You say “if the king oversteps” and my point about law and norms and all that is that they shape perception about whether a particular thing is overstepping.
You mentioned before that most people don’t even know about these things. Why is that? Because the norm is the King does as the Parliament wants.
I think you have a very idealistic understanding of what we call democracy these days…if a 60/40 split happened like I talked about earlier came up, you think there would be mass mobilization?
This is what I mean about the people having a strong will. If they do, then yes. If the don’t then we lose democracy.
Again I go back to the example of the US. Them being a republic makes no difference. If the people don’t have the will to stand up to a tyrant, then there will be tyranny.
A crisis doesn’t occur without a context…it would be about something, and certainly something that one side thinks it can win on. I think you imagine any constitutional crisis would be immediately and unanimously handled in a democratic manner by everyone involved, no matter their interest in the underlying matter that lead to the crisis…we’d just all be on-side and do the right thing…I think that is extraordinarily naive!
Sure, but what does the existence of the monarchy have to do with any of that? Trump is a continuous constitutional crisis, doesn’t seem like eliminating the monarchy prevents any of that happening. If anything having a monarch makes it more obvious when there’s an abuse of power. Americans don’t understand that Trump is undermining their precious constitution, I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Americans know the President should have some power they just don’t know which powers he shouldn’t have. We know our head of state is supposed to only be a figurehead. It’s more obvious when someone is taking some power when they’re supposed to have none than someone show’s supposed to have some power taking more than they should.
Thanks for the interesting chat; i hope it’s nice for you. I am tearing my hair a little, but in a fun way.
By this logic, why have laws at all? Why not just have an absolute monarch and trust “the people will stand up” if power is misused? Laws aren’t magic, they’re often used to perpetuate awful things, but they do shape what people see as overreach. The reason cops who kill don’t get lynched is because people believe the legal system will eventually punish them.
I also don’t think the US being a republic makes no difference. Trump isn’t a king, and has struggled to get this far. He’s faced injunctions that actually stopped some harms. In Canada, it would be 100x easier. Parliament can just say “notwithstanding the Charter” and ignore all rights, and courts could not stop it (unlike in the US, where they could, but SCOTUS won’t because it’s been packed with lunatics).
One interesting proposal related to your ideas from constitutional scholars about how to do away with the relationship to the british royal family (looters, genociders, and pedophiles that they are) is to simply deem the King of Canada to be an individual…effectively making the King a fictional entity. That would actually make sure he has no power, eh?
I see your point that “if we all agree he has no power, any exercise will clearly be a problem” … except the monarchy is in constant contact with the governor general. You won’t know why the GG makes her choices. The monarchy has vast “reserve” powers (which as the name implies, are generally kept in reserve…like a Chekov’s gun). Australia’s governor-general dismissed their PM in 1975 using those powers. In Canada, the last clear example of undemocratic BS was 1961 when the LG of Saskatchewan refused consent to a passed law. But we have a perfect example in 2008: do you think the GG didn’t check with her boss about proroguing to save a minority PM from a no-confidence vote? That was a real exercise of real power by an appointee of the crown.
Or consider this situation: https://donshafer1.substack.com/p/the-day-37-british-columbia-mlas . Imagine the King has business interests in BC and would benefit from this financially. He calls the GG, who calls the LG of BC to say “get this moving.” If the LG (or GG) went public, she’d lose her job. So she’d quietly do it. And if it leaked? Conservatives would say “we must stay connected to the crown…tradition!.. and who wants these human rights laws anyway?” Plenty of Liberals would fold too, saying “well, technically, the king actually does have the right to pick whoever he wants, and we shouldn’t shake things up too much…maybe we could just get the king to agree to take it back and appoint her again? no? maybe another lady…an indigenous one? no? how about a white lesbian, would that do? okay, perfect, we’ll call that a win!”
You mentioned before that most people don’t even know about these things. Why is that? Because the norm is the King does as the Parliament wants.
This is what I mean about the people having a strong will. If they do, then yes. If the don’t then we lose democracy.
Again I go back to the example of the US. Them being a republic makes no difference. If the people don’t have the will to stand up to a tyrant, then there will be tyranny.
Sure, but what does the existence of the monarchy have to do with any of that? Trump is a continuous constitutional crisis, doesn’t seem like eliminating the monarchy prevents any of that happening. If anything having a monarch makes it more obvious when there’s an abuse of power. Americans don’t understand that Trump is undermining their precious constitution, I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Americans know the President should have some power they just don’t know which powers he shouldn’t have. We know our head of state is supposed to only be a figurehead. It’s more obvious when someone is taking some power when they’re supposed to have none than someone show’s supposed to have some power taking more than they should.
Thanks for the interesting chat; i hope it’s nice for you. I am tearing my hair a little, but in a fun way.
By this logic, why have laws at all? Why not just have an absolute monarch and trust “the people will stand up” if power is misused? Laws aren’t magic, they’re often used to perpetuate awful things, but they do shape what people see as overreach. The reason cops who kill don’t get lynched is because people believe the legal system will eventually punish them.
I also don’t think the US being a republic makes no difference. Trump isn’t a king, and has struggled to get this far. He’s faced injunctions that actually stopped some harms. In Canada, it would be 100x easier. Parliament can just say “notwithstanding the Charter” and ignore all rights, and courts could not stop it (unlike in the US, where they could, but SCOTUS won’t because it’s been packed with lunatics).
One interesting proposal related to your ideas from constitutional scholars about how to do away with the relationship to the british royal family (looters, genociders, and pedophiles that they are) is to simply deem the King of Canada to be an individual…effectively making the King a fictional entity. That would actually make sure he has no power, eh?
I see your point that “if we all agree he has no power, any exercise will clearly be a problem” … except the monarchy is in constant contact with the governor general. You won’t know why the GG makes her choices. The monarchy has vast “reserve” powers (which as the name implies, are generally kept in reserve…like a Chekov’s gun). Australia’s governor-general dismissed their PM in 1975 using those powers. In Canada, the last clear example of undemocratic BS was 1961 when the LG of Saskatchewan refused consent to a passed law. But we have a perfect example in 2008: do you think the GG didn’t check with her boss about proroguing to save a minority PM from a no-confidence vote? That was a real exercise of real power by an appointee of the crown.
Or consider this situation: https://donshafer1.substack.com/p/the-day-37-british-columbia-mlas . Imagine the King has business interests in BC and would benefit from this financially. He calls the GG, who calls the LG of BC to say “get this moving.” If the LG (or GG) went public, she’d lose her job. So she’d quietly do it. And if it leaked? Conservatives would say “we must stay connected to the crown…tradition!.. and who wants these human rights laws anyway?” Plenty of Liberals would fold too, saying “well, technically, the king actually does have the right to pick whoever he wants, and we shouldn’t shake things up too much…maybe we could just get the king to agree to take it back and appoint her again? no? maybe another lady…an indigenous one? no? how about a white lesbian, would that do? okay, perfect, we’ll call that a win!”