Thoughts On The Monarchy

When you write 1100 blog posts over a 10 month period, you will inevitably write things that piss off people who would normally agree with you. It is as Ray would say, "the way she goes". One of my beliefs is that Canada should cut England (specifically the Monarchy) out of our constitution. I believe that the powers of the Governor General (the Queen's representative) should be reduced, or else have the position eliminated altogether. This is not just about me having some petty vendetta against someone who might have "pissed in my beer"; it has everything to do with the power of the GG to allow the 2nd and 3rd place parties to form Government shortly after an election.

I will sometimes rail against the British Monarchy like I rail against Ignatieff and the NDP, and yes that can piss people off. I don't apologize for it, and I try not to worry about what might upset certain people when I'm writing. When you start paying too much attention to what other people think, writer's block often ensues. I should state that I have no specific complaints against Elizabeth. She has never done anything to upset me. I have met a few a**holes from England, but that's not why I don't want the head of the Royal Family to be my head of state. I regard my Prime Minister as my head of state, and I strongly believe that the leader of the party who wins the most seats should be Prime Minister.

What is at the heart of my opposition to the Monarchy? We are facing a high probability of minority governments for the rest of my adult life. I spend a lot of time thinking of how I will react that day when we have an election and the Liberals and NDP vote down the ensuing throne speech so that they can ask the GG to form government. That day might come sooner rather than later, and at that time I will be vocally challenging the right of the GG to do so. In theory, the GG is supposed to do what the Monarch commands. I'm just laying out the foundation of my challenge against such a decision before it happens, and I am very concerned about the possibility or probability that it does happen.

If I piss you off in the meantime, deal with it. But you might like what I have to say when the Tories win 148 seats in the next election and Jack Layton gets sworn in as Prime Minister. What I wrote yesterday I didn't put much effort or thought into. There is very little traffic on political blogs at the end of a month/holiday when Parliament has been adjourned. I just needed to write something, however short (knowing few would read it), and the Queen was the only thing on TV. If you are mad at me, I promise I will make it up to you in the next 1-10 years when we have a constitutional crisis created by the Queen's representative in Canada. Perhaps the Prime Minister will appoint a new GG who would never accept the worst case scenario of a Liberal-Dipper-Bloc coalition, we'll see. I remind you that we will face many minority governments going forward, and the power of the Monarchy will come in to question. We avoided a catastrophe last time. Next time, we might not be so lucky.

I might not have any actual animosity towards Elizabeth, but I loathe Prince Charles. I don't want that man having any power over Canada, ever. If he becomes King, I will be full steam ahead on my anti-Monarchy opinion, but that's another story altogether.

And while I’m at it, I don’t think Sarah Palin is qualified to be President of the United States... Hell, if I’m going to piss off the Monarchists, I may as well piss off the Palinists too. It is Canada Day, so very few are paying attention to political blogs today anyway.