Royal visits mark the epitome of the ceremonial role of the monarchy in Canada. “The Queen’s tours,” Frank MacKinnon has noted, “are major occasions which only a sovereign’s presence can provide. Official ceremonies, visits to institutions, and other events give opportunities to thousands of citizens to see a world figure representing centuries of political tradition, national sovereignty, and contemporary international friendship.”[11] Anyone interested enough in the monarchy to be reading this book has likely seen some of these manifestations of royalty, either live or via television. Through these regular visits, the Queen and other members of the royal family recognize the accomplishments of Canadians, bestow awards, and promote social and cultural causes worthy of respect and admiration. They execute all of these undertakings in a highly stylized manner famous for its attention to formality and etiquette, decorum and dignity, befitting both royalty and the headship of state. Anyone who meets a “royal” feels the flutter of butterflies in the stomach while wondering about the proper form of address, and how to curtsy or bow. But sometimes the formality breaks down, perhaps most dramatically in Toronto in 1919. In that year, Edward, Prince of Wales (and the future Edward VIII), while on a cross-Canada tour to celebrate the end of the First World War, visited the Canadian National Exhibition to meet some twenty-seven thousand veterans. He was called upon to inspect the former troops from horseback. As he recorded in his memoirs:
The moment I appeared the veterans broke ranks and, cheering and yelling, surged around me. At first my mount showed commendable control. Then, as the human mass engulfed us both, I felt its body quiver. Fortunately, even if its instinct had been to rear up and bolt, the crowd held it as in a vise. The next thing I knew I was being lifted off the horse’s back by strong hands and passed like a football over the heads of the veterans. Disheveled, shaken and breathless, I eventually found myself on the platform, clutching the crumpled notes of my speech. The roar of cheering had changed to laughter. I wish Papa could have seen this.[12]
Thus ended the first, and likely the last, recorded example of royal crowd-surfing.
Social Ceremony: Public Engagements and Philanthropy
A variety of other Crown ceremonial roles are connected to these state visits. As former governor general Adrienne Clarkson noted, one of the important parts of the job of being a vice-regent is travelling the country and meeting people. “In the six years that I was Governor General,” she writes, “I took part in more than 6,000 events, travelling about 150,000 kilometres a year. We visited close to 400 villages, towns, and cities. And even though some contacts were brief, the very act of shaking hands and touching someone and looking into their eyes can bring an instant and genuine rapport. Too often we pass by without really noticing others.”[13]
The concept of the Crown-as-monarch is now synonymous with public engagements. The Queen, for example, officially represented Canada at the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, opened the 1976 Summer Olympic Games in Montreal, proclaimed the Constitution Act of 1982 in Ottawa, and commemorated the ninetieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 2007. Her vice-regal representatives regularly visit schools, hospitals, and seniors homes; attend charitable, arts, and cultural events; meet with community and business service groups; declare open new or renovated buildings and venues of historical, cultural, or commercial importance; and interact with members of the Canadian armed forces. And this list can go on and on.
At many of these public events, the representatives of the Crown bestow honours and awards, and offer symbolic recognition for service to the country. The granting of “honours” such as titles and knighthoods, as a royal prerogative, dates back to the earliest days of French and English history, with the reigning sovereign always viewed as the “fount” of all honours. This perception endures. In the modern Canadian Honours System, the Queen’s personal honours rank as the most prestigious: the Order of Merit, the Royal Victorian Chain, the Royal Victorian Order, and the Royal Victorian Medal are all honours that can be awarded to Canadians, at the personal discretion of the Queen, for exceptional service both to Canada and the Crown. The most exclusive is appointment to the Order of Merit, since there can be no more than twenty-four living members. Only four Canadians have ever been admitted to this order: William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1947, Wilder Penfield in 1953, Lester Pearson in 1971, and Jean Chrétien in 2009.
Within Canada, the honours system consists of a hierarchical variety of orders, decorations, and medals. At the bottom of the ranking, Canadians can be awarded an assortment of medals for certain types of military and police service, volunteerism within provinces, and recognition of public service through commemorative coronation or jubilee medals. Higher up come decorations, which are special medals awarded for “specific acts of bravery, valour, gallantry or meritorious service.” The highest decoration in the country, of course, is the Victoria Cross, a military medal awarded for “a signal act of valour while in the presence of the enemy.” At the apex of the hierarchy are a number of orders, the most prestigious of which is the Order of Canada, established in 1967 to recognize distinguished service by any Canadian citizen in the interests of Canada or humanity at large.
Beyond these honours, various governors general have established separate awards to highlight and promote various aspects of Canadian social life and culture. Lord Dufferin in 1873 created the Governor General’s Academic Medal; Lord Tweedsmuir established the Governor General’s Literary Awards in 1937; Roméo LeBlanc, in 1996, authorized the Governor General’s Caring Canadian Award (now called the Sovereign’s Medal for Volunteers). Perhaps most famous of all are Lord Stanley, in 1892, and Lord Grey, in 1909, who donated cups to be awarded to the national champions for hockey and football, respectively. Sensing a gender bias in regard to these latter two trophies, Adrienne Clarkson established the Clarkson Cup in 2005, to be awarded to the winner of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League championship.
