Battle Royal Read online

  All these ideas for promoting a revitalized monarchy share a basic reality. The royals and the Canadian vice-regents on their own cannot breathe new life into the institutions of the monarchy in Canada. All the proposed courses of monarchical reinvigoration mentioned above require political support from first ministers, their governments, and parliamentary assemblies — and ultimately from the Canadian people. A simple fact of life states that if we want something we have to pay for it. More royal tours require more Canadian funding for such tours. More travel by the governor general and the lieutenant governors throughout Canada in general and the provinces in particular means more public monies invested in these trips. If the vice-regents are to be more active in recognizing and honouring charitable organizations within their jurisdictions, and if these governors are to be allowed to explore the many possibilities of giving enhanced value to Canadians through the development of philanthropic trusts, we must be prepared to expand their support staffs, giving them the institutional intelligence and organizational ability to research, plan, and develop viable trust initiatives.

  And there is more. If we want the vice-regents to be more active along all these lines, we may need to consider lengthening their terms of office. Currently, Canadian governors serve a five-year term, although it can be extended by a year or two when so desired by a first minister. Nothing in the constitution, however, prevents even longer terms, and some governors general and lieutenant governors have served for eight to ten years. If vice-regents are to take on even more tasks, including the time-consuming work of establishing trusts, the time required for governors to become comfortable and proficient in this work may require greater continuity in office. Reinvigorated vice-regents may need terms of eight to ten years to be effective in their expanded roles. Longer tenures in office would also provide the vice-regents with greater experience in dealing with first ministers and parliamentary assemblies, perhaps giving them greater knowledge and influence if and when parliamentary crises arise.

  If we are to accept a changing role for the vice-regents, moreover, we may want to consider changing their manner of appointment. But if we want to pursue this path without sinking into the morass of constitutional amendment issues involving the idea of electing vice-regents, we may want to think about improving the manner by which the prime minister appoints vice-regents. In 2012, Prime Minister Harper established a rather narrowly circumscribed Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments to provide him advice on all such appointments, including those of lieutenant governors. Canadians may wish to see this committee possessing a far broader membership than just a few appointees close to the prime minister; many Canadians may desire an advisory committee closer in composition to the one recommended by the editorial board of the Globe and Mail in 2009, with membership drawn from the federal government, Parliament, the Supreme Court, the premiers, the Assembly of First Nations, the Royal Society of Canada, and other leaders representing diverse aspects of Canadian society. Whether Canadians are prepared, however, for our vice-regents to be selected through a somewhat more open and representative process, serve longer terms, and become more activist in leading a reinvigorated monarchy remains an open question for us and for Prime Minister Trudeau.

  The People’s Crown

  It is possible we will see a revitalized Crown when King Charles III comes to the throne. It is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that the monarchy’s past half century will be but a prologue to its future. With the accession of Charles III, we may simply witness the representatives of the monarchy in this country carrying on as they always have: people who are always there, executing their traditional ceremonial and charit­able duties with little fanfare and even less public awareness and support, with the rare occasional exercise of reserve power thrown in, but tending to be little known and seldom noticed. As the late republican Michael Bliss has said, the monarchy may continue to walk the tightrope over irrelevance, with its greatest security net being the inertia guaranteed by the law and politics of the constitutional amendment process. Such continuity, however, will simply confirm monarchist Michael Valpy’s assertion that we are, in truth, a “crowned republic.” We will remain a monarchy, with all the institutional trappings that go with this state of affairs, but we will be a constitutional monarchy. Real power in this country will continue to rest with the people and their democratically elected governments. Prime ministers and premiers are the key actors on the political stage, supported by their cabinets and sustained in office by parliamentary assemblies. A king, assisted by his vice-regents, will reign but can never rule, except in those rare instances when the use of the reserve powers is called for. This way of governing is how it should be in a constitutional, monarchical democracy.

  As we come to the end of the second Elizabethan Era and are about to enter the reign of Charles III, the great debate on the monarchy in this country endures. Republicans will maintain their challenge to the legitimacy of the monarchy, earnestly calling for a national referendum allowing Canadians to vote on whether they want to sever our ties to the British monarchy and enable a Canadian to become head of state. In turn, monarchists will remain steadfast defenders of the Crown in this country, loyally upholding the institution of the monarchy as a fundamental part of our constitution and a living link to a thousand-year heritage of parliamentary evolution and democratic development.

  In keeping with the life of a democracy, it will be for Canadians to decide the outcome of this debate. If we truly want to abolish the monarchy, we can do so by supporting the republican cause and ultimately electing to power governments and leaders throughout this country who would take up the challenge of securing the required constitutional amendment. If the political will to abolish the monarchy is there, the constitution does show the way. But if Canadians wish to see a revitalized monarchy, one more active and more engaged with Canadians, in which both the royals and Canadian vice-regents play a much greater role within the official, ceremonial, and charitable life of this country, such a monarchy can exist. If Canadians call for a stronger monarchy, expressing support for initiatives of the royals and the vice-regents to attain such an end while also encouraging governments to invest more resources, including money, into the institutions of the monarchy, such a revitalized Crown can be achieved. But if, as will likely be the case, Canadians remain divided between these two courses of action, the great debate on the future of the monarchy in Canada will continue. We will retain our Crown, but it will remain, as it has long been, a “Crown of Questions.” A fact of political life within this Canadian “crowned republic,” however, stands unquestionably true, and it is a truth existing throughout Canada and well known within Buckingham Palace: we, the Canadian people, hold the Crown and its future in our hands.

