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Canada
(Continued from page 3)
eration dates to 1867), inherited a
governme ntal system developed
over centuries of transformat ion ,
honed by tbe triaJ-and-error meth–
od. Canadians d id not have to
invent a política! process of their
own, as have many nations in the
post-World War
JI
breakup of the
colonial empires.
Advice with Authorlty
While coups and revolutions con–
tinue to wrack the globe on a regu–
lar basis, Canada witnessed a
smoot h transition of political
power, with the recent September
4 election victory of the Progressive
Conse rva tive Par ty, headed by
Brian Mulroney.
Crown supporters claim the sys–
tem works because there is a clear
delineation between those who hold
pol iticaJ power and those who wield
it. Power in Canada resides in the
Crown, whereas e lected officials
forming the government (at the
behest of the Governor-General)
are respons ible for wielding the
power, while in office, as temporary
trustees of. it.
Should diffi cu lti es ar ise, the
Governor-General has the right " to
remove from his office, or to sus–
pend from the exercise of tbe same,
any person exercising any office
wi thin Canada." Each Lieutenant
Governor has a similar power with–
in his province.
While such dras tic measures sel–
dom take place, the very powers
retained by the C rown encourage
moderation in the wielding o f
power by the politicians, "a deter–
rent to overheated governmen t ,"
comments Mr. MacKinnon. The
offi ces of Governor-General and
Lieutenant Governors thus act, he
continues, as "constitutionaJ fire
exti nguisbers."
The best recent example of such
Iatent power was displayed nine
years ago not in Canada, but in
Australia. On November 11, 1975,
Governor-General Sir John Kerr
dismissed Prime Minister Gough
Whitlam after the latter refused to
call new elections in the wake of a
par liamentary deadlock. In Whi t–
lam's place, the Governor-General
called upon opposition leader Mai-
January
1985
colm Fraser to form a govern–
ment.
Many Australians were shocked
to learn how much power was
actually invested in the Queen's top
representative.
Anotber Prime Minister of Aus–
t r alia, Robert Menzies , once
extolled the value of tbe Crown in
this manner:
"The Queen is seen in all the
countries within her allegiance as
the fountain of honour , tbe protec–
tor of the law, the centre of a Par–
liamentary system in wbich she
makes and proclaims statutes ' by
and with the consent ' of Parl ia–
ment. ... The Crown remains the
centre of our democracy; a fixed
point in the whi rl o f ci rcum–
stance."
The display of power seen in the
Whitlam affair is the exception to
the rule. The power of the Crown is
mos t often dispensed behind the
scenes in an atmosphere of trust.
The successful Governor-General is
one who, like the Queen herself, is
respected by a Prime Minister and
who can g ive di screet, tactful
advice and counsel.
Contrast wit h Other Forms
Huma n his tory is replete with
tragic abuses of polit ical power .
Certainly the absolute monarchies
in the past have been as guilty as
modern form s of government
today. Because of t his, modero
monarcbies are generally limi ted
by constitutional safeguards and
forced to exert power cautiously.
Those who uphold the operations
of the monarchy and the Crown
today point to the relative success
of nations utilizing this system of
executive power.
In contrast, many countries in
the Commonwealth that , in the
independence process, have re–
placed the Queen with tbeir own
head of state, such as a president,
have wi tnessed a tragic chronol–
ogy of coups, rebellions, civil wars
and one-party dictatorships. l ndig–
enous heads of state have general–
ly Iacked the power and prest ige
to ward off abuses of political
power.
At the same time non-Common–
weaJth Western democracies have
occasionaJiy been confronted wi th
presidents who have proveo to be
more monarchial than constitution–
aJ monarchs.
In this generation the United
States experienced what Arthur M.
Schlesinger, American author and
educatOr , called the " Imperial
Presidency. "
T
n France, the office
of head of state, strengtbened by
the late Charles de Gaulle. has
been referred to by tbe Frencb
magazine
Le Monde
as a "monar–
que-president."
The Crown sys tem has a lso
tended to defuse the emergence of
dangerous nationalism, since patriot–
ic feelings are focused on the State
itsel f or its nonpolit icaJ head rather
than a government ora party.
One thinks of the extreme exam–
ple of Adolf Hi t ler being able to
get the German army to swear alle–
giance to h im personally. This
could not happen in Canada, where
the Queen, not the Prime Minister,
is commander in chief of the mil i–
tary.
The Crown, writes Mr. MacKin–
non, "acts as the repository for the
decorative and emotional functions
wbich are inevitable in any state.
These functi ons have to be placed
somewhere, and experience indi–
cates that the less politicians can
use them the better and more safe–
ly they are performed. . . .
It
also
reminds them [the politicians] that
they are servants of the state, not
its master."
Canadians have often joked that
their politics seem dull in compar–
ison with other countries. But this
relative dullness is primarily the
result of a system employing safe–
guards against those who would
let power go to their heads, to the
detriment of the whole society.
"To this situation ," concluded
Mr. MacKinnon in his book, " the
Crown and its twelve representa–
tives .. . provide compensations for
human nature to help make democ–
racy work."
Alter Human Nature
The modern- d ay role of the
Queen and the Crown has indeed
evolved into a system of ruling
fairly, while curbing the appetites
of those who would selfishly strive
for more power than they should
have. But the system is far from
perfect.
That is why the Bible foretells of
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