To monarchists, however, the ceremonies of state, such as the opening of Parliament, are important in that they speak to our history and heritage. They remind us of the evolution of our political system, the marriage of democratic, responsible government with Crown rule, and the idea that ultimate political power resides not in current prime ministers and premiers but in a higher entity, the Crown, representing and serving all Canadians. Other social ceremonies, such as Crown recognition of “good causes” and charitable efforts, highlight the importance of endeavouring to promote the social and cultural betterment of Canada — efforts that should be symbolically rewarded by the head of state or her delegates. Once we see that Crown ceremony is the routine role that the Queen, her royal family, and her vice-regal representatives play in this country, our appreciation of such ceremonies and the value we place upon them will shape how we think about the monarchy.
The Dignified Crown
In 1867 Walter Bagehot published a fascinating study on the nature of British politics. In The English Constitution,[6] Bagehot stressed that the genius of the English people can be seen through their political evolution, during which they divided governmental authority into two streams: one was the “efficient” part of the constitution; the other, the “dignified” part. Governmental efficiency was found in the House of Commons and the cabinet. Through the working of responsible government, a prime minister and cabinet would wield effective political power in Britain. Prime ministers and their cabinets would administer the state and run the public service; they would develop foreign and domestic policies, and propose legislation that would be turned into law in the Commons and the House of Lords; they would also oversee the Empire. The prime minister and cabinet were the key governing authorities in Britain, engaged in the routine and at times complicated and messy work of running the machinery of government. It was they who would make and defend political decisions, decide between competing interests, cope with the changing currents of public opinion, advocate for core ideals while compromising on principles to build political consensus on policies and programs, and take responsibility for every success and failure of the government. Of course, with such responsibilities came great power, as well as the inevitable criticism, scorn, and the eventual loss of respect. No prime minister could ever stay dignified for long. It is simply not part of the job description.
Enter the monarch. According to Bagehot, it was the Queen who brought honour and respect, reverence and dignity, to the state. Prime ministers and their cabinets would come and go, rising and falling with the changing fortunes of fickle public opinion, but the monarch, as a fixed and central feature of the constitution, would reign on, representing the state in all its glory. When a sovereign died, the rules of succession ordaining an unbroken chain of inheritance linking the past to the future assured the monarch’s subjects of a familiar successor.
The sovereign’s dignity extended to her capacity to stand above and apart from the difficult, and some might say dirty, world of practical politics and governing. While political leaders represented transient governing factions in society, the Queen represented the enduring unity of the nation and the state, symbolically reminding all Britons of the political and social heritage they all shared. To Bagehot, the monarchy represented all that was noble in Britain. Queen Victoria was a living symbol of English history, representing the royal powers of the past as transformed through the evolution of parliamentary democracy. The royal family itself, moreover, linked ordinary Britons to the highest in the land through the shared experience of family life. Royal marriages and funerals, and consequent coronations, would be high state events, providing pomp and pageantry that enlivened ordinary life while creating emotional ties bonding subject to sovereign. The same would hold true with respect to the birth of royal children and stories of their upbringing, their interests, and the usual affections between parents and children. Through their own families, commoners could see that they shared the same fundamental values, hopes, and dreams as did the royal family.
The personal relationship between monarch and subject also transcended family. The sovereign was supreme governor of the Church of England, linking Victoria in a profoundly religious way to all devout Anglicans. To the faithful, the monarch was a servant of God on earth, owed all the respect and reverence that obligation entails, while the sovereign’s coronation oath personally committed her to serve her many peoples in the name of God. The moral tone Bagehot highlighted here, moreover, extended to society in general. As head of state, the sovereign was seen as the head of society, a symbol of propriety and ethics, personal goodness, and public honour. This popular image of Victoria as the epitome of formal correctness coupled with obedience to one’s duties endures.
The Ceremonial Monarchy — Occasions of State
A richly symbolic event occurs at each opening of Parliament. The sovereign or governor general, after inspecting the guard of honour, enters the parliament building, progresses to the Senate chamber, and ascends the throne chair. Sitting above any other person in the chamber, her or his authority is visually accented by this height. From this vantage point, the sovereign or governor general looks out over senators, invited dignitaries, diplomats, military commanders in dress uniforms, justices of the Supreme Court of Canada in their ermine robes, and, sitting to the right of the throne chair, the prime minister. She or he then prepares to present the speech from the throne. This presentation is, arguably, the quintessential moment where the presence and role of the Crown renders extraordinary an otherwise functional proceeding, bestowing it with a significance and grandeur deriving from centuries of tradition. In Canada these events are marked with military parades, guards of honour, and, in Ottawa, twenty-one–gun salutes. Twice in Canadian history, a sitting of the federal Parliament has been opened by the reigning sovereign: once in 1957 and then again during Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee year of 1977. On all other occasions, the governor general has represented the Crown.
