The Crown vs. Scepticism, Apathy, Ignorance, and Irrelevance
The half century from 1960 to 2010 was a tough time for the monarchy and monarchists in Canada. The 1960s witnessed the end of an age of deference in Canadian society and politics. Citizens, not subjects, increasingly questioned the nature of authority, the role and purpose of governing institutions, the legitimacy of those wielding both private and public power, and the quality of their leadership. The constitutional debates of the 1970s and 1980s also emphasized the renewal of political institutions, including the constitution itself, while highlighting a growing focus on the ideals of individual rights and freedoms, political and social equality, and the improvement of Canadian democracy. Add to this dynamics such as the Quiet Revolution in Quebec and the rise of Québécois nationalism, Canada’s growing multiculturalism due to steady immigration from all parts of the globe, and the promotion of a distinct Canadian identity by successive federal governments. You then have the development of a social environment increasingly challenging, if not outright hostile, to the existence of an institution such as the monarchy.
It does not help the monarchy and its Canadian defenders, moreover, that the royal family is quintessentially aristocratic and English, and by necessity Anglican, and based in the United Kingdom, making only itinerant visits to Canada. Factor in the reality that public school systems across this country have failed for decades to properly educate Canadian students in the very basics of Canadian history and the nature and working of the Canadian political system, including the role of the Crown in this system, such that most Canadians now suffer from “civic illiteracy.”[24] Most Canadian students have trouble identifying our first prime minister, explaining the function of Parliament, or knowing how and why public policies get made, let alone understanding the role of the Queen or the governor general in the Canadian constitution.
These social dynamics combined have generated undercurrents of questions, scepticism, hostility, ignorance, and apathy, which have been corrosive to the reputation and standing of the monarchy in Canada. As John Fraser noted, by the first decade of this new century, “[t]he whole notion of the Crown seemed not so much in jeopardy as in steady, inexorable decline, and for the life of me I couldn’t see how the slide could be stopped.”[25] In a similar vein, the chief executive officer of the Monarchist League of Canada stated in 2010 that “indifference,” and not republicanism, was the single greatest peril facing the future of the monarchy in Canada.[26] As historian Michael Bliss, a committed republican, argued, “It [the monarchy] doesn’t mean anything to most young Canadians. It will die a natural death at the same time as the dwindling band of oldsters who still support it die off too.”[27] So is the monarchy dying in Canada? Is it becoming increasingly irrelevant to most Canadians? Do most Canadians actually wish to see it abolished?
Monarchy and Public Opinion in Canada: Trending Disloyalty?
Extensive surveys over the past quarter century have taken stock of Canadian public opinion with respect to the monarchy. They have also scrutinized whether Canadians support its abolition in favour of a republican form of government. This information reveals a number of narratives with good and bad news for both republicans and monarchists, although monarchists perhaps have the most to be worried about. If the monarchy is a fundamental part of the Canadian constitution, and if the Queen, as head of state, is supposed to be a symbol of unity, duty, and representation of all that is best about Canada, then the modern monarchy stands on a shaky foundation of public support.
In the two decades immediately after the Second World War, the limited public opinion polling on Canadian attitudes to the monarchy revealed strong majority support for the institution within Canada, with the notable exception of the province of Quebec. Through the 1970s and 1980s, however, as socio-demographic changes flowed through the country, survey data registered increasing strains of republican sentiment. While two-thirds of Canadians, when asked, tended to express support for the monarchy in Canada, one-third favoured the country becoming a republic.[28] By the 1990s, the growth in republican sentiment became ever more noticeable and threatening to monarchists. An Angus-Reid/Southam News poll in January 1993 asked respondents to reflect on Canada’s preservation or abolishment of “its formal constitutional connection with the monarchy.” Results showed that 51 percent favoured abolition, 42 percent sought preservation, and 7 percent were unsure.[29] Three years later, the same question resulted in 47 percent favouring abolition, 44 percent opting for preservation, and 9 percent unsure. In December 1997, close on the heels of Princess Diana’s death (the former wife of Prince Charles), a Pollara survey revealed that 41 percent of Canadians supported the abolition of the monarchy following the death of Elizabeth II, with only 18 percent opposing such a move. A further 39 percent of respondents indicated that they didn’t care one way or the other. This poll illustrates the lowest level of support for the monarchy ever reported in Canada. As the Ottawa Citizen noted on December 24, 1997: “For many people, any ember of love for the monarchy died with Diana, Princess of Wales, in that midnight tunnel in Paris. Only 18 percent would preserve the throne, 41 percent would abolish outright. The rest care not a candle, in the wind or otherwise.”[30]
