch to the task at hand.
Monarchists make much of the idea that a sovereign is born to reign. The eldest son or daughter of a king or queen knows that his or her time to reign will come, and he or she must be prepared to assume these duties before the country and the Commonwealth. Biographies of Edward VII, George V, and Elizabeth II all stress the formal education these individuals received as young royals.[11] They were schooled in English, British, and Commonwealth history; British and Commonwealth politics and government; the evolution of the British constitution, and the principle and practice of responsible government; as well as on the special nature of the reserve powers of the Crown. Beyond the formal education, they learned from the informal experience of witnessing their parent perform the role, observing the routine life of a constitutional monarch being played out in their own family setting and growing accustomed to the idea that their own life has a unique and predetermined public and constitutional function. In a rare royal autobiography, Edward, Duke of Windsor, formerly Edward VIII, wrote that he was well versed in the knowledge that the ceremonial life of the Crown belied “an occupation of considerable drudgery.” As the duke explained, “From long observation of my father’s [George V’s] activities, I knew only too well what I was in for. The picture of him ‘doing his boxes,’ to use his own phrase, had long represented to me the relentless grind of the Monarch’s daily routine.”[12] It is just this type of upbringing and family experience that monarchists see as the vital pathway toward the throne. “And we should consider,” notes Frank MacKinnon, “that heredity has been retained not for the sake of privilege, but for the practical reasons that it is one of the safest and least controversial methods of selection, and that it provides apprenticeship in a unique and difficult kind of work. Indeed, other kinds of political leaders have a choice of vocation; the monarch has none.”[13] As the young Princess Elizabeth said in 1947, on the occasion of her twenty-first birthday radio address to the Commonwealth and Empire, “I serve.”
There is much more to the loyalist defence, however, than heredity. To modern eyes, heredity is actually the weakest and most suspect part of the monarchists’ defence of the Crown. A more powerful argument emerges when loyalists address the political role of the monarchy as a defender of the constitution. Monarchists such as John Fraser, Eugene Forsey, Frank MacKinnon, and D. Michael Jackson stress that far from being an institution at odds with Canadian democracy, the monarchy has evolved, over time, into a fundamental guarantor of democracy and the constitution itself. Executive power in this country is formally vested not in the hands of any prime minister or premier, but in the sovereign. First ministers earn the right to exercise such power by virtue of gaining and commanding the confidence of parliamentary assemblies in accordance with the principles of responsible government. But no first minister and no government ever own the powers they exercise. Such power is temporarily granted to them — and only for so long as they do in fact command the will of the assemblies democratically elected by the Canadian people. If and when a first minister and his or her government is defeated, they must resign, with all executive power reverting back to the Crown so as to be transferred to the new first minister and government that does command such legislative support. To monarchists, this principle is vital. Power and legitimacy ultimately reside in the Crown, with the monarch being the custodian of state authority. “As a custodian,” writes Frank MacKinnon, “a much different official from the possessor of powers, the sovereign holds the powers on behalf of the people, and he or she is the personal symbol of authority, which [human beings] find necessary to have in every system. But the sovereign may not normally wield these powers personally.”[14]
The Queen and her Canadian vice-regents also possess the reserve powers of the Crown, and these powers come into play in a parliamentary democracy during times of constitutional crisis when it is unclear which party and party leader command the confidence of a parliamentary assembly. They also are put into use if and when a first minister engages in behaviour that is abusive to the rights of Parliament, the rights of the people, and the very fabric of the constitution. In these circumstances, the governor general or a lieutenant governor, and on rare occasions the sovereign, may exercise the reserve powers to summon into existence a parliamentary assembly, to refuse the prorogation or dissolution of such a body, to refuse the questionable and unconstitutional advice of a first minister, to dismiss a government and its first minister, and to appoint a new first minister who can command the confidence of the democratically elected parliamentary assembly of the nation or a province. “The offices of Governor General and Lieutenant Governor,” writes Frank MacKinnon, “are constitutional fire extinguishers with a potent mixture of powers for use in great emergencies. Like real extinguishers, they appear in bright colours and are strategically located. But everyone hopes their emergency powers will never be used.”[15] As Elizabeth II herself said in a rare statement respecting her place in the political system: “The role of a constitutional monarch is to personify the democratic state, to sanction legitimate authority, to assure the legality of its measures, and to guarantee the execution of the popular will.”[16]
