There's a cute series on ipolitics
-sadly no one can see past their nose (and the school books someone gave them)
rce
Dear Ms Carlson, Mr Maher & Editors
Two articles, Ms Carlson's Harper’s Senate reform plans may forever change how Canada is governed and Mr Maher's Modernizing Canada's monarchy could begin with elected Gov. Gen. caught my attention on the news service - Canadian Daily Digest
Both author's articles deal with current/proposed methods to select individuals for official recommendation to very powerful-but-appointed positions within the Legislative and Executive powers of our governance system. Naturally, due to space limitations neither piece was comprehensive, but both were provocative platforms for further discussion by concerned Canadians.
In my view, it is foolhardy to consider fiddling with one (or several) components of our BNA/Constitutional "power-sharing" agreement without examining the whole of the system in context.
I think it is also unwise to add/remove "deferents or epicycles" to/from our currently-observed system without first looking at just how far our present-day "Ptolemaic model" varies from the as-designed text of the hierarchical, 1867 checks-and-balances model.
Since we are not starting from scratch with a "clean sheet of paper", we must be aware of a) what the existing as-written text states and b) how/why we allowed ourselves to get so far away from those prescient provisions. Both studies will enable us to see the root cause of the problems we want to solve vs simply addressing the 'symptoms'.
(to that end here's my Plain Language Version of the BNA and I attach my one-page 1763-1982 graphic entitled"Similar in Principle")
Most importantly, any changes that we do consider must be possible to adopt without needing a Constitutional Amendment, because 7/50% or 100% agreement is near-impossible without a colossal number of pet peeves/projects (let's call them political "earmarks") entering the discussion and horse-trading.
To aid any Constitutional/Administrative discussion may I advance some little-known specifics:
1i) Canada is a Constitutionally-limited Monarchy;
and therefore,
1ii) Canada is not a democracy nor a republic (similarly it's not an a vassal-state subject to a suzerain, nor an autocracy, theocracy, military dictatorship or oligarchy -though some may argue these last assertions);
2) The "Crown" is sovereign and in Canada, since 1982, all authority flows from HRH, as an individual, with or without Advice, with or without Consent (see Clause 2 Canada Act 1982, (U.K.) 1982, c. 11, when the U.K's Commons, Lords Spiritual and Temporal withdrew from Canadian affairs);
3) Everything "legal" (and enforcement of same) in Canada is done in the name of the "Crown";
4) The 'Crown" owns everything in Canada - subject only to some time-limited copyrights, trademarks, some puisne "fee simple interests" in the title to about 15% of the land mass and some not-so-puny Treaties with umpteen-and-counting (there are 600+ extant) groupings of Peoples with Autochthonous and Historic Heritage;
5) A full public understanding of the "Crown" in Canada - who/what 'it' was in 1688, 1763, 1774, 1791, 1840, 1867 or 1931, who/what the "Crown" has been since 1940, 1947 or 1982. This fundamental information is not taught in schools, is not known nor understood and the result is we're all cowed into nescient acquiesce and bullied into now-traditional deference;
6) The Governor General is accountable to the Crown ONLY and can veto any Federal Bill presented for Royal Assent as an individual (see s.12 vs s13 + s.55) or provincial Bill (if the Privy Council concurs -scroll to s.90);
7) The Governor General has a permanent elite set of advisors accountable ONLY to the GG (s.11, the Privy Council);
8) The Senate is superior to the Commons (it is called the Upper House for a reason);
9) The Senate represents (equally from all 4 'divisions'), the taxpayers-of-the-day, the "propertied-class"....NOT party-affiliations;
10 The Senators are the only office-holders to have a) net-worth, b) property-ownership (net-value) qualifications AND disqualifications (ss.23 & 31) and c) a Special Oath attesting to these qualifications;
11) The Senate's 1867 "$4,000 dollar" qualifications have never been adjusted for inflation (likely a factor of 60 or 80 times), so the provision's not much good as qualifications
12) The Oath is not taken too seriously either - see M. Chretien's much-overlooked sidestep of the " ...I have not collusively or colourably obtained a Title to or become possessed ..." provisions of the 5th Schedule Oath for Sister Peggy Butts in 1997)
13) The House of Commoners, our democratic 'one person one vote' element was designed as the bottom rung on the power-totem to be the clearinghouse for every (qualified) subject's "grievances before supply" (NB voting qualifications now greatly expanded);
and last of this list but certainly not least .... just about no one knows this little tidbit
14) Wm L M King was so boiled up, and bothered about the Byng-King yes-we-have-no-Dissolution Affair in 1926 that he took over the Privy Council by one, simple solitary "Order in Council" in March of 1940 (P.C.1940-1121) under cover of Phoney-War mobilization efficiency -?by co-incidence? this usurpation took place just weeks after the GG, Lord Tweedsmuir died in office and just months after the former Clerk (thru the whole mess 1923-1940) Laurier's man, Lemaire, retired on January 1st 1940.
Since no ordinary Canadian has much of a grounding in basic civics (nevermind backroom political skullduggery and history) it is truly difficult to expect them to get engaged in a discussion that they perceive as "over there heads". Hence our tradition of elite accommodation - where we defer to "our betters' and allow them to 'sort things out'.
A pity! and ridiculous too!
Because if ANYTHING is to change (for the better and for all) within Canada, it will finally be necessary for Canadian subjects-of-the-Crown to become educated about exactly what the Legislative Power (Lower House & Upper House), the Executive Power (Privy Council, Governor General & Monarch) were designed to be (why doesn't CPAC feature this as an "educational segment") and then armed with that confidence of knowledge and understanding, be able to participate in deciding what they -the resident, taxpaying, citzen think these institutions should be in the 21st Century.
Plus -and this is a chicken-egg concept- that educated agglomeration will have to decide on exactly how to define the 21st Century "Crown" in Canada (remember we cannot get rid of the "Crown" -it's our whole foundation) .... unless we truly wish to just muddle along with everyone from the Supreme Court down, all continuing to lie to us, because telling the truth would be too great of a 'can of worms'
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