Last night, I turned into The National - like most who've made their opinions known, I'm not a fan of the new format - to see what the At Issue gang would be talking about. I did so more begrudgingly than usual - I was expecting more talk about how Ignatieff isn't connecting with the public, or how the government is either bungling or doing a perfect job of doling out H1N1 vaccinations, or maybe, if they were feeling particularly topical, talk about the new immigration booklet.
Instead? They talked about the Queen. And the royal family. And the governor-general. If any of them matter to Canadians. If any of them should matter questions.
And save for Andrew Coyne inexplicably referring to Prince Charles as 'Paul', it was a pretty good discussion. You can replay it here.
My thoughts? While we obviously need to have something to act as a check on the Prime Minister, I'm not sure that the Crown, in its current practice, is the best way of going about that.
Consider the current disconnect between the Canadian people and the royal family themselves - they're an ocean away, and every few years one of them comes over here for a visit. Of course it's going to be hard for Canadians to accept that these people have actual power over us - they're never here, how could they possibly know what's best for Canada!
Coyne proposed an off-the-wall suggestion to this problem - bring over Prince Harry (or whomever), call him King Harry, and have him start up a new branch of the dynasty, one with strong Canadian roots. Although I don't think he ever explicitly states it, I assume Coyne means that the Governor-General position would thus be abolished.
I can't be in favour of that. Britain is currently mulling over the monarchy in their own way - the biggest argument being that one family, accustomed to privilege, should maybe not be the ultimate rulers of the United Kingdom. Regardless of whether that argument is right or wrong, why transplant it over here when we have the opportunity to do something better? And do we really want to bring in our own version of the tabloid culture that surrounds the family in Britain?
My suggestion is a simple one: change the process of who picks the governor-general. Right now, it seems like the trendy thing to do is to pick a GG who falls into an ethnic minority because if we ever get accused of only letting old white guys into our political elite we can just go 'nuh-uh!' and point at the GG.
The problem with this is that the people who become governor-general are not people who have any particular qualification to be our country's ultimate ruler - either political or popular. So when something like last winter's parliamentary crisis comes along, people are left with doubts that the GG either understands their duty or will ultimately make the right decision.
Solution: get better governors-general. Jean Beliveau. Rick Hansen. Romeo Dallaire. People who have the respect of the public and embody the Canadian spirit. People with no known political affiliations. People who have such a mythical aura about them that Canadians would unflinchingly accept that, in a time of crisis, these people will know what to do.
The appointment process is also a bit of a tricky issue - as long as the Prime Minister is the de facto selector, there will always be an element of politicization in the GG position. My first thought was that maybe the Supreme Court should become the torch-bearers for this, in a sudden burst of relevance. But this time, I have to defer to Coyne - have the highest-level members of the Order of Canada select the GG, who because of the criteria I outlined above will likely be among their ranks already, in a similar fashion to how the College of Cardinals selects new popes.
Nothing else would change. The GG would still be required, by convention, to follow the PM's advice in all but the most dubious of times, and the British Crown, again by convention, would follow the GG's advice essentially always.
Is it likely to happen? Probably not. The amount of work it takes to change even one word in the constitution is likely to scare off any politicians from trying these changes, and our propensity for minority governments means that we're unlikely to see any PM with a mandate to make this sort of change for a long time anyhow.
But it's a nice thought.
--Ryan
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