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  Republican and democratic values, the Athenian leader Pericles proclaimed in the fifth century BCE, were among the ideas and realities that made ancient Athens great:

  It is true that we are called a democracy, for the administration is in the hands of the many and not of the few. But while there exists equal justice to all and alike in their private disputes, the claim of excellence is also recognized; and when a citizen is in any way distinguished, he is preferred to the public service, not as a matter of privilege, but as the reward of merit. Neither is poverty an obstacle, but a man may benefit his country whatever the obscurity of his condition. There is no exclusiveness in our public life.[6]

  So deeply held were these ideals of citizenship in Greece that the word idiot has its roots in ancient Greek, referring to anyone who is ill-informed about political life and thus uninterested in public affairs. The overarching republican ideal, as Abraham Lincoln so famously expressed in his Gettysburg Address[7] , is “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” with active and spirited public participation in government vital to the well-being of republican and democratic society.

  Lincoln’s phraseology is also indicative of a vital evolution in repub­lic­­an thought from the ancient world to the modern. Classical republicanism was not necessarily democratic, as citizens in ancient republics could only comprise a very small fraction of the total population. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however, and related to the experience and wisdom gained during and after the American and French revolutions, a growing awareness developed in modern republican thought recognizing that republicanism had to entail not only the equality of citizens and their right to participate in government, but also the right of all members of society to be considered citizens.

  The United States of America, despite its many problems respecting racial discrimination and social inequality, is nevertheless one of the world’s most well-known republics. Americans have not been ruled by a monarch since their revolution. In true republican form, the American constitution explicitly delineates the roles, responsibilities, and powers to be exercised by the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. This constitution, beginning with its famous first three words, “We the People,” proclaims that sovereignty in the United States rests with the citizens of the nation. It specifies that the purpose of government is “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”[8]

  Knowledge of the American political system is helpful in informing the Canadian debate on the future of the monarchy because the American republican model of government is the most familiar foreign political system to the majority of Canadians. However, it is not the only republican model. In addition to the presidential-congressional form of republican government found in the United States, parliamentary republics prevail in Germany, Italy, Austria, Israel, and India, to name a few. In these states, parliaments and first ministers exist just as they do in Canada, with the first ministers being constitutionally obligated to gain and maintain the legislative confidence of the parliament in order to sustain government. What makes these countries republics is that their head of state is not a monarch. Rather, she or he is commonly known as a president and — most importantly — is directly elected by the people. This head of state is duty-bound to represent the nation in all ceremonial functions, promote respect for the nation’s heritage and culture, and encourage good citizenship, charity, and civic-mindedness. If and when elections result in a hung parliament and a minority government, the president may be called upon to break legislative log-jams, order new elections, or transfer prime ministerial power from one party leader to another.

  In the historic contest between monarchism and republicanism, the twentieth century favoured the republican side. In 1900, the majority of the world’s peoples were ruled by monarchs. Unlike British monarchs, who were circumscribed by the principles and practices of responsible government, most of these royal rulers were sovereign in the word’s strictest sense, unfettered by democratic constitutional obligations. At the advent of the twentieth century, the Russian Tsar, the German Kaiser, the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, and the Turkish Sultan exerted real power over their peoples. By 1922, all these monarchies had been smashed in the cataclysm of the First World War, and smashed again in its aftermath of revolutions and political turmoil. Following the end of the Second World War and the slow but inevitable demise of the European Empires, most of the countries of Africa and Asia emerged onto the world stage as republics, with the majority of the former British African and Asian colonies opting for republican forms of government while remaining part of the Commonwealth. Only sixteen of the Commonwealth’s fifty-three members recognize the sovereignty of the Queen and her heirs, and the vast majority of the member states of the United Nations are republics. In the debate between monarchism and republicanism, the history of the twentieth century suggests that the forces of modernity, social change, and progressive reform are with republicanism. The defenders of monarchy seem placed in the position of striving to protect an institution that appears to be not only a relic of a distant and unpopular past but also an obstacle to the forces of political and social modernization. Is monarchy fated to oblivion?

  “De-monarchizing Canada”: Canadian Republicanism and the Ideals of Democracy and Equality

  Republicanism is nothing new to Canada. It’s not even new to the United Kingdom. The English Civil War was rooted in the idea that Parliament and not the king was supreme in England, and the ten years of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate did constitute a form of republican rule. This decade marked England’s only period of republicanism, but when the monarchy was resuscitated, it was never to be the same. Charles II and all the English and British monarchs who followed him had to accommodate themselves to a political system and a people that increasingly valued parliamentary supremacy and the gradual emergence of responsible, democratic government. The monarch would reign but not rule.

