But to others, the monarchy resonates with symbolism, history, and nobility. As the Canadian courts have affirmed, the Queen is more than just a person. She is the living embodiment of the Canadian state and our constitution. She is a manifestation of the Canadian political and legal order. As such, when an individual pledges his or her allegiance, that new citizen is expressing loyalty and fidelity to all of Canada, its laws and political system, and its people. The Queen is also a living connection to our history of constitutional development and the slow but steady evolution of responsible government and parliamentary democracy, of which the institution of the monarchy is a vital part. The Crown now stands, to its defenders, as a role model promoting a new nobility of spirit: the virtues of community service, of charitable undertakings, of duty to others before self, and of building the bonds of mutual togetherness and concern that tie a society together. This nobility shows individuals that society is greater than the sum of its parts, that we are all members of the same national family, that we share a common heritage as well as a future life together, and that we touch the better angels of our being when we help one another.
No wonder so many Canadians are passionate about the monarchy. Whether they are for it or against it, the monarchy is very much about symbols and history: how we view the past, which traditions we hold dear and which ones we would like to dispense with, and what principles define us. We live in a democratic era where the values of democracy, equality, meritocracy, and accountability are central to political life. Yet we also live in a constitutional monarchy where we have a hereditary head of state, represented in Canada by an appointed governor general and ten provincial lieutenant governors, with the Queen, to this day, legally holding full executive authority in and over Canada in her hands. In other words, we live in a country where people are puzzled and divided over the status of the monarchy, debating what it says about us, whether it is a benefit or a detriment to our political and social life and to our identity as citizens, and whether it should be preserved or abolished.
A Crown of Glory; a Crown of Questions
On June 2, 1953, in Westminster Abbey, the twenty-six-year-old Elizabeth II was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, as well as of her other realms, including Canada. At the end of the hours-long coronation ceremony, as Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher placed the five-pound, solid-gold, precious stone–encrusted St. Edward’s Crown on her head, he addressed the Queen as well as the 7,500 members of the congregation and the millions watching on television: “God crown you with a crown of glory and righteousness.”[8] To monarchists then and now, her crown was — and still is — one of glory. She is the heir to a line of monarchs in British and English history stretching back over a thousand years. She is a descendant of William I, the Conqueror, who was the first English king crowned in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066. She is the head of state of the United Kingdom, Canada, and fifteen other member states of the Commonwealth. She is the head of the Commonwealth, and she is the supreme governor of the Church of England. She is the personification of the states over which she reigns, and she is the guardian of their constitutions. She is a manifestation of their political and constitutional evolution, and, as of September 9, 2015, she became the longest reigning monarch in English, British, and Commonwealth history, eclipsing the sixty-three year reign of Victoria. To monarchists, this is glory indeed. As of 2017, thirteen British prime ministers have served under Elizabeth II, the first one being Winston Churchill, while twelve Canadian prime ministers have held this honour, starting with Louis St. Laurent.
When Elizabeth II ascended the throne in 1952 (her coronation came over a year after the death of her father, George VI), she and all her subjects were still very much living in an age of deference. The monarchy was accepted as part of the natural order of things within the British Commonwealth and the still existing British Empire. The monarch was understood to play an important ceremonial role as head of state in her realms. Members of the royal family, moreover, were largely held in awe, respected as role models of class and devotion, duty and courage for all the Queen’s subjects. By the 1960s, however, seeds of dissent were being planted. Social attitudes to power, authority, and privilege were changing throughout the Commonwealth, the Empire, and the broader Western world. The age of deference gave way to an age of increasing scepticism and cynicism, marked by the questioning of authority and privilege; calls for greater democratization, egalitarianism, and meritocracy; and demands for greater transparency and accountability of all those in public life. This enduring age of accountability has presented formidable challenges to the monarchy. It has come under intense media scrutiny, and the members of the royal family have become ripe fodder for tabloid journalism. Arguably, no royal was as exalted or treated so wickedly by the tabloid press as Diana, Princess of Wales. While at one time, and for centuries, the royals were held in venerable rapture by many of their subjects, by the 1970s and 1980s they had become the stuff of comedy and ridicule, made famous by British television’s Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Spitting Image.