Just as the Order of Canada and these other honours recognize acts and works of distinction by Canadians coast to coast, so too have all the provinces established their own provincial orders, medals, and awards functioning along the same lines as their national counterparts. These provincial honours have been designed to recognize and celebrate outstanding works of community and public service performed by exceptional citizens living within their given province. Lieutenant governors confer these honours on an annual basis.
There is yet more to the ceremonial life of the Crown in Canada. The sovereign retains the right to grant the royal prefix to prominent institutions, signalling that the recipient body is exceptionally worthy of royal prestige and honour. Examples of this recognition include the Royal Society of Canada, so named by Victoria in 1882, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, named by Edward VII in 1904. George V officially named the Royal Canadian Navy in 1911, the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1924, and the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada in 1929. The Royal Conservatory of Music was named by George VI in 1947. The following institutions represent just a smattering of those that have received the royal prefix by Elizabeth II: the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (1953); the Royal Canadian Legion (1962); the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary (1979); the Royal Tyrell Museum (1990); the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo (2006); and the Royal Cape Breton Gaelic College (2013).
Of all the many ceremonial and symbolic roles of the Crown in Canada, arguably one of the most significant today is the one connecting the Canadian state to indigenous peoples. When members of the royal family or governors general or lieutenant governors visit First Nation, Métis, and Inuit communities across this country, meeting with both common people and indigenous leaders, they reaffirm a special governmental relationship of historic importance. As we saw in chapter 1, members of First Nations found themselves involved in the first official and unofficial interactions with representatives of first the French and then the British Crowns in what was to become Canada. These relationships contin
ue to this day, and they are especially honoured by indigenous Canadians. At many meetings between Crown representatives and indigenous peoples, ranging from formal ceremonies and Treaty Days to informal pow-wows, historic treaties will be recognized as having established sacred covenants between indigenous peoples and the Crown, where the honour of both sides was pledged in perpetuity. These treaties, and especially the Royal Proclamation of 1763, are viewed by many indigenous Canadians as legal evidence of their nationhoods and aboriginal rights, with all such treaties affirming that indigenous Canadians are not so much subjects of the Crown but allies of the monarch.
The concept of the “honour of the Crown” has always resulted in a very personalistic relationship existing between indigenous peoples and the Crown. Many indigenous Canadians have seen the treaties as establishing a personal kinship bond between indigenous leaders and the British sovereign. They have perceived the sovereign, whether it be George III, Victoria, or Elizabeth II, as someone who takes a direct interest in the welfare of their indigenous allies and to whom direct appeals for redress of grievances should be directed.[14] We saw the latest manifestation of this understanding on January 24, 2013, with a Crown–First Nations Gathering in Ottawa between 170 indigenous leaders and representatives of the federal government to discuss social, economic, and constitutional policy concerns of indigenous Canadians. At this meeting, indigenous leaders insisted that the governor general be present, at least for the opening ceremonies, to remind all in attendance, and especially Prime Minister Harper, that the “honour of the Crown” remained to be defended.
Crown Ceremony: Banality vs. Grandeur
Since the Crown represents the state and constitutionally holds all the executive powers of the state, the Crown has to act in such a manner as to command respect and awe. It must wield dignity. The sovereign is to be the living embodiment of the state — one person who must reflect all that is good and great about the state. As a symbol of nobility and virtue, all sovereigns are logically required to comport themselves in such a manner so as to avoid controversies that would tarnish the image and reputation of the Crown and bring the institution of the monarchy into disrepute. The Queen and members of her family, along with her vice-regal representatives across the Commonwealth, are expected to be staid, cautious, careful in speech, at all times respectful, and at no times contentious or partisan. When the Crown speaks, it speaks in decorous triteness and profound simplicity. The one exception to this rule of behaviour, of course, is the throne speech, but there it is understood that the sovereign, or her vice-regal representative, is speaking the words of her first minister and government. At all other times, the Crown is to be a symbol of decorum and unity.
