In my research of this topic today I came across an interesting little nug of historical irrelevance. On December 13th 1837, Mr. William Lyon Mackenzie (1795 - 1861) proclaimed Navy Island, a small island in the middle of the Niagra River, the Republic of Canada after retreating from Toronto in the end days of the Upper Canada Rebellion with some 200 supporters of his. This, of course, was never recognized generally, and was a short lived pipe-dream of his before his escape to the United States and his subsequent 18 month incarceration for violating neutrality laws between the US + the British Empire.
[caption id="attachment_130" align="aligncenter" width="314" caption="The flag of the Republic of Canada (1837) - Proclaimed by William Lyon Mackenzie (1)"]
[/caption]He was a true revolutionary against the British Imperial presence in Canada. Maybe it was because he was a Scot, maybe because he was just a level headed individual - well, as level headed as any utilitarian Tory can be. He was also the First Mayor of Toronto, which is a pretty interesting thing in itself. He was also a proponent of his mother's belief of Presbyterian-secession, advocating the separation of Church and State, although not religious himself. This may have been a driving factor in his demand for Canadian Independence. Also, it should be noted that Mackenzie had said he was disappointedwith the American way of life, saying that it was not what it claimed to be, vis-a-vis the 'American Dream' and all that. He returned to the Province of Canada in 1849.
My own opinion on this topic is that it is well time for Canada to sever it's traditional ties with the English Monarchy. I see it as a useless appendage of our system to keep these cerimonial positions such as Governor General in our everyday operation of Government. Especially withwhat we have just gone through in Canada, with the proroguing of Parliament on request of the Prime Minister, now is a good a time as any to get rid of the Monarchy.
It is apparent that the separation of Canada from England has been a driving force in the history of our Nations. I say it in plural because I recognize Quèbec as a Nation within the Nation of Canada, and that it has a separate political and cultural history in contrast with mainstream English-Canadian history. It is unfair and ill advised to impose a on such a diverse nation, a Head of State that is culturally different than distinct, large population demographics of Canada. It is fuel to the fire for causes such as Quèbec Sovereignty, case and point what is called 'Trudgeon Saturday' when Queen Elizibeth II visited Canada in celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the Quèbec Conference. Her Majesty's procession through Quèbec City was lined with protesters who turned their back on her and chanted for her to go home. Police cracked down on these non-violent protesters, arresting 35 and injuring 6 in violent dispursals. (2) Her presence in Canada was also right around the same time that the FLQ was commencing their terrorist attacks in the Province.
Provincial issues aside for a moment, the idea of a Canadian Republic is fairly central to maintaining a unique and personal Canadian identity. Public opinion polls are fairly split on the matter, however, finding support on both sides of the coin fairly strong. (3) Another fact to consider though, is that when asked 'who Canada's head of state' was, only 5% could correctly answer The Queen. This indicates that a huge majority of Canadians do not understand the way our governmental system works. With those figures, Im surprised that we dont hear more stories about people being confused as to why Stephen Harper didnt have his name on their ballot. I wont go into the mechanics of our electoral system, simply put - we are a Constitutional Monarchy with Representative Government. The Prime Minister is formally appointed by the Queen's representative the Governor General of Canada. She also appoints our Cabinet. But nowadays she follows the democratic will of the people, appointing the leader of the most supported party in Parliament to be Prime Minister, and appoints his Cabinet on recomendation of the Prime Minister.
She does, however, hold some special powers over Canadian democracy, as we saw just early this month when she was faced with the 3-way decision to either call an election, allow a coalition to form, or prorogue Parliament until a later time. She chose the latter, which is not such a big deal in and of itself, but more in the circumstance that she acted. She acted on the advice of the Prime Minister of Canada to effectively shut down Parliament and spare his minority Government from a proposed vote of no confidence in the House of Commons. This subverted the very democratic values that we have long established here in Canada, and gave a precident to future minority Governments that the House can be shut down on a whim in order to avoid a defeat. You can read more about those events in another post of mine. But the point is moot. The real issue here is that the final decision was left on the shoulders of an unelected, unaccountable institution of our Government. The 'will of the people' - by way of their democratically elected representatives residing in the House of Commons - was silenced by the very system that it operates in. This alone is cause for reform, no? If the structure of Governance allows for such indiscretions to take place, a change is needed to preserve the values that we hold as Canadians. This cannot be done with our Head of State and our Executive powers sitting on a foreign throne.
