Member-only story
Time For Canada To Leave The Nest
The British Commonwealth is irrelevant. So is membership.
On July 4th, 1776, the 13 American Colonies declared independence from the British Crown.
This is the year 2021. It is time for Canada to do the same. Two hundred and forty-five years later, Canada is still tied to the British throne. In Canada, we have a Governor-General who reports to the queen. All the provinces in Canada have a Lieutenant Governor, the queen’s representative for those provinces. If the Prime Minister decides to dissolve parliament, he must first gain the permission of the Governor-General who in turn must chat with the queen, probably over a nice cup of tea. I should mention at this time, Canada does not have the right to appoint a Governor-General unilaterally. The Queen has the final say in the appointment.
In extreme cases, the Queen’s representative in any British Commonwealth country can actually fire the Prime Minister. This happened in Australia in 1975 when the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, triggered Australia’s biggest political crisis by removing its elected prime minister, Gough Whitlam, from office. According to newly released letters, he was given assurances to do so by Queen Elizabeth’s office before he acted. Then Opposition leader Malcolm Fraser was appointed prime minister and went on to win a stable…