As the new millennium unfolded, opinion surveys continued to reveal divided Canadian sentiments on the monarchy, but with supporters of republican options tending to outweigh their monarchist opponents. In February 2002, an Ipsos-Reid poll found a somewhat confused Canadian population. It reported that 79 percent of respondents supported “the constitutional monarchy as Canada’s form of government,” with an additional 62 percent of those surveyed believing that the monarchy helps to define Canadian identity. Despite these findings, 48 percent of respondents also indicated that “the constitutional monarchy is outmoded and [they] would prefer a republican system of government with an elected head of state,” and 65 percent believed that the members of the royal family were “simply celebrities who should not have any formal role in Canada.”[31]
By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, pollsters were beginning to look ahead to the inevitable end of Elizabeth II’s reign with more pointed questions. In March 2008, an Angus-Reid poll asked Canadians whether they supported Canada ending “its formal ties to the British monarchy.” A total of 55 percent of respondents expressed support for this idea, with 34 percent opposed and 11 percent undecided. But then the question was asked, “In the future, Prince Charles may become King of the United Kingdom and Canada. If Prince Charles does become King, would you then support or oppose Canada ending its formal ties to the British monarchy?” In response to this question, support for abolition of the monarchy in Canada increased to 58 percent, while opposition to the idea dropped to 30 percent, with 12 percent unsure.[32] A similar survey by The Strategic Council on July 1, 2009, found that 65 percent of respondents were in favour of ending all ties to the British monarchy once Elizabeth II’s reign comes to an end, with 35 percent supporting Charles as a future king. “At 65 percent,” noted Citizens for a Canadian Republic, “this is the highest level of support for ending the monarchy in Canadian history. Canadians, as do republicans elsewhere in the Commonwealth, seem relatively content with letting the Queen continue until the end of her reign — but after that, all bets are off. Prince Charles as a successor to the Queen is not a popular concept at all.”[33]
After a decade of generally grim polling data showing most Canadians to be critical of, or even hostile to, the monarchy, things began to look noticeably better for monarchists beginning in 2011. In June of that year, and simultaneous with the royal marriage of Prince William to Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, an Angus-Reid survey found that 58 percent of survey participants now supported Canada remaining a monarchy, while those in favour of its abolition had fallen to 33 percent. A Harris-Decima survey in May 2012 once again found surprisingly strong support for the monarchy in Canada. This poll indicated that 51 percent of C
anadians wished to maintain constitutional monarchy as Canada’s system of government, thereby keeping the Queen as head of state. English Canadians expressed increasing levels of support for the retention of the monarchy, while opposition to this idea was strongest in Quebec, where just 24 percent of respondents said that the monarchy was important to Canada.[34] In July 2013, a Forum Poll again found resurgent strength for the monarchist position in Canada, this time associated with the birth of Prince George, the son of Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge. In this survey, 48 percent of those polled supported maintaining the institution of the monarchy in Canada, with 37 percent in favour of its abolition and 15 percent undecided.[35]
Better news for Charles came in an Angus-Reid poll released on the occasion of the Queen’s ninetieth birthday on April 18, 2016. This sampling of public opinion found that 64 percent of Canadians surveyed continued to support Elizabeth II as monarch, while only 47 percent wished to see Charles as a successor king. The word most commonly associated with Charles in the minds of respondents was “boring.” But at 47 percent acceptance for his future kingship, this number represents the highest level of support recorded for Charles’s succession over the past three decades. While most Canadians surveyed still say they oppose his eventual succession, almost half of Canadians may be warming to him. Is the glass half full or half empty? Similar divisions remained when Canadians were asked if the country “should continue as a monarchy for generations to come.” A total of 42 percent of respondents were in favour of this proposition, while 38 percent were opposed, with 20 percent undecided. In seeking to put the best republican spin on these findings, Tom Freda, director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, asserted that the poll results showed that it’s time for a parliamentary debate on monarchy abolition in Canada. Given the Queen’s age, he said, it is better to have this debate now rather than waiting to discuss the future of the Crown with the Queen on her death-bed.[36]
The polling data on Canadian attitudes toward the monarchy over the past thirty years reveals deep divisions respecting the monarchy in this country. While the survey data ebbs and flows, indicative of how current events in the “celebrity narrative” of the royal family — the death of Princess Diana, the marriage of William and Kate, the birth of royal children, the Queen’s ninetieth birthday — can and will influence survey results, the deeper storyline here is troubling for monarchists. Over these decades, support for maintaining the monarchy in Canada with the Queen and her heirs as the head of state has rarely been a majority attitude among Canadians. For most of those thirty years, this position attracted the commitment of only about a third of Canadians. Republican sentiments over this time period have tended to better represent the viewpoints of most Canadians respecting the monarchy. Most Canadians, when asked, express the idea that they wish to see the monarchy in Canada terminated at the end of Elizabeth II’s reign, with a Canadian becoming head of state, preferably through some form of election to the position of governor general.