Monarchists also rebut the republican line that the Queen is a foreigner, whose “foreignness” detracts both from her legitimacy as a Canadian head of state and from Canada’s self-respect as an independent country. Most of the functions of the monarch in Canada, both real and ceremonial, are performed by Canadian vice-regents. To monarchists, however, the Queen herself, and her heirs and successors, are Canadian. The sovereign is Queen of Canada, separate and distinct from all other royal titles that she holds, and this distinction will be true for all of her successors. To the Monarchist League of Canada, Elizabeth II is one of us, and through her character and contribution to Canadian society she has demonstrated the utmost loyalty and devotion to Canada. “By this standard,” the Monarchist League asserts, “our Queen is as Canadian as can be: In her length of service to the country, in her pride in being our Queen and our reciprocal affection to her, in her being the embodiment of citizenship, the source of law and the guardian of the constitution, and in her linking us to the multi-cultural peaceful alliance that is the Commonwealth.”[17]
The status and role of the vice-regents in Canada, moreover, are notable to monarchists not only because vice-regents undertake the bulk of the work of monarchy within the country but also for the manner in which their appointments have been used by successive prime ministers over the past half century to promote the values of social inclusion, respect for diversity, and multiculturalism within Canada and its provinces. The fact that vice-regents are appointed has given prime ministers the ability to use their power of selection to advance a variety of social causes in the name of representational equity and justice. Before Canada had its first female prime minister, Kim Campbell, in 1993, we had our first female governor general, Jeanne Sauvé (1984–90). We have not had a female prime minister since 1993, but we have had three female governors general following the tenure of Madame Sauvé, namely Adrienne Clarkson (1999–2005), Michaëlle Jean (2005–10), and Julie Payette (2017–). Long before the first woman served as a provincial premier (Rita Johnston in British Columbia in 1991) or was elected premier (Catherine Callbeck in Prince Edward Island, 1993–96), a variety of women had served as lieutenant governors in a number of provinces. The first female vice-regent was Ontario lieutenant governor Pauline McGibbon (1974–80), and she has been followed, as of 2017, by twenty female lieutenant governors, with every province save Newfoundland and Labrador having had a female vice-regent. Mesdames Adrienne Clarkson and Michaëlle Jean were also the first persons of Chinese and Afro-Caribbean heritage to serve as governors general, but the first African Canadian to serve as lieutenant governor was Lincoln Alexander in Ontario (1985–91). The first lieutenant governor of Chinese Canadian origin was David Lam in British Columbia (1988–95); Ralph Steinhauer was the first indigenous lieutenant governor, serving in Alberta (1974–79). Lise Thibault, lieutenant governor in Quebec (1997–2007) became the first physically challenged person ever to serve as a vice-regent. “These adroit kinds of appointments,” notes John Fraser, “did more to silence criticism of the crown as an entity than anything else, precisely because they showed how the system could evolve and be made to reflect the reality of the nation, even more quickly than the electoral process was able to do.”[18]
But let there be no mistake. When monarchists defend the institution of the monarchy, they first and foremost defend the sovereign and the royal family. Although monarchists value the role of the vice-regents in Canada, their ultimate loyalty is to the Queen. To monarchists such as John Fraser, D. Michael Jackson, and Nathan Tidridge, it is a wondrous thing that Canada’s head of state is not only the Queen of Canada but also the sovereign of the United Kingdom and all her other Commonwealth realms. We thus share a monarch famed and respected across the world, an international leader, the head of the Commonwealth, and a head of state figuratively standing head and shoulders above and beyond any contemporary and transitory political leader. Political leaders come and go, but the sovereign reigns on, a symbol of national unity, of loyalty to the state, and of non-partisan devotion to country and duty. The monarch also represents a political and constitutional tradition dating back centuries, but with its modern evolution culminating in the reality of modern Canadian democracy, responsible government, the rule of law, and respect for human rights and social equality. Perhaps the most disarming monarchist constitutional argument, raised by Michael Valpy, is also the most intriguing: Canada is “more a kind of crowned republic than a true monarchy.”[19] Real power is essentially found in the hands of first ministers, their governments, and the parliamentary bodies that support them, with the sovereign and her vice-regents symbolizing this democratic state.
In this sense, the republican movement has won the most important prize of all. Canada is a liberal democracy committed to the rule of law and individual equality, where its citizens control the fate of its governments. This type of governance has been the case for the better part of a century and a half, beginning with the grant of responsible government in 1848. We have very little to gain, then, says Valpy, by abolishing the monarchy. The time and effort devoted to this cause could be much better spent addressing issues of real social concern, such as growing social inequality, and dealing with poverty, racism, and environmental degradation. The monarchist defence presented here is far from new. In 1915, Spanish Princess Eulalia wondered how the British people would be any better off if they abolished the royal family. “They would gain as little,” she said, “as if by a popular uprising, the citizens of London killed the lions in their Zoo. There may have been a time when lions were dangerous in England, but the sight of them in their cages now can only give a pleasurable holiday-shudder of awe — of which the nation will not willingly deprive itself.”[20] To Valpy, as to Fraser and Tidridge, the elimination of the monarchy in Canada would not in any way make life in Canada more democratic or fair or equal, but rather would represent the destruction of an important part of our political and cultural heritage.
