King Charles III will deliver the Throne Speech on Tuesday.Chris Jackson/The Associated Press
John Fraser is the founding president of the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada and the Master Emeritus of Massey College at the University of Toronto.
When King Charles III delivers the Speech from the Throne in the Canadian Senate on May 27, he will be fulfilling a constitutional requirement usually performed by his deputy or viceroy, the governor-general.
The words will not be his own but written by the government of the day – although the King may be permitted a few personal thoughts since there has not been a Speech from the Throne given in Canada by a reigning monarch since his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, gave one in 1977.
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Many Canadians will be pleased at this sign of the living, functioning reality of Canada’s rich and enduring constitutional settlement. Others will be really upset – sometimes to the point of near apoplexy – because they do not feel it is fitting, necessary or useful that a “foreign king” should be the Canadian head of state.
Don’t look to opinion polls for the definitive answer with this particular debate. They fluctuate depending on the nature of the question and the whims of the moment.
In any event, with regard to the Crown, our Constitution is fixed unless two federal legislatures and all 10 of the provincial legislatures agree that it is time to change the constitutional arrangements about our head of state.
So before anyone starts proselytizing about a change in the status quo, they should have ready an alternative that would appeal to 12 sovereign bodies – and, lest we forget, the hundreds of Indigenous Nations who have treaty rights on the matter.
Civic education is not a Canadian strength. Even Stephen Harper, by his own admission, was one of those Canadians for whom the Crown was largely irrelevant until he became prime minister. Then, in his own words, he saw “how useful it was,” but even more pertinently, how “terrifying” all the alternatives were.
If ever there was a time for Canadians to start checking in on their system of government, it is now. We can thank our newly crowned King for that. And Donald Trump.
Looking back at King Charles’s royal visits to Canada
We are, as most Canadians know, at a pivotal juncture in our history thanks to the sovereignty threat from south of the border. The “checks and balances” so often touted in the U.S. system have never seemed so unchecked and off-balance.
If there is more reform that our own Westminster-style governance could undertake to be responsive to its electorate, the needed changes are nothing compared to what U.S. citizens face if they want their disintegrating democratic republic rescued and revitalized.
Ironically, we have in King Charles a head of state who represents the ideal of symbolic leadership, detached by evolutionary parliamentary growth from the unlimited power the role once had.
Now, in the words of the late Ursula Franklin, it is a post utterly “defanged” of absolute power while, south of the border under Mr. Trump, some of the least worthy remnants of an absolute monarchy are on full display.
Or, as Carleton University professor Philippe Lagassé tellingly put it recently: “[The King’s] presence will reflect the fundamental truth about the country we will be defending [in] this 45th Parliament: we are a state of many nations united by institutions that reflect historic compromises. The Crown and Parliament capture this reality perfectly, and the King-in-Parliament even more so.”
There is also the question of the kind of person King Charles is. We have all seen him champion causes that once got him dismissed as a loon and which are now seen as prophetic, particularly on the questions of climate change or the worth of Indigenous voices.
As King Charles’s arrival nears, the mood in Ottawa ranges from excitement to indifference
Like all of us, he has flaws, but for my money he is on the side of the angels. Listen to what this King of ours once said in a speech at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies in 2017: “We need to rediscover and explore what unites us rather than what divides us. ... And that involves a recognition that we have learned from each other and should continue to do so. No one culture contains the complete truth. We are all seekers. And our search is – or should be – a collective human enterprise.”
It‘s on that note that I believe we should all welcome King Charles back to his constitutional Canadian home this week, and say with renewed gratitude: “Long live the King!”