The comedy, however, was just a symptom of a growing problem for the royals and the institution of the monarchy. Not only were people beginning to laugh at and about the royal family — although the Queen always tended to be above the fray — they were also beginning to wonder about the monarchy’s legitimacy and value. In Australia, Canada, and some of the other Commonwealth realms, the countries continuing to recognize the reigning British monarch as their head of state, and even in Britain itself, the crown of glory was becoming a crown of questions. Is a hereditary monarchy consistent with a modern liberal democracy? Does the monarchy actually perpetuate the worst aspects of the British class system, with individual achievement taking a backseat to birthright? Does the system of privilege, wealth, and inherited status found within the monarchy contradict the political values of equality, individual initiative, and social fairness found in all these countries? In Canada the questions kept coming. Is it not odd, even insulting, that a Canadian can never aspire, no matter how talented and respected, to be Canada’s head of state? Does the continuation of the monarchy not indicate to Canadians and, indeed, to the whole world that Canada’s political development is stunted and that Canadians are incapable of making a clean break from their former colonial status within an Empire notorious for its racism and abuse of human rights?
These deep questions lead to more specific issues. What do the Queen, the governor general, and the lieutenant governors actually do? Do they possess any real powers or are they merely expensive figureheads, easily discarded? And finally, do Canadians really want to see Prince Charles become Canada’s head of state when his mother passes away? Is it time to put an end to this constitutional anachronism and simply abolish the monarchy in this country, allowing for a Canadian to be selected or elected as our head of state? Is it not time for Canada to become, like most modern countries, a constitutional republic? These questions, and the search for their answers, form the heart of Battle Royal.
Chapter 1
rivers of blood: legacies of conflict and reconciliation
“The ground where you stand, where you build your houses, where you build a fort … this same land belongs to me. I have grown up on it like the grass, and it is the very place of my birth and my residence. It is my land.… But at the present time you force me to speak out because of the considerable theft you inflict upon me.”
— a Mi’kmaq chief speaking about the founding of Halifax, June 21, 1749.
“I urge you to unanimity and concord. Let me hear no more of the odious distinction of English and French. You are all his Britannick Majesty’s beloved Canadian subjects.”
— Prince Edward, Duke of Kent (1767–1820), and father of Queen Victoria, speaking in Charlesbourg, Quebec, 1792. This is the first recorded use of the term “Canadian” in its modern form as referring to both English and French Canadians.
T
hey all knew they were making history that summer. Over the month of July 1764, some two thousand chiefs and sachems, holy men, elders, warriors, and family members representing twenty-four indigenous First Nations arrived for a Great Council at Fort Niagara. Also present was the personal representative of the British king, George III. This diplomat, Sir William Johnson, was the superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies of America. Although Fort Niagara had been built by the French, it was now in British hands, having been appropriated following their conquest of New France in the Seven Years’ War (1756–63). Now, the king requested that the leaders of all the indigenous peoples living in the northeastern regions of North America congregate at the place where the Niagara River flows into Lake Ontario. There, amidst the beauty of nature and under the ramparts and guns of the British Empire, they would discuss and enter into a treaty setting out how all this land was to be governed.
The First Nations people came from far and wide. Some arrived from what is now Nova Scotia, while others journeyed from as far west as the Great Plains. Many more travelled south, from Hudson Bay, while others headed north, beginning their treks in the Adirondack Mountains. Leaders of the Algonquin, Cree, and Huron nations arrived along with representatives of the Nipissing, Pawnee, Mohican, Odawa, and Potawatomi nations, to name just a few. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy of the Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, and Onondaga was also well represented. These leaders and their people had all been informed that the French were no longer a power in the land and that the British would be their nearest non-indigenous neighbours. They had also been informed that the British king had spoken of new rules regarding how the British would live with the indigenous peoples in the land now claimed by the British Crown. There had been a royal proclamation, and they desired to know more. The chiefs wanted to hear from the king’s delegate himself, to listen to how Sir William would describe the new order of things, so they could decide if the English king’s words were fair and just, and determine whether they would live in peace or war with the British.
