Politics - The Monarchy

“The Profound Laziness of Monarchism”

Canada is the largest country in the Americas, and the second largest on the planet. We elect our mayors, city councils, provincial legislatures and federal parliaments. While far from perfect, we’ve a culture that is over-all fairly democratic. There are holes in that democratic umbrella; Indian quasi-citizenship, provincial squabbles and corruption are still problems, but they pale to the single scabbed-up wound in our democratic institutions, that of an unelected, foreign, hereditary monarch being our head of state.
I like the queen, she’s kept a stiff upper lip through some tough times and public disgraces. It’s just that there are several reasons why the institution should be given a polite burial and be done with. The monarchy is British, and while Britain is an important part of Canadian history and will ever be thus, Canadians aren’t British. All of our institutions are undemocratic when the source of authority, the font of honour, is the crown rather than the nation or parliament. It’s ceremonially an interesting tradition, but like baby teeth, bed-wetting and parental supervision, one that’s long past the point of normalcy. America, India, South Africa and Ireland have all done away with their formal loyalty to the British sovereign, and none of them have suffered for the loss. Keeping the monarchy based on the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach to statecraft is politically lazy, and keeps Canada as passive actor, contemplating the conflicts of American versus British Influence in our national character.
In listening to debates on the subject, I’d like to put my counters against many of the arguments that I most commonly hear:

“The British monarchy is a part of our heritage.”
Slavery was a part of the heritage of most of the world, until it was decided to be done away with. Patriarchy, racism and near-genocidal wars against the indigenous people of the land were a part of our heritage until we decided that women, people of colour and Indians deserve to be treated as human beings. Heritage is nice, I’m all in favour of heavily funding museums and history education. I’m not in favour of scouring the dustbins of history to try and reinvent expired traditions in a modern setting.

“She’s a unifying figure for Canadians.”
Again, I like the Queen, but she’s not a unifying figure, most people don’t care a lick about the institution. She contributes nothing to the country in terms of real institutions or in the less measurable field of hearts and minds. The only people who feel strongly about the queen are blue-haired little old ladies and middle-class anglophiles. For the rest of us, she’s just not on the radar. For Quebecers she’s a reminder that they have to share la belle province with les sangs impures. For immigrants, keeping a foreign head of state around just for tradition’s sake seems a tad touched. She’s simply not a unifying figure.

“She connects us the world community of the Commonwealth.”
The English language connects us to the world community, not just that of the commonwealth. The English language has spread Albion’s seed the world over, and connected us to foreign lands. In literature, a South Asian establishment emerged among novelists like Rohinton Mistery and Salman Rushdie, and journalists like Ahmed Rashid. India does not have the Queen as a head of state. South Africa, home to one of the most prominent world heroes, Nelson Mandela, is hosting the World Cup; another English-speaking cousin without a monarchical head to their government. George Orwell and John Steinbeck find their way to the reading lists of all high school students all over the civilized world. The lingua franca of the globe, not an old lady and her corgis, connects us to the world’s community of human civilization.

“Without the monarchy, we’ll join the States.”
The fact that many people believe this goes to prove that we have a stronger cultural affinity to our southern neighbours than we do to the inhabitants of that great big archipelago north of France. We’re already heavily integrated into the American economy to the point that there’s no sense in pretending we’re not dependent on American industrial and agricultural issues. Environment, culture and trade overlap in the social sphere without any respect to the land border. Saying that Canada will join the states is just silly, and appeals to our base mistrust of our neighbour. This politically acceptable social prejudice is something for which I have no time. The Netherlands hasn’t been swallowed up by Germany, little Belgium is independent from mighty France, even tiny little San Marino is a nation independent of Italy surrounding it on all sides. A similar culture doesn’t guarantee annexation.

“She connects our institutions to a tradition dating back to Magna Carta.”
Yes, so? American institutions claim the same lineage despite that notably un-royal habit of electing their head of state.

“What would we replace her with?”
Always ‘her,’ never ‘it’ when talking about the monarchy. Again, I dislike the institution, not the person occupying the spot. The absolute foolishness of this point never ceases to amaze me. As though countries like Germany, France, Italy, Brazil and Spain (all countries with higher GDPs than Canada) are somehow adrift in political limbo. As though there were no choice other than Westminster or chaos.

“The head of state should be above petty politics. I don’t want some politician in the office!”
This is like saying that you want your head of state to be completely oblivious to the problems and realities of the country. You want her/him to be classy and not to say or do anything that anyone would disagree with. I had a cat that knew nothing of politics and would never say anything that anyone will disagree with, though I doubt she’d meet the burden of classy. Democratic government is not decorative, it’s a confrontation process that never fails to arouse a controversy of opinions, nor should it. If you don’t trust the calibre of politicians at hand, then try to raise that bar by becoming involved. Democracy assures us that we’ll get the government we deserve, one way or another.

“The monarchy is a Canadian institution.”
I can’t believe that there are still people who would insist upon this. She’s quintessentially British. She lives in England, where she’s lived her entire life. Her predecessors did the same, her successors will do likewise. The monarchy reflects a constitutional reality based on the mores of England in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. A Canadian cannot be the Queen of England. Accepting the supremacy of the monarchy is nationally servile, and I dislike watching Canadians grovel so.

“We needn’t get rid of all of our customs.”
This is plea for white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant nostalgia. A recollection for a time when the country didn’t allow just anyone in, or just anyone vote. Queen Elizabeth the Second is the head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith. She occupies a position that is by law closed to anyone of the Catholic or Orthodox faith, let alone any non-Christian tradition, or no tradition for that matter. The tradition is not benign, it is foreign, classist and religiously discriminatory. It represents values that are alien to any person of conscience. It’s a custom that is not worth keeping.

The arguments in favour of keeping the tradition alive are weak at best, and outright silly when the argument of pre-existing tradition isn’t included. The argument to ditch this archaic vestige may not have the rousing populism of some other topics, but that’s only because the institution has become so divorced from our society that no one will get riled up to keep or dismiss the institution. With such little public enthusiasm for the monarchy, the onus moves to the institution to defend its value. If we didn’t already have the monarchy, then all things being equal, would we choose to establish a Canadian monarchy, adopt a British monarchy, or just let the issue drop as an archaic part of the history of foreign lands? My vote would be to drop the monarchy with the eventual (and hopefully far off) death of Elizabeth. The days of monarchies have been counting down since 1848, and it’s best that they be surrendered with dignity, rather than a few years of pervy old King Charles III, to be followed by drunken William V, prematurely balding at 28. Elizabeth is a fine exit to an honoured institution of the past.