  As the British constitution evolved over these centuries, so too did those of her British North American colonies. By the twentieth century in Canada, the monarchy found itself increasingly subject to governmental actors suspicious of its British roots and eager to see its role in Canadian life diminished, perhaps even to the point of extinction. In the 1920s, the Liberal government of Mackenzie King pushed for greater Canadian autonomy within the British Empire. This decade saw the establishment of the Canadian Department of External Affairs, with Canada becoming self-reliant in administering its own evolving foreign policy agenda. These years were also spectator to the growing estrangement between Mackenzie King and the office of the governor general (highlighted by the King–Byng Thing of 1926). Prime Minister Mackenzie King would rarely meet with his governors general.[9]

  Following the Second World War, successive Canadian federal governments made a concerted effort to Canadianize important features of public life. Beginning in 1947, the Canadian Citizenship Act, 1946 decreed that Canadians were not British subjects domiciled in Canada but rather citizens of Canada. This act also established Canadian citizenship as a distinct legal category separate from any previous British legal status, with an autonomous Canadian pathway for immigrants to become Canadian citizens.[10] Later that year, the Letters Patent Act, 1947 delegated to the governor general the vast majority of the sovereign’s authority respecting Canada. The 1952 appointment of Vincent Massey, the first Canadian to serve as governor general, marked the end of the era of British gov­ernors and the birth of a truly Canadian Rideau Hall. That same year saw another milestone: Elizabeth II was proclaimed Queen of Canada upon the death of her father, George VI. This proclamation marked the first time a British monarch had ever been granted this title, one held separate and distinct from that of Queen of the United Kingdom.

  Most monarchists in Canada at the t
ime applauded these initiatives, hailing them as illustrative of Canadian independence under the Crown. Yet, by the 1960s, many loyalists to the Crown were coming to see the institution of the monarchy in Canada as being under attack, with the battle led by federal Liberal governments. “Since the 1960s,” the noted monarchist John Fraser has accused, “successive administrations of the Canadian government had surreptitiously or sometimes even openly encouraged people to forget or snort at the Royal Family. Quietly, progressively, and often stealthily, the traditional symbols of the Queen’s Canadian realm vanished.”[11]

  While many wouldn’t grieve the loss, Fraser’s observations are not unfounded. The Royal Mail had been transformed into Canada Post by the mid-1960s, a new national flag replaced the more traditionally British Red Ensign in 1965, and the maple leaf logo increasingly replaced the royal coat of arms on government buildings and documents. In 1968, the unification of the Canadian Forces also resulted in the abolition of the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force. In that same decade, Prime Minister Lester Pearson privately mused to colleagues that were he ever to win a majority government, he would move to phase out the monarchy in Canada.[12] He found some people receptive to his call.

  During the early years of the Pierre Trudeau government, Mitchell Sharp, secretary of state for External Affairs, was the strongest proponent around the cabinet table of abolishing the monarchy, or, short of this, of downplaying the Crown in Canada.[13] It was Sharp who urged the government to enhance the governor general’s role in dealing with ambassadorial etiquette. Prior to this time, one of the functions retained by the sovereign, even after the passage of the Letters Patent Act, 1947, was the power to appoint ambassadors. The monarch officially recognized all foreign ambassadors appointed to Canada and personally signed all the Letters of Credence appointing Canadian ambassadors to foreign countries. By 1977, both of these ceremonial functions had been transferred to the governor general.[14]

  The 1970s also saw the beginning of a decades-long process of what monarchists such as John Fraser and D. Michael Jackson have termed the “de-monarchization” of Canada. To loyalists, it smacked of a full-scale deposition. Portraits of the Queen were removed from government offices, Canadian embassies, and even Rideau Hall itself. “God Save the Queen” was rarely heard as a royal anthem in Canada. The granting of Canadian honours (medals, awards, membership in the Order of Canada) increasingly came to be the sole preserve of the governor general. By 1973, the only Canadian honour left to the Queen to confer was the Royal Victorian Order. Royal tours to Canada became fewer. The Trudeau government showed, in Jackson’s words, “a distinct lack of enthusiasm” for the monarchy, symbolized by Trudeau’s famous pirouette behind the Queen’s back in Buckingham Palace in 1977. Even the governors general appointed upon the advice of Prime Minister Trudeau displayed a desire to raise their own profile and lower that of the Queen in Canada. Jules Léger supported the idea of the governor general being recognized, in law, as the official Canadian head of state; Jeanne Sauvé, always cool on the monarchy, publicly referred to herself more than once as “Canada’s head of state.”[15] On none of these occasions did the prime minister ever correct her.

  In fact, it would seem many elected leaders were very much behind her. In 1978, the Trudeau government sought a constitutional amendment to the role of the monarchy in Canada, with the aim being to further “Canadianize” the office of the governor general while diminishing the status and function of the Queen. Bill C-60 stipulated that the governor general was to be styled “the First Canadian,” the head of state of Canada in lieu of the Queen — although she or he would continue to be officially appointed by the Queen acting upon the advice of the prime minister. (The bill further proposed that provincial premiers would have no role in selecting this new Canadian head of state.) While the monarch would be known as “the sovereign head of Canada,” it was the governor general — not the Queen — who would be listed as one of the three component parts of Parliament, along with the Senate and the House of Commons. All laws passed in Parliament, moreover, would be given royal assent in the name of the governor general, not the sovereign. In elevating the position of the governor general as head of state, the bill provided that “the executive government of and over Canada shall be vested in the Governor-General of Canada, on behalf and in the name of the Queen.”[16]

  Bill C-60 also sought to codify the powers of the governor general, especially the reserve powers, thereby transforming these elements of Crown authority from prerogative to statutory law controlled by Parliament. In defining the authority of the governor general, the bill further stated that nothing in it should be construed as “precluding the Queen … from exercising while in Canada any of the powers, authorities or functions of the Governor-General under this Act.” Were this bill to have become law, the governor general would have become superior to the sovereign, with the latter deriving any powers he or she might exercise in Canada from the former;[17] the governor general, and not the Queen, would have been the fount of all sovereign power and authority in the Canadian state.

