Peace, Order and Usually Okay Government

 

The Canadian Encyclopedia defines constitutional monarchy as follows:

Constitutional monarchy is Canada’s system of government. An absolute monarchy is one where the monarch has unchecked power. A constitutional monarch, in contrast, is limited by the laws of the Constitution. Constitutional monarchs do not directly rule. Instead, they carry out constitutional, ceremonial and representational duties. Canada’s monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, is the head of state. The prime minister is the head of government. The monarch is represented by the governor general at the federal level and by lieutenant-governors in the provinces.

I have done a lot of cut and paste from various authoritative sources including Wikipedia, the Encyclopedia Britannica and others. And I have moved stuff around so much that I am not sure which quote comes from which source. And so, I have put the quoted material in italics to separate it from my personal opinions and comments. If anyone wants a specific source, let me know and I will try to recreate it.

We in Canada have this system because we inherited it from Great Britain, inherited it in its present and useful form, a form developed over many centuries. A little history here. You may have run into a fun history book entitled ‘1066 and All That’. It runs you through the throes of England turning from an absolute monarchy under the early kings into what it is today. The process was not without its drama – from the insistence of the nobility on imposing on him the Magna Carta after a battle in which King Henry was defeated to the final erosion of the last Kingly interference under George V in the nineteenth century. During this process various kings were run out of the country, had their head chopped off and were starved of money by the House of Commons until they gave in. For one period in the 17^th century Parliament tried to rule under Cromwell, but the British people did not like that either and they brought back a king, Charles II, who had been a boy smuggled out of England when his father got the chop and who ruled very, very cautiously. His brother inherited the kingdom and was not cautious enough. He got chased out and a biddable and protestant queen installed in his stead. This king and his successors more or less did what Parliament told them or they did not get enough money from the Commons to manage. You note, it comes down to money and who has the power to determine taxes and collect them. Even Elizabeth I could not work around that.

So, what is this system and why is a ‘constitution’ so important? Under Canada’s system of responsible government, the Crown is a vital part of the legislative, executive and judicial powers that govern the country. The Crown is the source of these powers, but they are exercised by the federal and provincial governments. In general, the Crown is bound by constitutional law to follow the government’s advice, which in turn represents the will of the people. For example, Parliament and provincial assemblies vote on and pass bills. Before they become law, they must be approved by the Crown. In theory, the Crown could withhold its assent, but this has not happened since 1945.

Constitutionalism is a doctrine that specifies a government’s authority to be determined by a body of laws or constitution. Constitutionalism attempts to avoid arbitrary decisions by designing mechanisms that determine who can rule, how, and for what purposes. However, constitutional traditions differ as to what precisely counts as an arbitrary act and which mechanisms offer the best defense against arbitrary acts occurring. The classical republican tradition, identifies arbitrariness with domination of the ruled by their rulers and seeks to avoid it by establishing a condition of political equality characterized by a balance of power between all the relevant groups and parties within a polity, so that no one can rule without consulting the interests of the ruled. This tradition is what created and has informed the American system with its balance (they hoped) between Congress, the President and the Judiciary.

The more liberal tradition identifies arbitrariness with interference with individual rights and seeks to establish protections for them via the separation of powers and a judicially protected constitution. Thus, the repatriation of our constitution from its birthplace in England. There were quite funny jokes circulating in 1982 about the British being unable to find our constitution, filed somewhere in its basement in a shoebox. But yes, there was one, from 1867, and yes, the Queen signed it over to us in its entirety on a rainy day in Ottawa, sitting at an outside table with an umbrella held over her head. Looking on was Prime Minister Trudeau (senior) with a huge grin on his face. It was his government’s initiative that made possible that final step.

What does the ‘constitution’ do? Three elements underlie this classic theory of mixed government. First, arbitrary power was defined as the capacity of one individual or group to dominate another—that is, to possess the ability to rule them without consulting their interests. Overcoming arbitrariness so conceived required that a condition of political equality exist among all free citizens. Second, the means to minimize such domination was to ensure that no one could rule without the support of at least one other individual or body. Third, the balance to be achieved was one that aspired to harmonize different social interests and maintain the stability of the polity, preventing so far as was possible the inevitable degeneration into one of the corrupt forms of government. As the English system developed, a dynamic notion of balance based on mechanics and physical forces was worked out. In this conception, balance could involve a harnessing of opposed forces, holding them in a dynamic equilibrium that combined and increased their joint power. Thus, the concept of ‘His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition’ was refined into the party system we have today. This was the idea that political balance now consisted of the competition between government and a “loyal” opposition. As parties evolved from simple factions and patronage networks among rivals for office to electoral machines defined as much by ideology and social composition as by the personal ambitions and interests of the political class, they became the organs of this new type of balance

This modern form of political constitutionalism has proven constitutional in both form and substance. Equal votes, majority rule, and competitive party elections offer a mechanism for impartially and equitably weighing and combining the views of millions of citizens about the nature of the public good. And in making politicians popularly accountable, it gives them an incentive to rule in nonarbitrary ways that respond to the concerns of the different minorities that form any working majority, thereby upholding both rights and the public interest rather than their own interests.

While nobody would deny that the parliamentary system is far from perfect, it works. Legal constitutionalism, the separation of powers, developed out of the theory of mixed government during the English Civil Wars of the mid-17th century. The functional division remained far from clear-cut until this century and has only been partially clarified by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It works, in great part, because of the system of law, unwritten and based on precedent, that accompanies our parliamentary system. The two together are cumbersome and testing the validity of a new ruling can take years, but … it works.

I think it works better than, say, Israel’s system or that of the Netherlands because of our tradition of having a government and an opposition that requires the government to withstand votes of no confidence whenever the opposition thinks it can bring the government down. This vote triggers an election, and the polity then has a chance to change from the view of the previous majority to a different one. Obviously this works best if there are only two parties. But it does work cleanly if the parties are few enough that the classic liberal versus conservative values are clearly represented. (Please note small ‘l’ and ‘c’ here.) At present we have two liberal groups propping each other up enough to stay in power. Contrast this to the USA at present where the two views are almost equally represented and nothing much is being decided. The American system was designed to allow for a number of parties’ views, but the polity has not generated them and the result is almost a stalemate. This could not happen easily in a constitutional monarchy where a one person majority can be made to work. The system came into being using two parties, but it was decided to fund more if the group met a certain level, giving us the four party groupings we have today.

The system of constitutional monarchy, with its roots in tradition and example, is, I believe, responsible for the mostly smooth transitions in government that you see here, in Australia and New Zealand, and, of course, in Great Britain. It survives photo op Prime Ministers, the Boris Johnson Trump lite Prime Ministers, the power-hungry Governor Generals of Australia and, most importantly for me, a lot of voter apathy in quiet times. We have a lot of quiet times in Canada. If we end up with a political head of state, I project that there would be a lot less peace, order and good government.