Vincent J. Curtis
3 Oct 22
RE: It’s time for a Canadian to serve as head of state. Op-ed by Craig Wallace. The Hamilton Spectator 3 Oct 22.
Some stupid ideas never die, and the idea of replacing our monarchy with a politically neutered president elected at large is one of them. The author alleges that a Canadian isn’t our head of state, and he may have a point. Mary Simon, our Governor-General, who, by the Letters Patent of 1947, is vested with all the powers of our Head of State, is an Innu woman, an aboriginal, who has Canadian citizenship. Is she Canadian enough? I’m not so sure.
Beginning with Vincent Massey in 1952, we’ve had a succession of Canadian Governors-General, from war hero George Vanier to CBC personalities like Jeanne Sauve and Adrienne Clarkson. Clarkson is an immigrant from Hong Kong and is especially proud of her Chinese roots, making her bona fides as truly “Canadian” fall into doubt by the reckoning of the author. Not Canadian enough.
The logical problem faced by the King is that he is in no sense a subject of himself nor a ‘citizen’ of his realm. And he is largely absentee. We solve that in Canada by having him represented by someone who is more or less Canadian, and vest that person with all the powers of the Monarch.
Canada has the best form of government. No politician can aspire to the greatness of a monarch, as happens embarrassingly in the U.S. An elected president could not long remain politically neuter in a democracy. In addition, there is all that ugly politics associated with the highest office in the land, which doesn’t happen with a Governor –General.
The solution to an alleged problem causes
more problems than it solves.
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