Monarchists will find comfort in the turnaround in polling data since the marriage of Prince William to Catherine Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, in 2011, but even here, this resurgence in support is problematic. How deep and long-lasting will it be? Is it strong enough to reverse a republican trend that has been growing for the past half century? Even if it’s true that roughly half of Canadians now support the maintenance of the monarchy and the role of Charles as king, why only half? For an institution that proclaims to represent all Canadians to one another and the world, and aims to make all Canadians feel proud of their country, heritage, constitutional order, and social culture, why do half of Canadians not feel this love? As many republicans argue, if the monarchy were truly so valuable to Canada and Canadians, the vast majority of Canadians would clearly recognize this value and give the monarchy their heartfelt support. But they do not. The monarchy has not fervently lived in the hearts of most Canadians for at least half a century, and it has never been part of the psyche of French Canadians. It has also failed to engage younger Canadians. So even at 50 percent support, monarchists still have big questions to answer. And none is perhaps as big as whether Canadians want to see Prince Charles succeed his mother as king.
Even most republicans are prepared to see Elizabeth II live out the rest of her reign in constitutional peace. But will we, at some point in a future that is drawing increasingly close, truly wish to see King Charles III proclaimed as our new sovereign? Even though Canadian support for the preservation of the monarchy in the second decade of the twenty-first century has rebounded in favour of the monarchist position, this shift in public opinion cannot and will not stop the broader debate about the future of the monarchy that has been part of Canadian politics for over three decades. The future of the Crown in Canada remains precarious, and the debate on the status of the monarchy in this country continues.
Chapter 7
the great debate i: republicans vs. the crown
“Certainly, if we were devising a system of government for the twenty-first century, we should not come up with what we have now: The arrangements are antique, undemocratic and illogical.”
— Jeremy Paxman, 2007.
“The Crown is the embodiment of the interests of the whole people, the indispensable centre of the whole parliamentary democratic order, the guardian of the Constitution, ultimately the sole protection of the people if M.P.s or M.L.A.s or ministers forget their duty and try to become masters, not servants.”
— Eugene Forsey, 1974.
An existential question haunts all monarchists. If we could wipe the slate clean and draft new twenty-first century constitutions fully in keeping with the principles of democracy, equality, and accountability, would people agree to a hereditary monarch as their head of state? And would any significant number of people in Canada agree that such a head of state for us should derive from an English aristocratic family? Even in Britain, is it possible to imagine that any substantial number of people would agree to vest the authority, prestige, privilege, and wealth of a hereditary monarchy in the hands of the Windsor family?
Just to ask these questions is to answer them. It is difficult to believe that a majority of people today would ever opt for the existing monarchical system. As British republican Jeremy Paxman asserts, the current system is anti-democratic, elitist, classist, and discriminatory against all those who are neither Anglicans nor Windsors. Reeking of unwarranted privilege, the monarchy to him is an unaccountable, embarrassing, and archaic vestige of an aristocratic, imperialist, and often racist, past, which should have no place in the constitution of a thoroughly modern, open, multicultural, egalitarian, meritocratic, and democratic society.[1] To ardent republicans in the United Kingdom and throughout the Commonwealth realms, a clear alternative presents itself. If the very existence of the British monarchy is so dramatically out of touch with the modern realities of these countries, the people of these lands should act as reasonable and rational citizens, and work toward its abolition. They should strive to replace it with national heads of state who would be truly representative and accountable to the people. Republicans perceive such acts of constitutional reform to be a long-desired and long overdue process of social and political maturation whereby the people thrust off stale and demeaning traditions of inferiority and become, themselves, the true sovereigns of their states.
This description makes the shift to republicanism sound quite easy, and so obvious as to be seemingly indisputable. And yet, constitutional reform of this type is heavily laden with challenges. One such obstacle is the powerful collective voice of monarchists. Just as there are republican movements throughout Britain and the Commonwealth realms, so too are there monarchist organizations. They give voice to those who defend not only the interests and actions of the royal family but also the constitutional order found in the United Kingdom and parts of the Commonwealth. Just as there are myriad arguments against monarchism coming from republican challengers to
the constitutional status quo, so too are there many and varied defences raised in favour of monarchy. Defenders of a monarch as head of state in these Commonwealth realms feel compelled to preserve a constitutional order that is both modern and alive while boasting an ancestry of over a thousand years. Canadian journalist and monarchist Andrew Coyne has often claimed that to abolish the monarchy in Canada would be to reject five centuries of monarchical/constitutional tradition in this country. This tradition has seen the country evolve into a modern, liberal, democratic, and multicultural society, committed to the rule of law and the promotion of justice and equality. The history of the Crown in Canada is intimately connected to this process of constitutional and democratic transformation.[2] Far from inhibiting the development of Canadian democracy, the Crown and its representatives have been instrumental in promoting its evolution and acting as its guardian.
Not only is this deeply rooted dispute ongoing, it is also likely to rise in intensity as Elizabeth II’s long reign draws to a close and Charles, Prince of Wales, ascends the throne. Or will he? Will Charles relinquish his right of succession prior to this event, allowing his son, William, to become king, joined by his queen, Catherine, to become the new, younger face of monarchy for the first half of the twenty-first century? Or will Canadians move to abolish the monarchy in this country upon the death of Elizabeth II, severing what republicans here see as the last colonial link to an archaic past and its anachronistic institutions?
Battle Royal Page 17
