Posted by Jerry Wong on September 16, 2009, 4:13 pm, in reply to "Re: QOTW: How will you find out the views of your ridings' candidates in any upcoming federal election?"
Message modified by board administrator September 16, 2009, 4:31 pm
Part 2
(5) Speaking of the United States, having a connection to England is one of the things that protected Canada from their domination for a solid hundred and thirty years. The Fenian raids, the invasions in the 1800s and others during 1812-1814, and other acts of war--England was there to protect the fledgling colony and then the fledging state that was creating itself in the almost wholly self governing legislatures in the 1830s. If it wasn't for England being there to stare the USA down in several instances we might have become the 51st state.
The military threat of the USA, of course, dwindled in the 20th century. One could say, and it has been argued, that we've "switched" allegiances and mutual defence plans from England to the USA. There is no disagreement that we are now absolutely economically tied with our southern neighbours. However, what do we have now to differentiate ourselves from the USA? We watch the same TV, go to the same websites, use the same technology/gadgets, buy their old military hardware, benefit from their military clout in the world, and regularly support them on the international stage: what do we really have to differentiate ourselves from these Americans?
One answer would be health care. More equal civil rights, such as being one of the first countries in the world to legally recognize same-sex marriage, is yet another one. Another would be some of our symbols, like our coinage and quirks. Yet another would be the system of spelling and speech that we've kept constant with Great Britain. The last few are things that we inherited from Britain--some last vestigial beacons of English culture that we can stand behind against the multi-trillion dollar onslaught of America's Hollywood. The Queen is part of this identity. If we were to remove her from the equation, in addition to the whole line of royalty from the UK, we'd be losing yet another string that ties Canada together as, well, Canada.
(6) Nation states need their symbols. I truly think we should keep this one. Every social studies class across the country names several qualities that define a state as being a state. Borders, coinage, an identifiable political structure, and, of course, symbols. It's what countries have to have to hold them together.
(7) An elected person has a mandate from the people. If we did decide to have American-styled elections for a head of state for a artificial and pointless position that position may grow in prominence. The role of Prime Minister started out like this--a person was chosen to be the messenger boy between the king and parliament. Now look where it's at. Remembering that the style of the English constitution is that it's mostly unwritten and mostly tradition, we might possibly be giving ourselves a president 200 years from now the ability to prorogue the legislative at his or her whim.
Another instance of a mostly small position growing into a massive one would be the Presidency of the USA. Originally the president was a glorified bureaucrat with a large building with some degree of power over how to use the military (not when). Now that's completely changed. The USA no longer needs an act of Congress to go to war (Iraq), the Presidency can push congress to pump out legislation according to its whims (party politics coming into play here--the president is the leader of the party and, if said party is in control of both the senate and house, can politic the party to go through with his/her ideas), and holds an unimaginable level of power with regards to foreign policy, domestic policy, and taxation. Such small positions can grow and I definitely don't want to see the Governor General growing into anything that eclipses Parliament.
It'd be a thousand years of progress twisted around to something completely different.
(Cool If we remove the queen we'll probably have a legal obligation to have the BNA, bill of rights, treaty of Westminster, and our constitution approved again. It was, after all, after her permission was given that we were able to become our own country. It'd be a constitutional nightmare and probably revisit old woes from Quebec not signing the constitution.
Also, we might have the obligation to rewrite a sizable portion of Canada's laws. It's a huge, and costly, hassle that's mostly just to make a few malcontents sort of happy.
(9) The royal family can't do anything to us now, anyways. They cannot tell the G.G. to shut down government, nor can the family tell the GG to commandeer the Canadian military forces to establish a dictatorship. There is no possibility for the queen to influence us in any way, shape, or form, aside from her traditional vestiges/"duties" and appearances on coinage. There is no harm to us right now and, well, "if it ain't broke don't fix it".
And to say that we're viewed as a lesser nationstate, because we pledge allegiance to a none-functioning queen is pure crock. Same with Canadians being "subservient" or "inferior" is also complete bovine struccus. We have been participating on the world stage for decades as our own country. We landed on Juno beach as a single nation amongst the USA and Britain not as a colonial power but as an equal. We were offered a seat on the P5 of the United Nations as an equal. We have been a party to solving crisis like Cyprus, the Suez Canal, and numerous other things, as Canadians. To say we've been the slave to Britain during all of this is absolute hogwash.
To say that there is anyone, anywhere, outside of Canada that might possibly look down on us for this is doubly so.
(10) To say that the British have been placing Canadiéns and Québécois people under their thumbs as dictatorial oppressors is also a rather torrid slant towards history. The first thing that the British did after winning Canada after 1763 the governor general of that era passed almost all of the governing power to the religious, French Catholic authorities in the region. Almost full autonomy, ending with its own province, was given to the French for just a few costs: taxes and a few men to fight to protect the colony from the upstarts to the south of us.
The only thing that will occur when we, as a party, bring up this argument is that it'll inflame the separatists in the CYA (when we eventually get some separatists, that is Wink). They will have their views publicly validated by our arguments--"look, over there, the Liberals say we've been persecuted. Screw a new unity, let's separate". The CYA doesn't have a much strength as the real Federation does and this just might push a more radical bunch of Canadians overboard into a separatist ideology.
(11) We separated, politically, a long time ago. We've already showed the Americans up, Mr. Allen, in 1867. No revolution, no violence, and not a single drop of blood had been shed (outside of the riots of the 1830s, but that's another topic altogether).
(12) Having a queen peeves the political, academic and journalistic elites. This is a good thing. Mr Valpy has more to say on this here: http://members.fortunecity.com/foul2/queen.htm . She is also "Funky" according to Mr. Valpy.
(13) I am a student member of the Monarchist League of Canada. I am committed to preserving the Canadian identity in defence of Québécois nationalism, and in defence of any other cultural threat waged against Canada from abroad.
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