Republicans, of course, contest all these monarchist arguments. They disagree with the hereditary principle of selection for the head of state. While many republicans may concede that certain royal heirs, such as young Princess Elizabeth, were very well educated and prepared for their duties, familial background and upbringing in no way guarantee that a sovereign will be socially upstanding, politically adept, and constitutionally savvy. If Elizabeth II stands as an example of a superb royal leader, her uncle, Edward VIII, is the exact opposite. To republicans, the hereditary principle resulted in a monarch with questionable Nazi sympathies coming to the throne in 1936. Only his abdication in December of that year to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson — a woman with even closer ties to Nazi officialdom — spared the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth the difficulties of having to wage the Second World War with a fascistic king on the throne.[21]
Republicans also do not accept the idea that the Queen is, in any way, Canadian. Those who would see the monarchy abolished stand by their argument that the royal family is ethnically, socially, and culturally as upper class English as can be, and no mere “royal title” can change that demographic reality. Furthermore, Republicans take aim at the loyalist idea that the monarchy in Canada is acceptable because it has been Canadianized through the appointments of the vice-regents, especially in relation to the office of the governor general since 1952. While republicans acknowledge and endorse this historic reform, and accept that vice-regents possess extraordinary reserve powers and may be called upon to exercise them in times of constitutional crisis, they argue that the special role these officials can play makes it all the more important for them to be directly selected by, and accountable to, the Canadian people.
Monarchists defend the position of the monarch as Canadian head of state while challenging the republican idea that, if we were ever to eliminate the monarchy, the governor general, or president, of a future Canadian republic should be elected. Political scientist and monarchist Peter Russell has argued that if Canadians were to find themselves in the position of constructing a republican constitutional order, the democratic impulse that would have led to this action would be so strong that only the idea of an elected head of state would likely be acceptable to most Canadians.[22] So the question becomes, should a head of state be elected? Both Russell and Frank Mackinnon before him have warned against this idea, due to the fear of partisanship rearing its ugly head. Moving from a vice-regal institution heralded as non-partisan to gubernatorial/presidential elections with partisan currents may do more harm than good. We return to this issue in chapter 9, when we address the many challenges confronting the republican cause if and when Canadians begin to think about reopening the constitution to abolish the monarchy.
The republican movement’s strongest argument against monarchism is that it is anti-democratic, elitist, inegalitarian, and archaic. In short, monarchism is completely at odds with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and therefore undeserving of a role in a thoroughly modern, democratic state. Crown loyalists, however, find that appealing to Canadians’ respect for history and heritage provides them with an opportunity to present their most evocative arguments in favour of preserving the institution. Monarchist Ian Holloway, dean of Law at the University of Calgary, writes:
When it comes to law and government, Canadian history did not begin at Confederation. Rather, it began in 1066 — the same year that English legal and constitutional history began. The Battle of Hastings marks a watershed event in Canadian history, as do Magna Carta and the Black Death, and the Reformation and the Glorious Revolution and every other event that helped shape the British Constitution — to which our Constitution must be similar in principle.[23]
If republicans base their core arguments in appeals to democratic reason and principles of equality, always looking to the future development of a more rational and modern state, monarchists tend to look back to the past, lovingly tracing the stately yet steady development of rights, representation, parliamentary supremacy, responsible government, and democracy, which are part of the British and Canadian constitutional experience and of the legacy of Crown rule.
Monarchists see English and British history as a series of grand tableaux, portraying people and events that have been vital to the development of our current constitutional order. Take Runnymede in 1215, for example, where King John was compelled by his barons to sign the Magna Carta. This dramatic milestone represented both the birth of rights legislation in the English constitution and the first time the powers of an English monarch were formally circumscribed by his own subjects. Or, take the summoning of the first Parliament in 1295 by Edward I. This event marked the beginning of a nascent form of representative government in England, which would only grow and strengthen in future centuries. Over the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we witness the development of the Privy Council and the tradition of monarchs such as Henry VII, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth I governing with the assistance and advice of trusted officials. While some Crown loyalists still loathe Oliver Cromwell, the modern monarchy is inseparable from the events of the English Civil War (1642–48) and its aftermath. This conflict sees Parliament at war with Charles I, with its outcome not only affirming the principle of parliamentary supremacy, but also clearly demonstrating that the institution of the monarchy lies subject to the control of Parliament, not vice versa. If the execution of the king and the abolition of the monarchy don’t serve as evidence of this fact, nothing does.
