Quebec can dispense with king: Trudeau
Did Justin Trudeau confer with any constitutional lawyers before announcing that Quebec can pass a law dispensing with the oath to the sovereign?
Update: As so often, Toula Drimonis has some relevant things to say on this issue.
steph 13:25 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
Anything anti-constitutional is possible with the notwithstanding clause,
steph 13:30 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
“ça prend des députés qui siègent et qui votent sur les projets de loi” – must swear the oath to pass a law to not swear the oath. feels like a bizarro reality.
Kate 14:59 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
steph, Trudeau’s got to put his foot down sometime. Quebec’s already 2/3 of its way out the door as it is.
Tim S. 15:00 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
Last weekend I was in St Jovite, and someone had gone around putting up a whole bunch of posters calling on people to protest the electoral system and demand reform. I saw no posters complaining about the oath to the king.
carswell 15:29 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
Yeahbuy, Kate, doing the right thing might affect his top priority: his re-election chances. Same for the indefensible Baie du Nord project he recently greenlighted.
H. John 15:46 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
The notwithstanding clause only applies to parts of the Charter of Rights. It can not be used in this case since the clause containing the oath is not in the Charter.
I think Serge Joyal had a much more thoughtful response in Le Devoir:
https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/libre-opinion/765305/libre-opinion-ce-que-n-est-pas-le-serment-d-allegeance:
jeather 18:17 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
I absolutely do not care about an oath to the king. Trudeau needs to put his foot down (he won’t), but this is not where to do it.
Kevin 19:03 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
In Canadian law, the monarch is the literal embodiment of Canada and its people and laws. He is the country made flesh.
And under that law, swearing an oath to the King means swearing an oath to the laws of the country, nothing more: it isn’t an oath to him personally, it isn’t an oath to the Head of the Anglican Church, it isn’t an oath to the laws or people of the UK or the commonwealth. It is a legal fiction, a collective delusion, that we use to make the world work, in much the same way that we all believe money works.
Ian 19:28 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
We should have gotten rid of the monarchy a long time ago. I don’t like how it’s being done here with legal tapdancing to get around it. I have always suspected that Quebec would lead the way in finally ditching the kings & queens nonsense but I was hoping for something a bit more direct. This just feels weaselly. Frankly I think France dealt with monarchy the best.
Don’t even get me started on swearing oaths to God.
Chris 20:29 on 2022-10-19 Permalink
>I absolutely do not care about an oath to the king.
That’s nice. Other people do care.
Kate 09:19 on 2022-10-20 Permalink
Ian: I think France dealt with monarchy the best.
France cut off the heads of their king and queen in 1793, but by 1804 they had an emperor. Not much of an improvement!
France did it in such a flashy way that we often overlook how the British had done similarly 150 years earlier, cutting off the head of King Charles I in 1649. But in 1653 they made Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector for life. So far from being no improvement, he was a horror, and after his son succeeded him and turned out to be a dead loss as a leader, the people brought back the monarchy in 1660 (and traded it in for one they liked better in 1688).
Chris, rein in your snark.
walkerp 09:22 on 2022-10-20 Permalink
It’s interesting too that this all started now that Elizabeth has died and Charles is the new king. I wonder if there is something inherently annoying about the latter that is triggering this when it never did before.
Anyhow I am with Ian and others on this. We should not be swearing any oaths to anybody in Great Britain. This symbolic fealty to the king is one more small but significant brick in the edifice of horror that is colonialism and we need to take it down.
Kate 10:25 on 2022-10-20 Permalink
walkerp, don’t think of it as an oath to a human being. It’s an oath to the fact that our system of government derives from the UK parliament (the Westminster system) and we feel some faith in the operations of this kind of government to approximate democracy, and if you’re an elected representative, that you will adhere to the rules that govern its proceedings.
It’s perfectly easy to extract the idea of the oath from the actual person of the king.
Chris 10:33 on 2022-10-20 Permalink
> don’t think of it as an oath to a human being.
The oath literally has the name of a human being it in. Thinking of it that way is entirely correct.
Kate 10:52 on 2022-10-20 Permalink
It’s an oath to the sovereign. The many people who took oaths to Eiizabeth II as part of their public service don’t have to retake a new oath to Charles III for that reason. The person embodies the idea, but the idea is the main thing.
If Charles died tomorrow and William V became king, it would equally make no difference.
dhomas 18:51 on 2022-10-20 Permalink
If it makes no difference, then why do it? Just take an oath to something else. Why do need to mention the monarchy of a different country at all?
Kate 21:45 on 2022-10-20 Permalink
dhomas, technically it isn’t the monarchy of a different country.