Posted by Wilson
on October 22, 2009, 10:59 pm, in reply to "Essay: My TA apparently knows very little about Canada's monarchy?"
Message modified by board administrator October 22, 2009, 11:10 pm
I'll try to be of some help. As far as ensuring stability I would have to say it is a yes. The monarchy provides an impartial and permanent structure for democracy to act within. Take for instance the recent prorogation of Parliament. The GG was able to take the least disruptive course of action(the others being election or coalition[relativly untried in Canada]) without being seen as partisn in the debate. This would not have been the case if the GG were elected: scenario 1-Conservative GG gives harper prorogation/election to save his hide, everyone else goes BOOOO. scenario 2-Liberal GG gives Liberals+NDP the chance at power having not won the last election, everyone else goes BOOO.
A historical exemple would be the King-Byng affair in which the GG did give the opposition a chance to govern after the PM attempted to escape a confidence motion over a scandal within the government. True, it did not end well but mostly because of the former PM's unwillingness to compromise after having had his hand slapped so to speak. In short we benefit from our elected officials being near the top but at the top, cutting down on a bit of hubris(they are after all; servants of the crown,and servants only).
Moving on to if an alternative were adopted(elected GG for instance) we would have a new problem, this office has a huge amount of power but is unable to use it because it lacks legitimacy (the PM has the opposite problem; legitimacy but power is still vested in the Crown; every law, military order or the like has to go through the GG's office) An elected GG though would have both and it is a recipe for conflict within the Canadian executive branch(I believe France has had this problem before as they have a PM and a Pres.).
The part about curbing excess is a bit tougher to argue. I suppose that if the PM went off the deep end, lost his marbles and asked the GG to authorize the invasion of Florida the GG would be within their right to say "get lost" and ignore them. The PM might then call the Queen to have the GG replaced and she could rightly say "no, you're insane, go away". This is a highly unlikely scenario so let's get a little closer to reality. The Watergate scandal in which Nixon tried just his darnest to cover up what happened (and almost succeeded). Nixon firmly believed in the supremacy of the executive branch and to a point he was right: he received power from the constitution and legitimacy from the people.
I'll just go over one more point(and indulge in one more absurd scenario, knowing who's going to be leader if something bad happens is actually more stable then in the U.S. PM dies, GG chooses leader that commands the confidence of the house. GG dies, PM advises Queen on who to choose to replace them. Queen dies, heir succeeds her. PM+GG dies, Queen appoints new GG+PM on advice of House of Commons( if they unavailable too, Queen calls election). Queen+50 of her successors die 51st successor becomes monarch(the list has actually been figured out down to around the 200th successor) Now on the U.S. President dies, vice-pres. succeeds him. Pres.+Vice-Pres. dies,leader of the senate succeeds them, and so on through the Cabinet. Canada would still have a government.
Unfortunatly, it is hard to appreciate the stability the monarchy has given Canada as we've never been without it.
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