Canadian tableaux also resonate with Canadian monarchists. One scene shows George III issuing the Royal Proclamation of 1763, recognizing the existence of indigenous nations in North America, their land rights, and the treaty-making process as the only legal way by which the British Crown can acquire aboriginal land. Another tableau shows Governors Murray and Carleton in Quebec in the decades following the conquest of New France in 1759–60 working to accommodate the interests of French Canadians under British rule. A third scene occurs in the early to mid-1800s, when British North American reformers such as Robert Baldwin, Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, and Joseph Howe work to achieve responsible government as recommended by John George Lambton, Lord Durham, in his famous report of 1839. This tableau is followed in 1849 with the picture of James Bruce, Earl of Elgin, and governor of the colony of Canada, signing into law the Rebellion Losses Bill in 1849, affirming for all to see that the Crown was committed to the working of responsible government in British North America.
This monarchist approach to English, British, and Canadian history, of course, is highly selective, focusing on the central role played by the Crown in key events in the evolution of the British and Canadian constitutions. To monarchists, the Crown-as-monarch is the living link to a majestic history, which is a narrative for the development of individual and collective rights, responsible parliamentary government, democratic rule, and the growth of political equality and multiculturalism. As a figurehead, the sovereign stands as a guarantor of these constitutions and their rights, as well as a reminder of the heritage that we all share as citizens of Canada, regardless of our individual ancestry. To republicans, however, this monarchist appeal to history and heritage is overly romanticized and grossly biased. They maintain that this selective reading of history in no way provides a valid justification for the preservation of the British monarchy in present-day Canada. History can be many things to many people, and republicans have their unique perspective on the English, British, and Canadian past in relation to the British Crown. The history they remember is one associated with British imperialism and colonization.
The Crown, to republicans, is associated with Nova Scotian Governor Cornwallis’s bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps in the 1750s, the expulsion of the Acadians in 1755, the British conquest of New France in 1759–60, Governor Amherst’s orders in 1763 condoning biological warfare against First Nations people who resisted the establishment of British rule in what had been New France, and the Beothuk genocide in Newfoundland between the 1760s and the 1820s. While monarchists stress the importance of the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as a vital constitutional recognition by the British Crown of the inherent rights of First Nations, republicans remember that the majority of the promises made by the Crown in this document came to be honoured more in the breach than the observance.
Many republicans also associate the Crown-as-executive with the establishment of an apartheid-like Indian Act in 1876, leading to most First Nations peoples living on economically disadvantaged reservations, the aboriginal residential schools system existing between the 1880s and 1990s, and the social and economic plight of indigenous Canadians witnessed to this day. Republicans are also quick to note that most French Canadians have displayed a less than reverential attitude to the British monarchy, as evidenced in survey data from the past half century. The majority of French Canadians perceive the existence of the British monarchy to be not only a reminder of the British conquest of New France but also the continuation, in Canada, of an essentially foreign, elitist, and anti-democratic vestige from our colonial past.
Those groups holding historical “grudges” against the monarchy in this country, moreover, are not limited to indigenous peoples and French Canadians. Republicans are happy to articulate a long list of grievances held by various peoples who have experienced the weight of British imperialist, colonialist, and racist oppression. Many Scottish Canadians are quick to remember the British Crown for its involvement with the suppression of the clans in Scotland during the mid-eighteenth century, the field of slaughter at Culloden in 1756, and the subsequent Highland Clearances from the 1760s to the 1820s. The critical attitude with respect to the monarchy felt by many Canadians of Scottish descent is also one common to Canadians of Irish heritage. As we saw at the very outset of this book, Michael McAteer, one of the persons who brought the constitutional challenge to the oath of allegiance requirement for becoming a Canadian citizen, is Irish. He publicly stated that, as a staunch republican, he took exception to the oath on the grounds that he neither believed in nor supported the Queen, with the monarchy being an insult to his Irish heritage.
Irish antipathy to things British, and especially royal and monarchical, is well known. To Irish republicans, the monarchy stands for centuries of British colonization and repression in Ireland. The historical canvas here is vast: the slow military conquest of Ireland by the English in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the battles of Drogheda in 1649 and the Boyne in 1690; the bloody repression of the Irish Rebellion of 1798; the suppression of Irish culture and the Irish Gaelic language, the Potato Famine, and the Great Emigration of the 1840s; the use of brutal police and military force in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to keep Ireland “pacified;” the Easter Rising of 1916; and the onset of armed struggle between Irish and British forces from 1916 to 1921 can all be painted in bloody brushstrokes.
