How much of the monarchy can Canada realistically get rid of?

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Jordan Heath-Rawlings Two weeks since her death. As people have had time to mourn the Queen or not as they see fit. We can talk about this now, right? There’s no shortage of evidence that it was tradition and personal affection for the Queen that played a huge role in Canada’s participation as a Commonwealth nation well into the 21st century. I say no shortage of evidence because every time you ask Canadians whether it was last year or last week, you get roughly the same answers. More than half of those surveys say Canada should replace the Monarchy. One quarter would keep this form of government in place. While almost the same number of people are unsure, 58% agree the federal government should hold a referendum on the future of the monarchy in Canada, polls show that Canadian’s desire to drop the monarchy is already at an all time high at 45%. So if more than half of Canadians want to get rid of the monarchy, it’s important to figure out exactly what that would entail, how possible it is, and what kinds of things are feasible now or we’ll have to wait until later. None of these decisions will be easy. There will always be disagreements about the role of the Monarchy in this country. Some things, though, are far more likely than others. There are measures that would leave us connected to the United Kingdom and the Royal family, only much less visibly. And there are others, like ditching the monarchy entirely to become a republic, that get really, really complicated. So in the months and years to come, as other Commonwealth nations contemplate their own next steps, what will Canada do? Do we have the appetite to make a clean break? Could we realistically do that, even if we wanted to? And yes, what will we do about the faces on the money?

I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Stephen Maher is a journalist and an author. He looked into this subject for Ipolitics. We find him in Atlantic Canada, preparing for Fiona. Hello, Stephen.

Stephen Maher Good day. How are you doing?

Jordan I am doing all right. And surely, now that the Queen is safely put to rest, is this an appropriate time now to discuss this?

Stephen Maher I think we are allowed now. I personally held off on it until the funeral because many people have had strong feelings about the Queen. I had strong feelings about the Queen. I was surprised at how saddened I was by her passing. She’s one of those public figures who we felt that we knew, even though we didn’t. She was a part of our life for a long time. And I think our feelings for people of my generation, at least, I think that our feelings about her were kind of linked to our feelings about our older female relatives.

Jordan So maybe that I was going to ask you this question anyway, but it plays right into it. Why do you think there is an appetite now to revisit the monarchy’s role in Canada as opposed to when Queen Elizabeth II was alive?

Stephen Maher Well, as long as she was alive, I felt that there was a very strong sense of connection between her and her subjects in Canada, that for a lot of people, especially older people, especially older people of British heritage, there was a kind of profound connection to her. She was obviously very good at the job. She exuded duty, dignity, responsibility. Now, though, the situation is different, I think.

Jordan How so?

Stephen Maher Well, Charles, our new king, comes across as kind of a stuffy and imperious kind of figure. People who followed the news during his marriage difficulties, developed sort of opinions about him. I don’t doubt that he will change and be dignified in this role, but even the fact I found myself thinking, well, wait, so he’s already the new king. I must have missed the election. It starts to seem kind of anachronistic that you have this transfer of power to someone who has not been selected except through his family ties. And I also think that there is if you look at the way that Canada has changed from the coronation of the Queen to the coronation of Charles. It is a vastly more multicultural society. Much more independent. And there is a large a great number of Canadians come from cultural backgrounds where people can be expected to have very different feelings toward British Empire and the Royal family and the institution of the monarchy. And it seems reasonable to me to think about that, whether this institution is still a good fit for our society.

Jordan Well, and this is where we get to the point where it is time to talk about this, because if the Queen meant so much to older Canadians or Canadians who grew up with her, particularly, let’s be honest, white Canadians who grew up with her, what about the people to whom it the monarchy? And she meant the opposite, like Queen Elizabeth is at rest, this is the time to listen to their voices. Right. And there have been some people who have made some pretty impressive statements about this.

Stephen Maher Yes. And I would just note that it’s not just white Canadians, because I know I’m talking to from Nova Scotia, from mi’kmaq. There’s a lot of Irish people here. There’s a lot of people who, for historical reasons, and not just white people, may have mixed feelings about the history of British imperialism. Right. I think of just this area here you have the expulsion of the Acadians, the centralization of mi’kmaq people, the residential schools a century or so where the Crown did not honour the peace and friendship treaties with Indigenous people, the Irish potato famine, many South Asians people from the former British holdings in India and Pakistan, Bangladesh. There was many people killed in starvation there associated with the Empire and the large population of people from, particularly in Toronto, their roots in the British Caribbean. When you start thinking through this, a fairly large number of Canadians now would have reason for complicated, at least feelings about this institution.

