CKNW Editorial
for July 19, 2000

The Queen Mom’s 100^th birthday brings a lot of thoughts. As she was born in the last year of the 19^th century, and will unquestionably live until the next one starts on January 1, 2001 she will have lived in three centuries. Quite a feat. But she and her elder daughter rather put things under the glass, so to speak, because they are both universally loved and admired. And as her father was blessed with the stately Queen Mary as his mother, so Queen Elizabeth II is very lucky to have her mum around too. Both of these dignified ladies burnished the royal image where so many others tarnished it.

What is the future of the monarchy in Canada, do you suppose? For one thing it’s very hard to dump since the latter day fathers of confederation, in 1982, put the monarch amongst the items that can only be changed by unanimous consent of all the provinces and the federal government. Thus might Prince Edward Island stand against the country and single-handedly save the Canadian monarchy. One of the reasons that the monarchy question is so little debated in this country is the unanimity required to get rid of it. Why debate something you can’t change?

I wax and wane on this issue as long time listeners will know. I’m certainly an Anglofile – of that there’s no question. And I admire both Queens and the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the system. But despite that and the fact that my hero, Churchill was a sobbing sentimentalist over his monarch, I’m beginning to think that it’s all pretty passe for Canada.

There is the physical remoteness though in fairness I must point out that we have royal visits to Vancouver more often than we see the prime minister. So, then, both are remote. And I have trouble with Charles as King. It’s not just the way he treated Diana and his constant love of Camilla – as Diana said, the marriage was a little crowded – but it’s also because he does actually say and do things. Now don’t get me wrong – I admire the work he’s done with the Prince’s Fund, his outspoken statements about modern art and architecture and his natural farming methods. But, you see, to have a monarch in the modern sense you must have someone whose words and deeds don’t come up in arguments. Charles is a real person and I don’t think we’re ready for that or indeed ever will be.

Another problem, though, is what we use instead. We could simply combine the jobs of Head of Government and Head of State as was done below the line. But I think there is a place for pomp and circumstance and that we therefore need an otherwise functionless head of state. In America they ingeniously invented the Vice President, gave him nothing to do except preside over the Senate when he feels like it, shake hands with foreign dignitaries, meet people seen as politically unsafe to the president and rub shoulders with newly minted Eagle Scouts.

We could simply carry on with governors-general and accept the latest political pay-off by the Natural Governing Party. Except it’s so gauche. One bluddy Liberal hack after another.

But what about electing them?

Trouble there is whenever you elect someone to anything they take is as a popular mandate to do something. Anything … but something. Imagine what that high flying governor-general, Adrienne Clarkson, could do now if she thought that instead of just being paid off by the Liberal backroom boys she was actually supposed to do something?

The monarchy has to have mystery about it – perhaps mystique is a better word. The only Canadian who fitted that bill, in my lifetime, was Georges Vanier who was so fortunate to have a stunningly beautiful chatelaine who looked better every passing year. There is no mystique to Adrienne Clarkson, a CBC public teat feeder of long standing and partner in a shotgun marriage with a noted Canadian author – if that isn’t an oxymoron I don’t know what is – insisted upon by the Prime Minister as the price of high office!

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think the younger people out there are much interested in the current royal crop and I suggest that their kids will be even less interested.

Yet for all practical purposes we can’t change the system. So I suppose we’ll just keep rolling along with a King or Queen long after the rest of the Commonwealth is through with the institution … perhaps even long after the Brits have tossed it aside. And to keep our reputation for complacency intact, we’ll permit Prime Ministers to select in the appropriate order governors-general, male and female, French and English who are a certified part of the establishment who run this country.