  But this bill did not become law. It met with vociferous criticism from monarchists who were offended at its downgrading of the status and role of the Queen. Eugene Forsey referred to C-60 as “crypto-republicanism” and “an elaborate and ill-drawn measure” illustrating “an ignorance of responsible government that passes all understanding.”[18] The premiers were also unanimously opposed to the bill, objecting to it on grounds of process. They stressed that any changes to the institution of the monarchy in Canada would require the unanimous consent of the provinces. As it was presented to them, Bill C-60 was purely a piece of federal legislation only requiring the approval of the federal Parliament. Every premier in the nation, including Quebec’s Parti Québécois premier René Lévesque, viewed such federal unilateralism as unconstitutional. They opposed the idea that the appointment of a reconfigured governor general should be the preserve of the prime minister. They demanded a provincial role in the appointment process.

  Faced with a wall of opposition, Trudeau withdrew his support for the bill. When he and the premiers returned to the issue of constitutional reform in 1980–81, they had far greater matters to deal with, such as the patriation of the constitution from the United Kingdom, a possible Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a new constitutional amending formula, and the reworking of the federal-provincial powers. These constitutional negotiations led to the Constitution Act, 1982, in which the institution of the monarchy merely played a minor role. To this day, Bill C-60 is the closest Canada has ever come to reforming the status and role of the monarchy in Canada.

  The Constitution Act, 1982 is most famous to Canadians for giving the country its Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Charter recognizes the equality of all Canadians while affirming fundamental rights and freedoms necessary to any democratic state. The Charter has become a hallmark of Canadian democracy, enshrining into law the basic rights and freedoms that all Canadian citizens share equally. The Charter is very much a document rooted in the republican values of citizenship and equality, responsible government, and democratic rule by the people. Consequently, the Charter provides republicans with ammunition for challenging the continued existence of the monarchy in Canada on constitutional grounds.

  Despite the constitutional failure in 1978 to reform the nature of the monarchy, the broad move to Canadianize the Crown persisted into the 1980s and 1990s. The Chrétien Liberal government harboured strong republican advocates. Deputy Prime Minister John Manley was a staunch republican who publicly endorsed the abolition of the monarchy. In 2001, Manley stated that the monarchy was “really an institution that’s a bit out of date for Canada to continue with.” On October 5, 2002, at the beginning of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee visit to Canada, Manley spoke to the media, saying “It’s not necessary to continue with the monarchy…. I have always said that, first, I think Queen Elizabeth is doing a good job �
� [but] personally I would prefer if we could have a uniquely Canadian institution.… It could be as simple as the continuation of the governor general as the head of state of Canada.”[19] John Fraser summed up Manley’s argument as follows: “Logic collapsed: Queen Elizabeth has done a great job for Canada; therefore let’s make sure there is no monarchy when she dies.”[20]

  The governors general appointed upon the advice of Jean Chrétien (Roméo LeBlanc and Adrienne Clarkson) and by Paul Martin (Michaëlle Jean) were all criticized by monarchists as downplaying the role of the Queen and the heritage of the Crown. During these years, formal occasions at Rideau Hall increasingly repudiated a British connection. Portraits of members of the royal family were removed. The vice-regal salute (part “God Save the Queen,” part “O Canada”) was discontinued. In 2002, allegedly to minimize the focus on the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, Rideau Hall placed its emphasis on the fiftieth anniversary of the Canadian governors general. In 2004, at the Juno Beach commemoration of the sixtieth anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, critics perceived Governor General Clarkson as upstaging the Queen when she referred to herself as Canada’s head of state, while Rideau Hall officials, who obviously knew better, referred to Elizabeth II as the “Queen of England.”[21] In 2007 a National Post story on interior redesign in Rideau Hall reported that the residence of the governor general, on Madame Jean’s instructions, was “highlighting paintings that draw less and less attention to the office’s British traditions.” Explaining the move of the sole remaining portrait of the Queen and Prince Philip, formerly hung in grand public view, to the back of the ballroom, a vice-regal administrator said, “We really want to create a Canadian interior.” Historical paintings depicting members of the royal family and British officials “had become a bit of an anachronism here” because they “did not fit in with the current role of the Governor-General.” A number of these old and no longer valued portraits of the royal family had been given to the Senate, while others found wall space in Rideau Hall “near the lower-level staff entrance, cloakroom and public toilets.”[22] In a 2009 speech in Paris, Madame Jean again referred to herself as Canada’s head of state. This time, however, the governor general was corrected. A brief statement issued by the press secretary of Stephen Harper’s Prime Minister’s Office read, in part: “Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of Canada and Head of State. The Governor General represents the Crown in Canada.”[23]