Jordan So let’s start then with the biggest possible step that Canada could take. What would it take for us to fully and completely just remove ourselves from the Commonwealth in the monarchy and become a republic? What would actually have to happen? Well, you don’t get very far thinking about that because the first thing that you would have to have is the unanimous agreement of all ten provinces, the House of Commons and I believe the Senate, because of the amending formula that was agreed on when Pierre Trudeau won the support of the provinces to patriot the Constitution, that would be impossible. There is no realistic possibility that Alberta and Quebec and all the provinces would agree on this without saying, well, if we’re going to open this, then we’ve got this other thing we want to talk about first. So we can basically forget about that and what we want that to happen, even if we did with Canada, want to be a republic. And I realize I’m not asking you to speak for Canada here, but what are the downsides to getting rid of a constitutional monarchy?

Stephen Maher So the great thing about constitutional monarchy is it works really well. I’ve been covering politics for a long time, and when I started I was a fairly straightforward Republican. I thought this was an anachronistic ridiculous institution. As I learned more about the way our system functions and watched what happens in other societies, I have come to think that there is a lot to recommend the form of the constitutional monarchy, which means that you have a separation between the embodiment of the state and the sort of guarantor of the Constitution and the executive and legislative actors. So I think it’s splendid that we have someone in the form of the Governor General who sort of supervises the electoral system. In a sense. I think there’s something really good about that. I think it’s good that we have somebody who hands out commendations and medals, who is not a partisan actor. If you look at the way we’re so polarized in this country right now, for many people, the mere sight of Justin Trudeau causes them displeasure and makes them angry. We have someone who is apart from that who we can kind of see as the embodiment of the country. If you compare republics or presidential republics with strong presidencies to parliamentary systems around the world, their track record is much stronger, much better. In my article, I compared the way the British were able to get rid of Boris Johnson to the Americans were kind of stuck with Donald Trump. I think powerful presidencies are unstable and dangerous because they put all the power in the hands of one person. So whatever we did were to do I don’t think we should risk the tremendous stability that has come from the system in Canada. If we were to risk that, I don’t think we would have to risk that to make the kind of changes that are possible. But that part of our system is really excellent. Our elections are always seen as legitimate. We don’t have constitutional crises. So in some ways it’s an excellent system.

Jordan So let’s talk about this from where we’ve ended up. On the one hand, you have a country that’s probably less than enthusiastic about King Charles and you have a significant percentage of the population in that country that has active reasons, shall we say, to look down on the monarchy or to or reasons that the monarchy has not been great for their family or their history. And we want to keep the constitutional monarchy, first, because it works, and second, because we can’t really reopen the constitution anyway, which leaves us with what can we do to remove the monarchy without reopening that constitution?

Stephen Maher So we can do quite a lot, I think. And I’ve talked to exchange emails with Philip Lagasse about this constitutional expert, Carlton University, and I’ve read his writing on this. And this is something that I’ve been to and discussed with people over time. So it appears that what we could do is essentially remove the mentions of the royal family from a lot of our public life. We could take the royals off our money. I personally find it oh, I’m sorry. I’ve got somebody at my door. Hey, buddy. I’m just doing an interview right now. Yes. No, I got lots of rope. Okay, thanks. I’ll say hi after. Sorry. Are you all right there? Jordan? Can you hear me?

Jordan We are great. Just mentioning that Steven is battening down the hatches for this weekend’s storm in Atlanta, Canada.

Stephen Maher Yeah. So we ought to be able to take them off the money, change the oath. And there are further steps we could take through legislation to increase the independence of the office, the Governor General, but it’s not entirely clear how far we could go there.

Jordan Well, you say in your piece that the Governor General rule in particular could use what you call a fresh coat of paint. What does that mean?

Stephen Maher Well, I think that we have a problem in that prime ministers have kind of ambiguous feelings about enhancing the office because this sort of ceremonial side of the Governor General prime ministers really like doing that stuff. They have a tendency, I think, to want to play at president, at being president, embodying the nation and symbolizing the nation. I think if we were to diminish the role of the monarchy in Canada, it would make sense to take steps to enhance the legitimacy and increase the profile of the Governor general. In Australia, at one point, they started calling their governor general the Australian Head of state. Officially, the Queen is our head of state. If we start saying, Sorry, the King rather I’m still not used to that. But if we start saying that the Governor General is our head of state, the monarchists would complain. But in a sense, by saying it, it would kind of be true. There’s sort of constitutional grey areas here. But the problem that I see with all of this is that prime ministers who are the ones who control this kind of thing have reason to not want to enhance that office.