Lord Tweedsmuir, governor general from 1935–40, bemoaned the task of speaking in “Governor Generalities,” that is, avoiding sensitive subject areas while still sounding thoughtful and intelligent. Three decades previously Earl Grey, governor general from 1904–11, commented that “for nearly five years I have, quite conscious of my constitutional limitations, walked the tight-rope of platitudinous generalities and I am not aware of making any serious slip.” Despite Governor General Grey’s protestations to the contrary, MacGregor Dawson noted that he was “attacked for giving his views on such innocuous topics as co-operative societies and retail merchants’ associations.”[15] The intervening decades have not changed much. Edward McWhinney, writing in 2005, commented on the quietness of the governor general’s role:
For more than three-quarters of a century, the office of governor general of Canada has been pleasantly free from public controversy, and from involvement in complex and difficult constitutional decisions that all too often end up in partisan political conflict.… Absence, during all that time, of any real difference or disagreement between the governor general and the prime minister has left the governor general free to concentrate on the quieter and gentler, essentially honorific aspects of the office as titular head-of-state.[16]
So quiet has been the speech and so limited the range of matters upon which representatives of the Crown can speak that many people both in Canada and across the Commonwealth, especially those of a republican frame of mind, have come to believe that the words of the Crown-as-person are essentially banal. Real substance, if it is to be found in public life, comes from governments and ministers, from politicians representing either the ruling majority party or the opposition in parliaments; in other words, real substance originates in those who have earned the democratic right to represent Canadians in Parliament and government. The rest, to the naysayers, signifies nothing — at least nothing worth the taxes required to sustain it. The sovereign and her vice-regal representatives manifest as pale mannequins, giving the appearance of significant public actors but constitutionally limited to speaking in pleasant platitudes while performing mundane ceremonial tasks of little interest to most people. Their lack of power and importance reduces them to “mere figureheads” whose little noted role is of no consequence. The Queen becomes an object of jokes on account of her “wave,” while her family members are the object of tabloid journalism; and most Canadians are hard pressed to name the current governor general or, harder yet, their provincial lieutenant governor. The monarchy, republicans claim, is an institution becoming increasingly irrelevant, especially to the young, to French Canadians, to Canadians of more recent immigrant heritage, and to those who wish to see Canada finally become unfettered from its colonial stronghold. If we are to be a truly modern and independent country, republicans assert, we need to sever the link tying us to the remnants of an archaic and colonial past.
But such opinions never go unchallenged. Monarchists such as Eugene Forsey and Frank MacKinnon long argued that this all too common public attitude ignores the symbolic importance of the Crown’s ceremonial role in this country. Once again, symbolism rises to the fore, speaking to power relationships and the importance of political and social culture. Defenders of the Crown are quick to assert that the role of the head of state needs to be kept separate and distinct from that of the head of government, with the former properly attending to the dignified ceremonial life of the state. In so doing, the actor at the heart of such ceremonies is the Queen or her vice-regal representative. These individuals are figures who represent the state in general, who are by definition non-partisan and apolitical, and who appeal to common, general interests in Canadian society that hopefully serve to unite Canadians with their history and culture. According to this way of thinking, the monarchy and its representatives ideally symbolize the grandeur of the state while reminding and encouraging all Canadians to be proud of the democratic society in which they live.
Crown Ceremony and Canadian Nationalism
As head of state, the Queen is the symbolic personification of Canada. She and her vice-regal representatives officially hold all executive powers in Canada, exercising them in the name of the Canadian people through the advice of democratically elected first ministers and their governments. While prime ministers and premiers truly do rule in the country, the institutions of the monarchy remind them, and all Canadians, that the heads of governments are transitory officials, possessing political power for not one second more than they command the confidence of the parliamentary chambers in which they reside.
Only the Crown is permanent, representing the state in all its majesty, and pledged to the service of all Canadians. The Crown is to be experienced by all Canadians through Crown ceremonies. Hence the importance, as monarchists assert, of both the state and social ceremonial activities of the Queen and the royal family, and of governors general and lieutenant governors in this country. It is through these ceremonial roles that the agents of the Crown are seen and understood by ordinary Canadians. Through these ceremonies, moreover, these agents of the Crown remind Canadians of their shared history and heritage, while encouraging all of us to value the significant achievements of Canadians from all walks of life in helping to build a better Canada through the prom
otion of Canadian social, economic, and cultural well-being.
This rosy perspective concerning the Crown does not inspire Canadians of a republican frame of mind. To these less than loyal subjects of Her Majesty, the monarchy itself is a dated relic of an imperial and colonial past. By its very nature, republicans contend, the monarchy symbolizes and perpetuates concepts of social and political hierarchy, elitism, class, and religious privilege that are fundamentally contrary to the democratic and egalitarian values of modern Canada. If the Crown represents history and heritage, to many republicans it is a history and heritage of colonial exploitation and racist imperialism, which serves to divide Canadians more than it unites them. For these reasons, it is also a history best superseded in this modern era.
Republicans are also quick to pounce on the modern contradictions arising from the monarch’s role as supreme governor of the Church of England. The sovereign, by law, cannot be a Catholic or an adherent of any faith other than Anglicanism. Further, she or he must be “in communion” with the Church of England. Lastly, she or he is legally required to defend the interests of the Anglican faith. All of these constitutional requirements borne by the Queen and her heirs and successors arguably run counter to the provisions respecting freedom of religion, equality rights, and freedom from discrimination on the basis of religion found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. How can it be, republicans ask, that the head of state, the symbolic leader of the country, by law embodies religious precepts in opposition to fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the Canadian constitution?
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