We do not have an Executive Branch that is separate from the Legislative Branch in Canada. This, like any system, has its pros and cons. For one, it means a less confusing and involved election, haha, but more importantly it means that every action taken by the Government is accountable to the rest of Parliament, and that it hold the confidence of Parliament. This is of course subject to many conditions. Cheif among them is the situation of a majority Government, one where the largest party holds a majority (155+) of the 308 seats that are currently in the House of Commons. This means that there need not be cooperation or consultation between parties, because all legislation that is tabled at the House by the Government can pass with a majority of votes. This is, as I see now, irrelevant to the point of this essay.
What it does segway to, though, is the question of why the Monarchy still exists in Canada. What purpose does it serve outside of its traditional and cerimonial tasks? A statement made by a man named Robert H Hilborn, and further quoted by former Governor General Roland Michener says,
'The Monarchy provides a basis for political continuity, so that parties can change but the essence and theory of government can continue... Its influence may be more apparent than real but it is real enough for a political system that works on consent... The monarchy is beyond partisan politics which cannot be said of an elected head of state' (4)
But if the tasks of our Monarchical representatives in Canada are merely cerimonious and defunct in the face of our democratic values, what then is the reason for keeping them? It leads us down a dangerous road to say that the Monarchy is above partisan politics, and therefore imperitive to our political system, because that acceptance gives consent to the intervention of that Monarchy in the face of a partisanship by the elected representatives. We have the executive decisions, which should be in the realm of the elected Executive/Legislative, being made by an unaccountable Executive. It simply subverts the very democratic foundations of Canada to have such a system still in place.
Political continuity comes not from the Monarchy, otherwise most Governments world over would have collapsed by now, but from the institutions that are in place to keep government accountable and renewable - i.e. the electoral process. Another vital institution to preserving our democratic standards is the trust that the people put in their participation in governmental affairs - and that their participation matters. This is manifested in elections and accountability, something that is not present with a foreign, unaccountable Head of State. So how do we rid ourselves of the monarchy and what would Canada look like afterwards?
Former Deputy Prime Minister John Manley commented that he thought 'for Canada after Queen Elizabeth, it should be time to consider a different institution for us, and personally I would prefer a wholly Canadian institution' (5) This is the most common way thought to implement a republican change in the monarchy. We simply do not recognize Elizibeth's heir once she passes away or relinquishes the throne. This will probably be done when the time comes, but the question still remains as to what sort of Canadian Institution we will subsitute for the Queen? Personally, I think that a complete removal of the Governor General posting is the best way to proceed. One way that could be considered is that the Prime Minister be elected directly instead of by party and by appointment. This would mean a reform in our electoral system, allowing for an option of Prime Minister as well as Member of Parliament for one's riding. This would also mean that the Prime Minister is no longer up for election by riding, but by general consensus nation-wide. This would require an amendment to the rules of the House of Commons aswell, allowing for one extra seat within the House for the elected Prime Minister. The trick here is that the PM and his Government would still be in reliant on the confidence of the House of Commons, meaning that Parliament can still defeat the PM + his Cabinet.
How would the candidates for Prime Minister be selected then? The candidates would be left up to an executive process, which would then present 10 names to be put to election. This would include nominees from the parties, as well as others who would be nominated by popular choice. This would probably need a convention to decided th forerunners, somewhat like the American primaries. This whole scenario would, in a perfect world, also be coupled with Proportional Representation and so there would have to be a mechanism installed to allow for non-partisan candidates (Independents) that would also have a way to be elected.
I will write more later on regarding the mechanisms that could be put in place, as well as the fundamentally important issue of Proportional Representation in Parliament.
References + Sources:
(1) - Image sourced from Wikipedia - [image found here]
(2) - Video of police dispursing the protesters from CBC Archives / also found on Wikipedia re: Canadian Republicanism
(3) - Public Opinion Polls taken from Wikipedia
(4) - Links to direct transcript of Empire Club speech, but originally sourced from Wikipedia (again)
(5) - Hunter, Stuart; The Province: British Columbians outraged at Manley; Oct. 7, 2002 (originally sourced from Wikipedia)
No comments:
Post a Comment