The symbolism and grandeur does not end with the seating of the sovereign. Once seated, the speaker of the Senate directs its protocol officer, the Usher of the Black Rod, to proceed to the House of Commons to request the presence of members of Parliament in the Senate for the speech from the throne. The rear of the Senate chamber has standing room for these individuals. As Black Rod approaches the entrances to the House of Commons, its doors are slammed shut, a defiant reminder of the independence of the Commons, dating back to the beginning of the English Civil War (1642–48). Charles I was the last English monarch ever to set foot in the House of Commons in 1642, accompanied by armed troops seeking to arrest parliamentary leaders such as John Pym and Oliver Cromwell for attacking his claim to rule England by divine right. This challenge to the authority of the House of Commons helped to spur on the Civil War, resulting in the victory of Parliament over the king, the eventual execution, in 1649, of Charles I by the Parliament led by Cromwell, and the inauguration of the principle of parliamentary supremacy. To this day, the only parts of the British and Commonwealth realms where the sovereign and her or his representatives are forbidden to enter are its legislative assemblies.
All this history is played out in symbolic form at the opening of every Parliament. Black Rod must knock three times on the door of the House of Commons, begging leave to enter the chamber, where he or she requests the presence of the members of Parliament within the Senate. Once Black Rod has exited the House of Commons, the speaker of the Commons leads its members to the Senate chamber to hear the throne speech. Once all the actors are assembled, the Parliament of Canada is complete: the Crown in the presence of the Senate and House of Commons.
While all throne speeches are read by the Queen or her vice-regents, their words are not their own. The speech is written by prime ministers or premiers and their key advisers, and it highlights the policy and legislative initiatives to be advanced by the government in the new sitting of Parliament or the provincial legislative assembly. Thron
e speeches have always tended to be general statements of policy priorities that garner little more than one day’s media attention. They offer an elegant ceremonial beginning to a new parliamentary session, but they are seldom the focus of great political importance. The speech from the throne becomes the first object of debate for the House of Commons or a provincial assembly and, providing the governing party commands a majority of seats in the legislature, the passage of the throne speech is a foregone conclusion.
The political reality here, foreordained by the numerical logic of a majority government, belies the symbolic importance of the throne speech. As the late Eugene Forsey, royalist, socialist, and constitutional scholar, long argued, the pageantry of the throne speech sends important constitutional messages to all participants in the drama, including those of us who simply follow it via the media. The monarch, or her vice-regal delegate, takes pride of place. But the speech read is that of the first minister and his or her cabinet. They are the ones who form the government, who exercise de facto executive authority over the state, who formulate policy and programs, and who command the confidence of Parliament.
It is vital to remember, though, that the first minister is not head of state. He or she must sit to the side of the throne, knowing that the de jure constitutional holder of full executive power in the country is the Queen. Traditionally, in throne speeches the voice of the Crown will refer to “my government” and “my ministers,” as seen in the following statement:
My Government’s legislative programme will focus on economic growth, justice and constitutional reform. My Ministers’ first priority will be to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability.[7]
The constitutional message here rings with exceptional clarity. The government is that of the monarch. Full executive authority resides in the Crown, and any current first minister holds but a temporary power to advise the sovereign or her vice-regal representatives on the exercise of their duties. No matter how powerful prime ministers or premiers may be, the throne speech reminds them, and us, that their power is constitutionally subordinate to the Crown. Their power is contingent on winning elections and commanding the confidence of their parliamentary assemblies. The very moment they fail in these regards, their power and authority evaporates, shifting to other leaders who have won such elections and who command such parliamentary confidence. First ministerial egos are symbolically always held in check. Yet the Crown carries on, as Forsey argued, with a fixed permanence. It perpetually represents the state in all its majesty; it is the legal possessor of all executive power in the realm; and it upholds and will defend, if need be, the constitution from abusive prime ministerial authority.
The Ceremony of Royal Assent
The speech from the throne is not the only state ceremonial role that reinforces the notion of permanence and majesty. No piece of legislation passed by the federal Parliament or a provincial legislature can become law until it has received royal assent. Such royal assent is now considered a mere formality, given the logic of responsible government. In the United Kingdom, the last sovereign who refused royal assent was Queen Anne in 1708.[8]
In Canada, royal assent of federal legislation has been refused only on a number of rare occasions, and those were by British-appointed governors general between 1867 and 1878. During this time period, twenty-one laws were reserved “for the signification of the Queen’s Pleasure” (that is, were reserved for review and assessment by the British government) with respect to whether Canadian legislation violated British imperial interests. Of the twenty-one laws reserved, only six were refused royal assent. In that same period, one federal act that had been granted royal assent in Canada was subsequently disallowed by the British government, making a total of seven denials of royal assent. Since 1878 and a change in British policy respecting oversight of Canadian legislation, coupled with the decision of the Imperial Conference of 1926 that stripped the governor general of his duties as a representative of the British government, the Crown has never rejected a bill duly passed by the federal Parliament.
