The liberal case for preserving the constitutional monarchy in Canada
Death of a Sovereign
On 8 September 2022, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II (“QEII”), passed away at the age of ninety-six. Ascending to the throne in 1952 and being crowned a year later, QEII reigned for nearly seven decades, witnessing the world transition from World War II, to the Cold War, to the end of the millennium, and the beginning of a new one.
Upon hearing of this news, I was indifferent. QEII held a purely symbolic role in Canadian democracy, as the head of state for our constitutional monarchy. My only sympathies were for her family—her children, grandchildren, and surviving siblings, to whom she was a mother, grandmother, and sister. Beyond that, my first reflex was to yet again call for Canada to transition to a republican form of government, formally ending our relationship with the Crown and embracing the Prime Minister as our rightful head of state. A large part of this sentiment was driven, understandably, by my indignation towards the institution of the monarchy, which chose its incumbents arbitrarily and undemocratically, and had a long, brutal history of colonial domination over both Indigenous America and the subaltern (the latter of which I am a member of).
Although this remains my final conclusion, I was curious to look beyond the purely rhetorical, partisan arguments in favour of preserving the monarchy, which relied upon a false identification of Canadian national identity with its Anglo predecessors, or argued in its favour purely on the basis that it has “always been this way.” I thought on a more abstract level—mapping out how the monarchy fit into the greater constitutional architecture of Canada—and drawing out what, if any effect, its place in this system had on the functioning of our democracy. What I found at the other end was a rather compelling and respectable case for the preservation of constitutional monarchies as an institution, even if it may not necessarily have any nexus with the House of Windsor (UK), the House of Bourbon-Anjou (Spain), or any other monarchy with the baggage of its colonial past.
The Merits of (Constitutional) Monarchy
The case for preserving the constitutional monarchy is most persuasively rooted in the things it can prevent than in the things it can provide.
A constitutional monarchy is a Parliamentary system of government in which the head of state is hereditary, wielding purely symbolic powers such as civic or representative service. This type of government can be found in many Western European and East Asian states, and most famously, in the former colonies of the British Empire.
What a sovereign (hereditary head of state) in a constitutional monarchy primarily offers is a form of symbolic power, which commands the respect of the common people, political leaders, and, where applicable, religious institutions. By having symbolic power in a parliamentary democracy located solely within the sovereign, and not the executive branch (led by the Prime Minister), a state is able to deprive its most powerful executive actor of the highly potent symbolic power that other executive branch leaders in republican states wield. The most notable example being the United States of America (“USA”), where, for all intents and purposes, the President (not necessarily the Constitution) holds all the symbolic power.
In political and sociological sciences, the potency of this symbolic power has been most clearly mapped out. The most recognized scholar to have contributed to this field of study is Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist who has written extensively on the topic—most popularly in Language and Symbolic Power (1991). Bourdieu—drawing from Marxist and Weberian theories—posited that symbolic power derives its potency from its obscurity and diffuse distribution. So subtly does symbolic power operate, that those who have tacitly accepted it regard it as “common sense.” This aligns closely with the thinking of Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci, who posited in his famous Prison Notebooks collection of essays that cultural power, communicated through the medium of ideology and transmitted by institutions, works to define the “common sense” in a society, providing the consent of the “commoners” to the system in place. And so, for Bourdieu, symbolic power’s main thrust, in a political context, is its ability to legitimate the incumbent constitutional design; which, in the case of Canada, would be a superordinate constitution—guarded by the sovereign—distributing power to the judicial, executive, and legislative branch. The “commoners,” the citizens of Canada, see in the Queen (and now King) continuity between the interchangeable and transient House of Commons, Supreme Court of Canada, and Prime Minister’s Office. In doing this, the King subordinates the executive to its symbolic, elevated status, and the constitution it embodies, rather than its republican counterpart, where the office of the presidency is the highest representative of state. In essence, the King (a non-partisan figure) deprives the Prime Minister (a partisan figure) of symbolic power.
The Hazards of Partisanship
This is the crux of the argument—the distinction between partisan and non-partisan figures. When a partisan figure also wields symbolic power, as, for example, Donald Trump did during his time as President, the potency of this instrument becomes open for partisan weaponization. Trump would be free to, as he did, identify American identity with his leadership, and the survival of the state’s identity with the preservation of his power. This became most notable on 6 January 2021, when a pocket of his supporters so closely identified the legitimacy of American democracy with Trump’s Presidency that they incited a riot at the Capitol, seeing the successor President Biden as illegitimate. We can extend this idea of the sovereign being outside and above the universe of partisan politics—whether in the work of courts, Parliament, or the executive, in how it may serve as an arbiter in situations where there is a crisis in the existing distributions of political power. For example, where an existing Parliament may refuse to cede power after a vote of non-confidence, in the absence of a sovereign, it would be the responsibility of Parliament, consisting of members of the Opposition, to enforce this vote. While it may be the case that this vote of non-confidence results from the decision of democratically elected Members of Parliament, where the existing and succeeding governments disagree on the integrity or consequences of such a vote, the optics of the latter forcing the former out of power is where the soil is most fertile for a civic crisis. Similarly, where it may be the case that, while an existing Parliament has lost confidence, the succeeding government also lacks confidence, it would be best for a third-party sovereign to (where necessary) preserve Parliament rather than the incumbent government to deny the force of a Parliamentary vote. The overall point to be made here is that, where circumstances arise that traverse into the grey areas of constitutional design, instead of sparking a greater crisis putting into doubt the legitimacy of government, a third-party sovereign—the non-partisan King—can step in to stabilize the situation without arousing the suspicion of the public that it was done in service of a particular political party.
Complexity of Constitutional Design
The purpose of this article is not to propose that—keeping in mind all of the arguments for and against the constitutional monarchy—we should steer on the side of caution and keep the existing status quo. Instead, it is geared towards reconsidering just how unassailable the republican position is when taking a step back and considering the importance of the sovereign to the proper functioning of a parliamentary liberal democracy. It is meant to illuminate, in lieu of a renewed public interest and consciousness regarding the role of the Crown in Canadian democracy, that a shift away from the existing scheme is not without some potential risk and downside. In law, very few issues are indisputably black and white, and it is only in thinking further about a particular subject that we can rethink our initial reflexes and recognize the greyness of our discipline.