The anti-British and anti-monarchical sentiments found within the Scottish and Irish diasporas in Canada are also seen in other groups of Canadians tracing their heritage to other parts of the world that were formerly parts of the British Empire. While monarchists tend to downplay or romanticize the history of the Empire in their assessments of the Crown legacy, many peoples and their descendants who were subject to British colonial rule have far more critical viewpoints of the Crown and its relevance to them. Republicans from the Caribbean, sub-Saharan Africa, India, and Asia remember the British Crown’s link to the colonization of much of these parts of the world. They haven’t forgotten how the British helped initiate and perpetuate the slave trade and the subjugation of native peoples. British colonial rule was marked by racism, the bloody repression of dissent, and the economic exploitation of entire nations. Republicans are quick to note that, as of 2015, the governments of both Barbados and Jamaica initiated constitutional plans to proclaim their countries republics, and that not one Commonwealth member state from Africa, South Asia, or Southeast Asia has retained the British monarch as its head of state.
Republicans, however, are not unmindful of the importance of history to any nation, and they acknowledge the constitutional heritage Canada shares with the United Kingdom. In their defence of the republican option for Canada, Citizens for a Canadian Republic affirm that the abolition of the monarchy in this country would in no way abolish Canada’s historical links with the British Crown.[24] That history will remain, but we don’t need to maintain the monarchy today in order to preserve and learn from this history. Rather, although this history will always be part of our constitutional story, Canadians now and in the future have the ability to forge a new identity and a new national narrative tied to modern, democratic, egalitarian, and Canadian values and practices.
Monarchists, of course, are not swayed by this republican appeal to history. When confronted with the long litany of abuses and misdeeds perpetrated by the British Empire acting under the name of the Crown, most monarchists simply admit the truth of these allegations. They will accept that the Empire and its many servants committed great crimes, motivated by such very human failings as greed, pride, racism, nationalism, militarism, jingoism, condescension, arrogance, and ignorance. Most monarchists today concede that the British Empire of the past was responsible for many wrongs. That Empire, however, is gone. It no longer exists. It has been overtaken by global forces witnessing the decline of Britain as a world superpower, the ending of once traditional European imperialism, the demand from the peoples of former colonies to govern themselves, and the worldwide growth of the ideals of democracy, equality, and national autonomy.
To monarchists, what is remarkable in this history of decolonization in the quarter century following the end of the Second World War is that the former British Empire was able to transform itself, peacefully and relatively amicably, into the modern Commonwealth. This new organization, moreover, is dedicated to principles wholly opposite to those that motivated earlier British imperialists. The modern Commonwealth is committed to the promotion of democracy, social and economic development, justice and equality, public education, women’s rights and the interests of youth, and multiculturalism, racial tolerance, and collective self-interest. And standing at the heart of the organization, the symbol of its unity and history, is Elizabeth II, the titular head of the Commonwealth. While we should never ignore the history of greed, racism, domination, and inhumanity at the core of British imperialism, we should always remember that the British Empire has evolved into a free-standing, multinational, and multicultural association of states spanning the globe and united in furthering some of the highest ideals of humanity. Rather than viewing the monarchy as a symbol of an awful and abusive past, monarchists see the monarchy as a living testament to how human beings can learn from the past, how they can better themselves, and how they can strive to make the future brighter than yesterday.
How we appreciate our constitution and understand the historic legacies of our past affiliation with the British Crown are matters that fundamentally divide monarchists from republicans. Both sides in this “Battle Royal” appeal to history, because history is important. Its grand narratives tell us who we are, where we came from, and what ideas and values from the past inform our present and future. But history never speaks with only one voice. To republicans, the history of the Crown is largely lamentable, something we need to transcend if we are to evolve toward a more democratic and egalitarian future. To monarchists, a very different reading of the past connects us to an important heritage speaking volumes about our democratic constitutional development under the Crown, and the respect and promotion of multiculturalism found within the Commonwealth.
The divergent opinions respecting the constitutional role of the Crown and the history of the monarchy in this country, Britain, and the Commonwealth appeal to the mind. But these divisions pale in comparison to the animosities engendered when republicans and monarchists argue over how we should view the people at the centre of these debates — the royals themselves. Here the debate becomes exceptionally personal and emotional, very much appealing to the heart. We now turn to this exquisitely human side of the “great debate.”