Johnson, married to a Mohawk clan mother named Molly Brant, was a keen observer of indigenous traditions and political systems. He respected the oral traditions of the First Nations, the importance of symbolism, and the idea that these nations deserved equal respect and dignity from the British. Over the month of July, Johnson met separately with the leaders of each First Nation to discuss the future. He gave them details of George III’s Royal Proclamation of 1763, whereby the British claimed sovereignty over the eastern half of North America. He stressed that this declaration recognized the existence of Indian nations and their pre-existing ownership of their lands. He further promised that the British desired free and fair trade with all First Nations and freedom of movement throughout all lands subject to the British Crown. And there was more. Johnson assured the chiefs, in the name of his king, that under British law the Crown had to respect indigenous land ownership, and that the only way for the British to acquire more land than they currently held was through treaties signed between the British Crown and First Nations. British subjects could never take land from “the Indians” without their consent and without the approval of the king. Furthermore, the British Crown promised to bring to justice any Briton who committed robbery or murder against indigenous persons and pledged that the Crown would protect and aid First Nations against their enemies.[1]
By the end of July 1764, Johnson had secured a unanimous agreement from the chiefs present at the Great Council, and on July 29 the Treaty of Niagara was confirmed. This treaty was made real through the exchange of covenant chain wampum belts, which served as a symbol of the agreement between the British and indigenous First Nations to live in peace, friendship, and respect with one another, with each nation recognizing all the others as equals. The wampum belt that Johnson gave to the First Nations chiefs showed two figures — one British, one indigenous — linked by a chain of silver, signifying that the treaty required constant attention and polishing in order to remain bright and vibrant. The belt given in return to Johnson by the chiefs of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was a “two row” wampum. Ray Fadden, a Haudenosaunee scholar, describes the symbolic significance of this belt:
[It shows] two paths, or two vessels, travelling down the same river together. One, a birch bark canoe, will be for the Indian people, their laws, their customs and their ways. The other, a ship, will be for the white people and their laws, their customs, and their ways. We shall each travel the river together, but in our own boat. Neither of us will try to steer the other’s vessel.[2]
While most Canadians have never heard of the Treaty of Niagara or the Royal Proclamation of 1763, these documents are recalled by First Nations to this day as reminders of the historic linkages between these nations and the British Crown, and of the ongoing constitutional obligations borne by Canadian governments to indigenous peoples. In 1763 and 1764 the Crown made legal commitments to First Nations, most of which were dishonourably broken and abused. The honour of the Crown still remains to be attended to, enhanced, and polished.
Distant Echoes of Regal Origins
The monarchy in Canada today is necessarily of British origin. Elizabeth II is Queen of Canada because she is also “Queen of the United Kingdom and of her other Realms and Territories.” She holds sovereignty over Canada because her ancestors laid claim to Newfoundland in 1497, the Hudson Bay watershed in 1670, and acquired Nova Scotia by treaty from the French in 1713. And, most significantly, the British won control of a large part of North America from the French during the Seven Years’ War of 1756–63. The Citadelle of Quebec fell to the British in 1759, with the French government of Louis XV ceding all of New France, save for the little islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, to George III and his British Empire through the Treaty of Paris in 1763. While the British lost possession of the American Thirteen Colonies in 1783, they retained control of the northern half of the continent and its separate colonies and territories, eventually witnessing four of these jurisdictions — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, and Ontario — form the nation of Canada in 1867.
We are our history, and the history of Canada has been shaped by the actions of the British Crown. But monarchies existed in what is now Canada long before the arrival of the English. In 1534, the French explorer Jacques Cartier set foot on the Gaspé, planting a crucifix while claiming all that he saw in the name of Francis I, the king of France. This act inaugurated over two centuries of French royal rule in North America. These years would witness the birth of a distinct French Canadian society in North America, centred upon the St. Lawrence River and the lands of Acadia.
Watching Cartier raise his cross to his king were indigenous peoples. Likely Haudenosaunee, these wary observers were members of just one of the First Nations spanning the continent. A significant number of these nations were themselves either monarchies or had governments strongly influenced by monarchical ideas of aristocracy and hereditary rule, a reality not lost on early French colonial leaders. The first international agreements between First Nations peoples and Europeans were military and trade alliances entered into between indigenous leaders, viewed by the French as kings, and representatives of the French Crown.
The arrival of the English into North America heralded a period of added complications and increased tensions to an already complex political environment. By the early eighteenth century, the British Crown was front and centre in the development of two crucial political realities in the history of Canada: one focusing on the power relations between the French and the British, the other the link between the British and indigenous First Nations. The historical narrative respecting both sets of relationships is fraught with contradictions. In the years before and immediately after the conquest of New France, agents of the British Crown were leading figures in some of the most shameful episodes of racism and discrimination against First Nations peoples and French Canadians in our country’s history. In the opinion of many Canadians to this day, thes
e are chapters in Canada’s history that still bring the reputation of the Crown into disgrace. In the years after 1763, though, we observe the first signs of a willingness on the part of various Crown officials to marry English and French interests; to recognize and respect certain features of the distinct social, linguistic, religious, and legal culture found in Quebec; and to see French Canadians — former foes — become loyal subjects of the Crown, eventually setting the stage for Confederation in 1867. Even pre-dating these events, we see the beginning of a special, historic, and ongoing relationship between indigenous First Nations and the British Crown. Before the conquest of New France, the British were entering into treaties with First Nations in what are now the Maritime provinces; these documents recognized indigenous nations as nations with legal personality and with rights to traditional use of indigenous lands. These treaties and the related Royal Proclamation of 1763 endure as valid legal documents. They are recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as bestowing significant entitlements to First Nations and important obligations on the Crown. The relationship between the Crown and indigenous Canadians is one that is both as historic as the old treaties and as current as the struggle for indigenous self-government and social justice.
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