Canada’s Flourishing Monarchy

Fr de Sousa published this essay six years ago today. I've shared it on Facebook before I started this blog, but here it is again.

From the National Post

By Fr Raymond J. de Souza

Canada has the ideal constitutional system — a PM of responsible government at home, and a head of state removed from day-to-day life abroad#

In New York this week, an apologetic British Prime Minister David Cameron was unwittingly caught on camera revealing the private conversation he had with the Queen to advise her of the Scottish referendum results. The minor flap served to highlight one notable aspect of the recent Scottish sovereignty referendum: Though many Scots were unimpressed by the entreaties of the underwhelming Westminster political class, they were insistent that an independent Scotland would not give up the Queen.

It is quite a turnabout of history, as the union of Scotland and England followed upon the union of the theretofore separate crowns in the same sovereign. It was the crown that united the United Kingdom to include Scotland. Now, in independence, Scotland would keep that crown. The offer to the Scottish people was, in effect, to go back more than three centuries to separate kingdoms but preserving the same king. Dissolve the union, but God save the Queen.

It is testimony to the astonishing success and endurance of the throne of the United Kingdom, and the current incumbent, Elizabeth II, Queen of, inter alia, Canada. Her Majesty goes on from strength to strength, even as other crowned heads in Europe, most recently Juan Carlos of Spain, abdicate. After Benedict XVI introduced the novelty of a freely chosen papal abdication, the House of Windsor appeared even more stable than the barque of Peter!

All of which invites attention to the health of the monarchy in Canada. By accident of history, Canada has the ideal form of constitutional monarchy — a prime minister of responsible government at home, with a head of state removed from day-to-day life abroad. The preening imperial deportment of the American or French presidents is far less fitting to a democracy than the discrete and restrained conduct of the Windsor monarchy. During the Diana years, the Windsors flirted dangerously with ostentations vulgarity, and paid a tragic price for it, Diana most of all. Sobriety returned after Diana’s funeral.

Discretion and restraint might be the watchwords of Canada’s vice regal representatives, our governor general and the provincial lieutenants-governor. Tuesday’s swearing-in of the new Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Elizabeth Dowdeswell, highlighted reforms in how Canada’s vice regal appointments are made.

Actually, it was not highlighted, as our political media have overlooked, for lack of scandal, important improvements in recent years to the Crown in Canada.

Vice regal appointments have ceased to be patronage appointments, awarded to partisan grandees, bagmen or friends of the prime minister. With the exception of John Crosbie in Newfoundland, which is a singular case altogether, Stephen Harper has decided to elevate his vice regal appointments above politics. At the federal level, it has been 15 years since a former politician has served at Rideau Hall, Romeo Leblanc being the last one.

Harper’s recent reforms regarding the Canadian Crown have included elevating the status of the Canadian Secretary to the Queen, currently Kevin MacLeod, and the creation in 2010 of a non-partisan “search committee” of eminent persons to advise on the selection of a new governor general. The process that resulted in the appointment of David Johnston was considered so successful that it was institutionalized in 2012 in the creation of the Advisory Committee on Vice Regal Appointments. The secretary to the Queen chairs the committee.

Given the vast attention paid to the corruption of our politics by patronage in the last generations, the removal of our highest appointments from partisan politics and personal patronage is unqualified good news story. Perhaps for that reason it has been almost entirely overlooked, scandal proving more saleable that sound judgment in selections.

The new advisory process was fully implemented in the appointment of the new lieutenant governor at Queen’s Park. Members of the committee consulted with dozens of groups and hundreds of interested citizens over several months. It was a fresh approach, entirely open and engaging the citizenry with the crown.

It demonstrated the enduring value of good monarchies. They are not rigidly fixed, but instruments of both continuity and change. That’s why Scots nationalists and Catholics, both of which have historic grievances against the crown in London, now celebrate their loyalty to it.

The Crown in Canada, which depends largely on the vice regal offices, has been significantly strengthened in recent years. It should be heralded.