CKNW Editorial
for November 5, 1999

394 years ago today, Guy Fawkes, mad at the King and his parliament, tried to blow up the parliament in what is known as the gunpowder plot. The day has been celebrated to this day as Guy Fawkes Day. Though his methods were a bit extreme and I wouldn’t recommend them, perhaps the old boy was onto something.

Isn’t it finally time that we debated the institution of the monarchy in this country? However well the institution may work – and I would argue that given the state of our system of governance it has not worked well – isn’t it time we threw off this archaic vestige of colonialism?

As it is, we scarcely ever see the Queen and when we do we are reminded every time she opens her mouth that she is a foreigner. The Royal Family was always supposed to be the shining example of stability, especially in the family (I say always, conveniently overlooking Henry VIII and George IV) yet the present Royal Family is about as stable as mercury rolling down a hill.

Now for the Brits it probably does mean something. After all, the great pomp and circumstance does bring in the tourists. We all crowd around Buck Palace and the knowledgeable amongst us point up to the flagpole and knowingly tell all that if the royal standard is flying, she’s home; if not she’s probably at an another posh royal mansion.

Canada is no longer a British nation, if it ever was except amongst the elite in English speaking Canada. Once we abolished knighthoods, French Canadian politicians seemed to lose all interest in the institution. Today Canada is made up more of non French and English than either of those two groups. Do we really think any of these "non-traditional" citizens give a fiddler’s fart about the British Monarchy?

Of course what I said is technically wrong. Elizabeth II is really Queen of Canada but that’s just a legal fiction. I daresay that 75% of Canadians couldn’t care less whether we had a monarchy or not.

I am a recent convert on the subject and in my only likeness to Winston Churchill, I have re-ratted. During my younger years, I was a staunch republican. Then I became I suppose a little sentimental as I spent more and more time in Britain and by the time I saw the Trooping of the Colour in June 1986 – the last time the Queen rode a horse to this occasion, incidentally – I had become a monarchist. In recent years I have defended the institution because I couldn’t think of a better one. Now I think I can so I’m back where I started, a republican.

There is nothing wrong in combining the head of government with the head of state as is done in the United States provided the legislative and administrative functions are separated. And since I propose in my book, Canada: Is Anyone Listening? that we do just that, why not have a President who is also Head of State which really means the guy who has to attend all the ceremonies and tiresome dinner parties?

What we must do is abolish this ridiculous system of appointing a party hack to be Governor-General. And don’t tell me about having members of the Order of Canada make the selection – they are, for a large part, the elite of the elite. This was the group, you may remember, that urged all its members to support the "yes" side of the Charlottetown Accord referendum.

There are some difficulties with change, of course. If the post Head of State is purely ceremonial, as it would be unless our political leader was head of state as well – which I don’t recommend – electing such a person is dangerous because anyone who is elected thinks they have a mandate … especially if there was a serious contest. On the other hand, this doesn’t seem to have done much harm to Ireland.

But the main difficulty is that the monarchy is one of those constitutional institutions which requires unanimity to change. All provinces and the federal government must agree.

So, alas and alack we’re stuck with this Edwardian aberration. The Monarchist League and the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire can relax. There can be 97% of Canada in favour of abolishing the monarchy but as long as tiny Prince Edward Island – a hotbed of royal support I’m told – we are stuck with Queen Elizabeth II, properly Elizabeth I of Scotland, and her heirs and assigns forever more including, one must assume, a Queen Camilla in due course.

Indeed, because of our constitution requiring unanimity to abolish the monarchy, we may have a Queen or a King when such is no longer the case in what we know as the United Kingdom.

Finally, on another note, I have received the list of witnesses to appear before the Nisga’a Committee of the House of Commons. All the usual suspects are there … it’s like Charlottetown revisited. Professon Peter Hogg of Osgoode, Brian Smith of BC Hydro, David McLean the chief porker for the Liberal party for years, Jerry Lampert of the B.C. Business Council who co-chaired the Charlottetown "Yes" committee, Professor Paul Tennant who goes into floods of tears at the sight of a pair of moccasins, Terry Glavin whose sloppy sentimentality is at least well written, Roslyn Kunin who wraps herself in a group called the Laurier Institute (guess how anti establishment she is) a host of natives somehow joined by Peter Meekison who is wrongly billed as former Alberta Attorney-General, Mike Harcourt – God only knows why him – the man who started this mess, Margaret Piper who, as is the custom, is a non British Columbian occupying the role of President of UBC and who supports whatever the elite thinks is fine, David Mitchell who broke with his leader to support Charlottetown, Dale Lovick the BC Aboriginal Affairs minister and while the list goes on and on I wouldn’t want you to think that the Liberals have forgotten the second biggest Liberal porker in BC after David McLean, Iona Campagnolo who is there representing fisheries presumably because she once had a husband who fished.

Is there anything about this that faintly resembles the odiferous Charest Charade led by Jean Charest who arranged a similarly loaded committee to give B.C.’s views on Charlottetown? Mercifully Gordon Gibson, Mel Smith and Phil Eidsvik will be there too but the Committee is loaded about 15-1 against them.

As one might have suspected, the fix is in.