Our new prime minister attracted some criticism in March when he staged an unfamiliar piece of American-style political theatre, inviting cameras to
record him signing an official-looking instrument
to knock out the federal carbon tax on consumer fuels. What I should say is that he attracted a
surprising
and
encouraging
amount of criticism, and not just from my fellow wacko Tristin Hopper. Canadians are not exactly hyper-aware of the distinction between a head of state and a head of government, and even opposition politicians could not necessarily have been expected to bristle at Mark Carney’s attempt to role-play as the ultimate executor of law. I would, in fact, expect them to take notes and prepare to steal the idea.
But the whole thing was just Trumpian enough for people to notice, and to balk.
Behold! It is my pen, and the trace left by my signature, through which all political power flows!
This led to a point-missing little debate about the exact nature of what Carney signed — a “decision note”? A “ministerial recommendation”? Just a memo? It doesn’t matter one tiny little bit: the crux of Carney’s offence is that he had a ceremony, period. He’s the Queen’s first minister: he isn’t part of the ceremonial part of the Constitution, and shouldn’t try to climb the fence which keeps him out. Unfortunately, he hasn’t had a sniff of the House of Commons yet, so no doubt he felt it was good strategy to be seen as a man of action bursting out of the starting gate on governing. Especially since we are not getting, or debating,
an actual federal budget for some time
.
Yesterday
the PM did the Trump thing again
, inviting the cameras into a just-concluded cabinet meeting so that everybody could see him work the magic with his pen and put the wheels in motion on a slight cut to the lowest income-tax rate. Unlike the zero-rating of the carbon tax, this can’t actually be done through an order-in-council: it will have to go through Parliament, so Carney’s photo-op was carefully described as the signing of
“a symbolic order” to “prioritize” the dip
when the time comes later this month.
You can’t help but admire Carney’s artistry a little when you watch the clip. He starts a little speech. “It’s my pleasure, on behalf of the cabinet, to sign this in order to deliver that tax cut….” And it’s at that precise moment that the executive pen slashes and swoops like a katana, followed by the PM switching to a few words of French, delivered with studied casualness, no big deal, yes I speak it, who ever doubted it. Applause.
I understand that at any given moment, somewhere between 30 and 60 per cent of Canadians want the country to be a republic, or think they want that. If I can digress for a minute, it’s a source of endless fascination to me that absolutely all of these newly ebullient Alberta separatists are republicans, that they
all
use the language of a Republic of Alberta. This was equally true of the 1980s Alberta separatist movement. These doofuses in 50-gallon hats are already talking about how Alberta
could keep Canadian passports and the Canadian dollar if it secedes
, but there is not, to my knowledge, one single separatist squawker who wishes to keep the Crown. I’ve never in my life, not once, seen a Dominion of Alberta bumper sticker. Maybe I should make and sell some.
Anyway, there’s no mystery to it. Like republicans in the rest of Canada, these halfwits just like the plucky revolutionary vibes of the word “republic,” and the main reason they like it is that they swim in a sea of American media, made for people to whom the word “republic” connotes continuity and bravery rather than destructive restlessness and smug disloyalty.
That’s all right, for Americans, but the general experience of most republics is that they drift toward imperialistic style and theatrical despotism, often followed by orgies of bloodshed. This happens precisely because new-minted republics lack a properly evolved apparatus for dispersing power, caging the chief magistrate, and keeping electoral politicians humble.
If I had written these words five years ago, many of you would have thought “Oh, cripes, another one of those monarchist kooks.” In President Donald Trump’s second term they should hit you like a brick in the face. I wonder if we are becoming more attached to the Crown and all that this symbol implies, if for no other reason than these are tokens and guarantors of our determination to pursue an independent destiny on the American continent.
I.e., you don’t even have to buy my exotic theory that
constitutional monarchies can be better at preserving “republican” values
than republics are. You just need to imagine that anything which makes us more American in political form and behaviour will push us further down the road to becoming Americans, and that we would be of less value to the human species as Americans. In the spirit of resistance to any chiseling away at our distinctive constitutional design, I offer a simple message to the prime minister: cut the crap.
National Post