The story is somewhat different with respect to royal assent of provincial bills. Under the Constitution Act, 1867, the royal power of reservation and disallowance of provincial legislation was given to the governor in council, that is, the federal cabinet. This power was not infrequently exercised by the federal government in the first fifty years following Confederation. Political scientist R. MacGregor Dawson documented 112 cases, mostly occurring before 1896, in which the governor in council instructed provincial lieutenant governors to refuse royal assent to provincial bills, while in another 70 instances, lieutenant governors reserved bills for the assessment of the governor in council. Of these, only 14 were subsequently granted royal assent, making for a grand total of 168 cases where royal assent was denied to provincial bills. The last time such assent was withheld from a provincial bill was in 1943.[9]
Receiving royal assent to federal legislation became a mere formality very early on in the life of this country, as the British government quickly came to recognize that it had no democratic right to thwart the will of a Canadian government and Parliament. How could they when this very government had been democratically elected with a mandate to develop policies, make laws, and govern in the best interests of Canadians? The principle of pro forma royal assent to provincial legislation took longer to develop, due to policy and partisan rivalries between federal and provincial governments. By the middle of the twentieth century, though, the democratic principle had come to influence this aspect of federal-provincial relations as well. It is fair to say, as does law professor Peter Hogg, that “the modern development of ideas of judicial review and democratic responsibility has left no room for the exercise of the federal power of disallowance.”[10]
Other State Ceremonial Duties
The throne speech and the granting of royal assent, while of great symbolic importance, comprise just a tiny fraction of the many state ceremonial duties of the Crown. The sovereign has always held the executive power to make appointments to government offices, and this role persists in Canada. Perhaps the most important appointment power exercised by the Crown is that of naming a prime minister or premier. This power is one of the prerogative powers by which the sovereign, and now the governor general or lieutenant governor, has always held the independent power to act on her or his own constitutional judgment, but in accordance with the constitutional conventions of responsible government. Once a first minister has been appointed, however, the sovereign and her vice-regal representatives exercise their power of appointment subject to the advice of responsible first ministers.
In Canada, these vice-regal representatives are called upon to authorize a wide array of senior governmental and judicial appointments. The governor general formally appoints all cabinet ministers and secretaries of state recommended by the prime minister. He or she also officially names all Canadian ambassadors and high commissioners, all senior public servants such as deputy ministers, the executive heads and board members of federal Crown corporations and regulatory agencies, all senior military commanders, and every judge appointed to the federal courts and, most importantly, to the Supreme Court of Canada. These governor in council appointments can number into the thousands. Provincial lieutenant governors have similar appointing responsibilities, but on a smaller scale. They officially appoint cabinet ministers; senior provincial public servants; executive leaders to provincial agencies, boards, and commissions; the judges of provincial courts; and lawyers to the rank of Queen’s Counsel.
Beyond the ratification of appointments, a host of other state obligations occupy the Crown-as-monarch. Take as examples the Queen’s Christmas address, Remembrance Day ceremonies, and Canadian vice-regal ceremonies and speeches on Canada Day and New Year’s levees. Each of these events is designed to convey majesty, symbolizing the power and dignity of the state. They are also tailored to convey the close connection between Crown and country. The same is t
rue of state dinners presided over by the vice-regal representatives and attended by other heads of state, government and senior Canadian officials, leading figures in the current life of Canadian politics, business, or society, or such leading figures in the life of a province. The governor general will routinely meet with foreign diplomats in Ottawa while also travelling abroad to promote Canadian diplomatic and international policy interests through state visits to foreign countries. Lieutenant governors, in turn, travel within their own province as well as across the country, promoting the social, economic, and cultural interests of their home province.
All these travels, however, are eclipsed by the frequent official and unofficial royal tours of the Queen and members of the royal family to Canada. Elizabeth II has made twenty-two official royal tours to this country as of 2017. Members of her family, ranging from the Duke of Edinburgh to Prince Charles and his wives, first Princess Diana, and latterly Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to the Queen’s other children, Princess Anne and Princes Andrew and Edward, to Charles’s son Prince William and his wife Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, have made dozens upon dozens of both official and unofficial (private) visits to Canada over the past sixty years. These visits have always attracted extensive media coverage, far exceeding that ever shown to any Canadian vice-regal representative of the Crown. While this discrepancy in media attention and public interest likely does not embarrass governors general or lieutenant governors in that they express gratitude that so many Canadians remain interested in the actions of the royals, the media and public focus witnessed here does say something significant about the continuing star power of the royal family — a power that the Canadian vice-regal delegates can never attain.
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