Tradition and Symbology in Canadian Monarchy

Essai , 2022 , 23 Pages , Note: A

Histoire globale - Généralités et Comparaison

This final research paper explores the core research questions: what symbolic gestures and traditions do the Canadian sovereign use to build and maintain a relationship with the people of Canada? More importantly, what role does the monarchy create for itself in Canada to justify its existence and relevancy via these methods? Putting these questions and the modern monarchy into historical context, the research gathers the facts and explores the political atmosphere of Canadian monarchy.

Proposal

The topic being proposed for the Final Research Paper is how the Canadian monarchy uses gestures, symbology, ceremony, and tradition to keep a presence in Canada while residing in Britain. In the research for this paper, sources will include monographs and secondary sources which explain Canadian governmental structures, historical relationships, and public opinions, such as: The Structure of Canadian Government by James Mallory, Canadian Federalist Experiment: From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic by Frederick Vaughan, The Invisible Crown: The First Principle of Canadian Government by David Eugene Smith, Canada's Constitutional Monarchy: An Introduction to Our Form of Government by Nathan Tidridge, and “The Crown in the Provinces: Canada's Compound Monarchy” by Michael Jackson and Lynda Haverstock.

This information will supplement official statements, procedures, and ceremonies surrounding Queen Elizabeth’s visits to Canada, as well as visits from the royal family, in addition to media descriptions and private accounts of the same events, if possible. Additionally, political, ceremonial, and diplomatic activities of Canada’s governors-general will also be observed and analyzed. What symbolic gestures and traditions does the Canadian sovereign use to build and maintain a relationship with the people of Canada? More importantly, via these methods, what role does the monarchy create for itself in Canada to justify its existence and relevancy?

Prospectus

The final research paper will explore the core research questions: what symbolic gestures and traditions do the Canadian sovereign use to build and maintain a relationship with the people of Canada? More importantly, what role does the monarchy create for itself in Canada to justify its existence and relevancy via these methods? Putting these questions and the modern monarchy into history context, research will gather the facts and explore the political atmosphere of Canadian monarchy using sources such as:

Jackson, D. Michael and Lynda Haverstock. “The Crown in the Provinces: Canada's Compound Monarchy.” The Evolving Canadian Crown (2012): 11-30.

McCreery, Christopher. The Canadian Honours System. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2015.

Sajnani, Damon. “Remembering Monarchy, Forgetting Coloniality: The Elision or Race in Canadian Monarchy Abolition Debates.” Canadian Ethnic Studies Vol. 47, Iss. 2, (2015): 137-163.

Smith, David Eugene. The Invisible Crown: The First Principle of Canadian Government. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013.

Tidridge, Nathan. Canada's Constitutional Monarchy: An Introduction to Our Form of Government. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2011.

Vaughan, Frederick. Canadian Federalist Experiment: From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic. Montreal: McGill University Press, 2003.

These sources will help address the core questions by exploring the historical position of monarchy in Canadian society, the place of honours and traditions in royal relations, and the public disposition toward government. As they supplement primary sources surrounding royal visits, procedures, and protocol, they should provide additional, and even contradictory insights into ceremony, royal relevancy, and the royal-federal-public dynamic. This will provide a wider perspective and greater details about the research and paper’s findings.

Research

Confederated over 150 years ago, the framework of Canada’s nationhood set the course for Canadian government, culture, and identity, as well as the constructed identity and exigency of its royal institutes. In the century and a half since confederation, Canada progressively drove for independence from the British Empire and identity, while maintaining status as a monarchy under a sovereign shared with Great Britain and over a dozen other Commonwealth realms. What symbolic gestures and traditions did the Canadian sovereign use to build and maintain a relationship with the people of Canada while sitting on a throne an ocean away? More importantly, via these methods, what role did the monarchy create for itself in Canada to justify its continued existence and relevancy?

The Canadian Monarchy, locally represented at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, Ontario but actively reigning in London, England, inherited its legacy from the French Crown of New France since 1763, then the British Crown of Upper and Lower Canada since 1867.¹ Comparatively, the stylization of King of Canada developed relatively recently, expressed since 1931 after it became an independent entity from the British Crown due to the Statute of Westminster, used as early as the reign of George VI of England, but not made official until 1953 when Elizabeth II took the title.² Like all monarchies, this particular royal institute utilized any number of gestures, symbology, ceremony, and tradition to keep a presence in Canada while residing in Britain. Perhaps more crucial than in other Commonwealth realms, the monarchy of Canada grasped at an inherited legacy with these tools to legitimize a relatively recent title, to create a sense of nationalism, as well as myth of empire and legacy. Critics would cite this as popular royalism, Canadian enthusiasm drawn from a misguided legacy of empire, where infatuation acted as support for a monarchy that was “clearly an alien, British institution.” Due to this, the same critics claimed that royal popularity must be the product of “indoctrination by the imperial authorities and their subservient Canadian counterparts” to create a false consciousness.³

Like many modern monarchs, the sovereign of Canada is a constitutional monarch, working in tandem with an elected federal government. This has been the case since confederation, where the balance of power both limited the reign and authority of the sovereign but also gave them an outlet for added stability and preservation of royal integrity. The formal limits of power expressed in the Constitution of Canada restricted royal politics to making official laws and bills passed by the elected government, and retained power over Canadian armed forces, but these hardly correlated with the practical regulations set by protocol and societal expectations.⁴ This was where the monarch’s popularity and a strategic use of gestures, symbology, ceremony, and tradition came into play, to both express their reign beyond the constitutional limits of power, and legitimize their existence. Over the last century and a half, these gestures and the legitimacy of their existence evolved with socio-political and economic needs, to fit the bill of Canada’s needs and demands.

The power of the monarchy lied in the symbols and gesture they adopted, their symbolic acts and representation were connected to power and society, more specifically with their relationship to the public.

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¹ D. Michael Jackson, The Canadian Kingdom: 150 Years of Constitutional Monarchy (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2018), 37, 90.

² Jackson, The Canadian Kingdom, 70, 115.

³ Phillip Buckner, “The Invention of Tradition?: The royal Tours of 1860 and 1901 to Canada.” in Majesty in Canada: Essays on the Role of Royalty, ed. Colin MacMillan Coates (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2003) 19.

⁴ Executive Power (Codification des lois de 1867 à 1982 sur le Canada, part III art. 9-16.)

• Université: Arizona State University
• Note: A
• Auteur: Michael Gorman (Auteur)
• Année de publication: 2022
• Pages: 23
• N° de catalogue: V1263015
• ISBN (PDF): 9783346700292
• ISBN (Livre): 9783346700308
• Langue: anglais
• mots-clé: America, canada, canadian, monarchy, symbology, history, North American History, queen, montreal, quebec