Despite yesterday being Victoria Day, there hasn’t been much chatter about the Canadian monarchy recently. So it’s a good time to talk about the Canadian monarchy.
Many Canadians are indifferent to the monarchy. Some are enthusiastic about it. Some are downright hostile. But pretty much no one wants to do the heavy lifting required to actually get rid of the institution.
Instead, there’s two divergent attitudes in Canada. One group, mainly the Conservative Party, wants to celebrate and promote the monarchy. The second, mainly the Liberal Party, doesn’t want to get rid of it, but downplays it as much as possible. The Conservatives want to put the Crown in the front window for all to see. The Liberals would prefer to stash it in the utility room with other useful but unattractive things.
Yet Canada lacks a serious republican movement that truly wants to jettison the whole thing and is willing to do what it takes to make it happen. It’s hard to find a serious major politician in Canada loudly endorsing the idea or making it a priority. This is very different than Australia, which held a referendum in 1999 on the monarchy and continues to have no shortage of high-profile republicans.
![undefined undefined](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6b4f3ce4-42b1-4118-9e97-e40db7a8d84d_1024x714.jpeg)
And getting rid of the monarchy would be hard, and opens up some tricky questions. Here’s a few:
It’s the operating system. When I teach about the monarchy, I call it the operating system of our government. Every student knows about Apple and Android (or for old people, Windows). It’s the underlying system on which their devices run. Programs and apps may look identical on different phones, but they have to be compatible with the underlying operating system; you can’t install the Apple version of Instagram on an Android phone.
Similarly, the monarchy and the concept of the Crown is deeply embedded into the entire concept of the Canadian state; different than a republic like the United States. Much may look the same on the surface, but the legal-constitutional foundation is different. We can’t just dump the King and carry on without doing a lot of underlying adjustments; our democratic and governing apps need to be made compatible with the new system. We could do it, as other countries have. But as I said, heavy lifting.
Indigenous treaties. Indigenous rights and treaties in Canada are anchored in a direct relationship with the Crown, separate from the government of Canada. How would getting rid of the Crown affect these? No one really knows, and the treaty relationships are complicated enough as it is. Indigenous nations don’t want to be held up as the reason we need to keep our most colonial of all institutions. But it is a genuine complication.
The provinces. Every province has a reason to keep the Crown going, as they have their own relationship with the Crown, and it reinforces their claim to be equal 'orders of government' with the federal government, not subordinate levels. They would also each need to overhaul their own operating systems.
The head of state. Only then do we even get to the question of how we would choose a new head of state - which is where Australia stumbled when it held a referendum in 1999. That proposal had a President of Australia elected by the parliament, not popularly elected, and at least some saw this as a watered down compromise. This isn’t necessarily a big obstacle; lots of parliamentary systems have figured this part out. But it’s still tricky.
Finally, the massive constitutional effort of removing the Crown would inevitably invite other suggestions for constitutional change. Canada went down this road in the 1980s and 1990s and the country nearly collapsed from all the competing demands. Pandora’s box anyone?
The Liberal utility room policy recognizes that the Crown basically works as an operating system and is difficult to change. But it’s also aware that you can’t get more anachronistic than a hereditary family that reigns over us from a palace across the sea, and many Canadians find the monarchy and its imperial legacy troubling and deeply colonialistic. So it gets downplayed as much as possible.
But here’s the thing. Keeping something because it’s too difficult to change is not exactly inspiring. And probably not sustainable in the long term. Meanwhile, the Conservatives at least take an upfront approach - they can’t get enough of the monarchy, and let you know it.
When Elizabeth II was alive, it was recognized that her long, long reign allowed everyone to put off questions of the monarchy’s future; but then, we all assumed, there would be a reckoning. But so far, not much has changed or even been discussed. A future Poilievre government may return to the Harper government’s enthusiasm for putting the monarchy in the front window, and may in turn provoke counterreactions from those who are fed up with it. But for now it hums along down in the utility room.
I like the folksy analogy of the front window versus the uti;ity room. I do like the pomp of the monarchy even though it is outdated.
Constitutional monarchy is a safer and more stable form of government. The separation of State from Gov spreads the ‘power’ over 2 separate institutions. We are thankfully NOT a Republic. It’s likely that many ‘anti-monarchy positions’ do not understand the historical difference. It would be beneficial for this to be taught in elementary, secondary school and university with mandatory testing, debating and exchange of opinions contrasted with historical perspective for citizens of all ages . Remember that word Citizen? That’s what we were before we were rebranded Consumers:)