  Acknowledgements

  This book, beginning as an idea and then slowly evolving into a series of written essays, began to take its current form as a book manu­script in 2014. I must first acknowledge the support of Cape Breton University in granting me a sabbatical in the fall of 2014 and the winter of 2015, giving me the precious time to dive into the voluminous literature, pro and con, on the monarchy in Canada, the United Kingdom, and across the Commonwealth realms.

  I also wish to thank my political science colleagues at Cape Breton University for their encouragement in the writing of Battle Royal. They are LeeAnne Broadhead, Sean Howard, Andrew Molloy, Tom Urbaniak, and Terry Gibbs.

  Kind mention must also be paid to a number of other colleagues at Cape Breton University for their assistance in the development of the book. Many thanks to Tanya Brann-Barrett, dean of research, teaching, and graduate studies, and Andy Parnaby, Andrew Reynolds, Joanne Pyke, and Paul MacDougall. And with the Nova Scotia Community College, Heather Kennedy MacIsaac.

  Fond appreciation is also extended to Alana Lawrence and Michelle Lahey, former students and now friends and colleagues, who read very early drafts of the book, always with an eye to making the writing engaging
and reader-friendly.

  With respect to the writing, Julie Sutherland gave the manuscript its first professional copy-edit and the manuscript began to sparkle.

  I cannot speak highly enough about Dundurn Press and its president Kirk Howard, who took a chance with a still overly academic-reading manuscript, and saw something better. Many thanks also to the Dundurn team, who took this manuscript, massaged it, and turned it into the book you are now holding. A special thank you to Kathryn Lane, managing editor; Allison Hirst, developmental editor; Elena Radic, project editor; Kendra Martin, publicist; Margaret Bryant, sales and marketing director; Sheila Douglas, executive assistant and manager, contracts; and Carolyn Zapf, freelance copy editor.

  Finally, from the bottom of my heart, I express my love for my wife, Rosalie. Through all the long years of writing Battle Royal and then the challenges of finding a publisher, she was always by my side, offering critical insight, advice, encouragement, support, and love. She is my muse.

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. Canada, Statutes of Canada, Citizenship Act, 1985, S. 24.

  2. McAteer v. Canada (Attorney General) 2014 ONCA 578, 5–6.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Charles Pascal, “Time to Wave Goodbye to the Monarchy,” Toronto Star, March 6, 2011, www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2011/03/06/time_to_wave_goodbye_to_the_monarchy.html.

  5. McAteer v. Canada, 8, 18, 25.

  6. Jeff Gray, “Appeal Court Upholds Oath to Queen in Citizenship Case,” Globe and Mail, August 13, 2014, www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/appeal-court-upholds-oath-to-queen-in-citizenshipcase/article20032155.

  7. Diana Mehta, “New Canadian Renounces Oath to the Queen, Pledges ‘True’ Loyalty Only to Canada,” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/oath-allegiance-queen-dror-13343188.

  8. Sally Bedell Smith, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch (New York: Random House, 2012), 86.

  Chapter 1: Rivers of Blood

  1. Nathan Tidridge, The Queen at the Council Fire: The Treaty of Niagara, Reconciliation, and the Dignified Crown in Canada (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2015), 55–57.

  2. Tom Keefer, “A Short Introduction to the Two Row Wampum,” briarpatch (March/April 2014): https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/a-short-introduction-to-the-two-row-wampum.

  3. Margaret Conrad and Alvin Finkel, History of the Canadian Peoples, vol. 1, Beginnings to 1867, 5th ed. (Toronto: Pearson Longman, 2009), 144; Raymond Blake, Jeffrey Keshen, Norman Knowles, and Barbara Messamore, Narrating a Nation: Canadian History Pre-Confederation (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 2011), 113; Edgar McInnis, Canada: A Political and Social History, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and Winston of Canada, 1969), 112–13. Cited quotation from Blake et al.

  4. Conrad and Finkel, History of the Canadian Peoples, vol. 1, 5th ed., 147.

  5. R. Douglas Francis, Richard Jones, and Donald B. Smith, Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 6th ed. (Toronto: Nelson Education, 2009), 118–19.

  6. Ibid., 157.

  7. Olive Patricia Dickason, Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 88–89.

  8. Francis, Jones, and Smith, Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 6th ed., 157; Conrad and Finkel, History of the Canadian Peoples, vol. 1, 5th ed., 164. Cited quotation from Francis et al.