Jordan What do you think it would take to take and I’m throwing this out here because you mentioned it and because it is probably the most public facing, recognizable step we could take, what would it take to get the Queen or now the King off the money? Is it just a vote in Ottawa, a decision by the Prime Minister? What happens?

Stephen Maher Yeah, as I understand, there would not have to be a vote. The government could just decide that they want to put Canadians on the money and take the faces of the royals off, which, you know, that’s a big step. And I’m kind of waiting for someone to talk about this. And so far, no one has. The polling shows that Canadians have ambiguous feelings or are not enthusiastic about Charles, but it doesn’t tell us necessarily much about how bothered people are by this. The reaction to my article, I saw people saying, well, don’t we have better things to worry about? And it seems to me that’s the best thing that the monarchy has going for it in Canada right now in terms of public opinion, is people may not care that much. That’s what, to me is necessary for us to determine. It’s kind of been pretty telling in terms of his read on if Canadians care about it. Yes. So while the Commonwealth leaders were gathering in London, the leaders of New Zealand, Australia, the Bahamas, I think Jamaica, a number of countries all said, well, yes, this is something that we move towards, something we’re going to talk about. This is not the moment, but, yes, this is on the agenda. Justin Trudeau’s comments were in contrast to that. He said, we’re not thinking about that. We’re focused on inflation and cost of living. He really seemed to be signaling that he’s not interested in that question at all.

Jordan Given that, and given, as you mentioned, how polarized we are, is that something you could see either the NDP or the Conservative Party taking up? Whether or not and this is me being cynical whether or not they actually have plans to do it or really believe in it, or just using it as a cudgel to bludgeon Trudeau, I wonder?

Stephen Maher Yes. And in particular, I’m curious to see whether Jagmeet Singh may be interested in discussing this, because I think that in particular, a lot of multicultural millennial voters who are important to the Democrats. I would guess, would they find the connection to the royal family to be anachronistic or out of step with their sense of a modern, multicultural Canada? So far, I haven’t seen Mr. Singh say or do anything about this. And these political parties have mechanisms for measuring public opinion than just opinion polls, right? So often the best way to figure out how people feel about things is by watching the way politicians talk about them, because the politicians have these fairly elaborate machines for getting a sense of the mood of the country.

Jordan So that’s the big question mark I have going forward, is, are we going to see Jagmeet Singh or maybe even Mr. Poilievre, if there’s a sort of Republican streak, particularly Western conservatism? So that’s not entirely out of the question either. Obviously, in the months to come, whether this discussion picks up steam or just completely fizzles away will determine where this goes from here. But if I had to ask you to bet me right now that the Queen or the new king will still be on the money in ten years, would you take that bet?

Stephen Maher I don’t know. I would be inclined to say no, that this is something that we’re going to want to put our own people on the money. But in advance of a public discussion, it’s hard to know, right. Until you actually have a debate and people get someone engaged in it and you have arguments, it’s really hard to judge how people feel about this without that. And it’s probably now or never to have that debate. Right? Because if we let this go for six months or a year, everybody’s just going to forget about it. I’m not sure, though, because I think that it will come up. If we see Australia and Bahamas, Jamaica, it’ll tend to kind of bubble up. It’s an issue that we may see debated at policy conventions for the political parties. It has been debated before by young Liberals. Will someone say, okay, well, we’re not going to become a republic, but we should canadian eyes the currency, right? That’s how you could frame it and see what the support for that is. Until that kind of thing happens, I think it’s a little bit difficult to put your finger in the air and figure out how Canadians really feel about it.

Jordan Well, I for one, would like to spend a Terry Fox toonie one day.

Stephen Maher I think that would be good. I think Terry Fox, Lucy Maud Montgomery is the other one who wrote the Anna Green Gables book, and you can think of lots of other people banning some of our medals. We live in a better world because of what they did. Terry Fox…It would be interesting to see, and I’m sure there would be political debates over that as well. Yes. So I hope that we’ll have this conversation. But on the other hand, I’m also open to the possibility that people have better things to worry about.

Jordan Fair enough. And Steven, you have bigger things to worry about now with Fiona headed to Atlantic Canada. So be safe out there this weekend, and thank you for your time.

Stephen Maher Thank you, Jordan. Bye bye.

Jordan Stephen Maher is battening down the hatches, and we wish him and everyone listening to this from Atlantic Canada the best this weekend. Be safe. That was The Big Story. For more, head to thebigstorypodcast CA. Find us on Twitter at thebigstoryfpn or email us hello at thebigstorypodcast CA. You can find this podcast wherever you get them. Remember to, like, rate review, follow whatever you can. It all helps. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. Have a great weekend to all of you, and we’ll talk on Monday.