Standoff as Canada Yukon town council refuses to swear oath to King Charles (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 8 months ago by n7gifmdn@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca

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[-] nyan@lemmy.cafe 2 points 8 months ago

We already have a Canadian Governor General doing the actual job, why not just formalize it and do away eyes the crown.

The Governor General is appointed by the Crown as its representative, technically. You can't have the former without the latter.

We could move to having an elected President as head of state as well as a Prime Minister who tends to the day-to-day business of government, as some other countries like France do, but it wouldn't really change much of anything . . . except adding the trouble and expense of another federal election. Seems like a lot of work for nothing to me.

Then again, I have no Indigenous ancestry and no bad history with the Crown, and I can see why people in the Yukon might feel differently about it.

[-] fnord@lemmy.ca 3 points 8 months ago

You can't have the former without the latter

I think we could. In practice they are chosen by the Prime Minister, so we could formalize this practice locally without the crown, but without resorting to an unnecessary election.

Why not have the Prime Minister appoint the President, who must be confirmed by parliament, and keep the role of the President to be mostly ceremonial. Not much changes from today except the removal of the Crown.

The oath of allegiance can be changed to that of a republic which represents all humans in Canada.

[-] moonbunny@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

I believe that would require the federal government to amend the constitution which is no simple feat. All premiers would have to agree to the changes which opens a whole can of worms since Quebec never formally signed on the original constitution, and the other premiers would very likely demand other changes be made as well to suit their own political agenda.

Then the provinces would need to have their own legislative amendments made to recognize the changes in both the constitution, which would also take time to pass as well.

If there is a change in government on either the federal or provincial level, and the party has a vested interest to undo those changes, all that progress gets flushed down the drain.

[-] fnord@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago

Yes absolutely, any change to the monarchy needs a constitutional amendment, which basically means “not gonna happen” because of everything you outlined, unless there’s a massive shift in opinion among Canadians.

The best short term outcome here is probably for the Canadian government and courts to just conveniently ignore or bend some rules… let these people swear an oath of allegiance to the constitution and let a judge do some hand wavy legal magic and say “hmm, close enough”.