  9. Blake, Keshen, Knowles, and Messamore, Narrating a Nation, 164–65; Conrad and Finkel, History of the Canadian Peoples, vol. 1, 5th ed., 163–64; Francis, Jones, and Smith, Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 6th ed., 156–57.

  10. Canada, Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982.

  11. Francis, Jones, and Smith, Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 6th ed., 161.

  12. Thomas H. Raddall, The Path of Destiny: Canada from the British Conquest to Home Rule: 1763–1850 (Toronto: Popular Library, 1957), 11.

  13. Blake, Keshen, Knowles, and Messamore, Narrating a Nation, 168.

  14. Ibid., 170.

  15. Francis, Jones, and Smith, Origins: Canadian History to Confederation, 6th ed., 189.

  Chapter 2: From the Few to the Many

  1. W.P.M. Kennedy, The Constitution of Canada: An Introduction to Its Development and Law (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1922, 2014), 258.

  2. Blake, Keshen, Knowles, and Messamore, Narrating a Nation, 366–68.

  3. Kennedy, The Constitution of Canada, 167.

  4. Lord Durham, Report on the Affairs of British North America, Gerald M. Craig, ed., (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963).

  5. McInnis, Canada: A Political and Social History, 3rd ed., 278.

  6. Kennedy, The Constitution of Canada, 252.

  7. Blake, Keshen, Knowles, and Messamore, Narrating a Nation, 368.

  8. Kennedy, The Constitution of Canada, 256–58; Blake, Keshen, Knowles, and Messamore, Narrating a Nation, 373–74.

  9. D. Michael Jackson, The Crown and Canadian Federalism (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2013), 30.

  10. Ibid., 28–30.

  Chapter 3: “I Serve”

  1. Jeremy Paxman, On Royalty (London: Penguin Books, 2007), 228.

  2. Ibid., 227.

  3. Harold Nicolson, George V (London: Constable, 1952), 308.

  4. Adam Tomkins, Public Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 61.

  5. Samuel Arthur Bent, Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men, 6th ed. (Boston: Ticknor, 1887). Entry for Louis Adolphe Theirs.

  6. Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London: Fontana/Collins, 1867, 1963), ch. 2.

  7. Richard Berthelsen, “The Speech from the Throne and the Dignity of the Crown,” in Canada and the Crown: Essays on Constitutional Monarchy, ed. D. Michael Jackson and Philippe Lagassé (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), 171.

  8. Tomkins, Public Law, 63.

  9. R. MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada, 4th ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963), 231–34.

  10. Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada, Student Edition 2015 (Toronto: Carswell, 2015), 5–19.

  11. Frank MacKinnon, The Crown in Canada (Calgary: McClelland and Stewart West, 1976), 138.

  12. H.R.H. Edward, Duke of Windsor, A King’s Story: The Memoirs of the Duke of Windsor (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 1951), 142.

  13. Adrienne Clarkson, Heart Matters: A Memoir (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2006), 195–96.

  14. J.R. Miller, “The Aboriginal Peoples and the Crown,” in Jackson and Lagassé, Canada and the Crown, 256–60.

  15. MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada, 4th ed., 168.

  16. Edward McWhinney, The Governor General and the Prime Ministers: The Making and Unmaking of Governments (Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2005), 15–16.

  Chapter 4: The Hard Road to Soft Power

  1. Tomkins, Public Law, 40–41.

  2. David Starkey, Crown and Country: The Kings and Queens of England; A History (London: Harper Press, 2010), 218–19.

  3. Ibid., 346.

  4. John Cannon and Ralph Griffiths, The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Monarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 400; Starkey, Crown and Country, 367.

  5. Vernon Bogdanor, The Monarchy and the Constitution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 5–8.

  6. Ibid., 7.

  7. Albert V. Dicey, The Law of the Constitution, 10th ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965), 420.

  8. Bagehot, The English Constitution, 111. Italics in original.

  9. Sally Bedell Smith, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch (New York: Random House, 2012), 175.

  10. Bogdanor, The Monarchy and the Constitution, 72.

  11. Ben Pimlott, The Queen: A Biography of Elizabeth II (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), 434.

  12. Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (Lond
on: HarperCollins, 1993), 18.

  13. Paxman, On Royalty, 176.

  14. Bogdanor, The Monarchy and the Constitution, 73–74.

  15. Bedell Smith, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch, 293.

  16. Ibid., 333–34.

  17. Ibid., 336–37.

  18. MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada, 4th ed., 171–72.

  19. Ibid., 172.

  20. Ibid., 173.

  21. MacKinnon, The Crown in Canada, 103.

  22. Clarkson, Heart Matters, 213.

  23. Christopher McCreery, “The Provincial Crown: The Lieutenant Governor’s Expanding Role,” in Jackson and Lagassé, Canada and the Crown, 143.

  24. John T. Saywell, The Office of Lieutenant Governor (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957; rev. ed. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1986), 260–61; MacKinnon, The Crown in Canada, 104–05; Andrew Heard, Canadian Constitutional Conventions: The Marriage of Law and Politics (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1991), 18.

  25. McCreery, “The Provincial Crown,” 145.