Republicanism in Canada
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Canadian republicanism is the advocacy of constitutional change in Canada leading to the abolition of constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth and the creation of a republic as a Commonwealth republic.
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[edit] History
William Lyon Mackenzie advocated the creation of a Canadian republic during the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion and, after the defeat of his uprising in Toronto, established a provisional government for the Republic of Canada on Navy Island. The Patriotes Rebellion in Lower Canada is also thought to have been republican in nature. (see also Rebellions of 1837). The British government's Durham Report in the aftermath of the rebellions led to the introduction of responsible government thus quelling republican sentiment by giving settlers in what became the United Province of Canada more rights while retaining British rule and eventually leading to Canadian confederation.
Latent republican sentiment remained a factor in Quebec where Henri Bourassa and other nationalists opposed British imperialism and advocated Canadian independence from the British Empire in response to the Boer War and, later, the Conscription Crisis of 1917 during the First World War. Republican sentiment became more prominent with the rise of the Quebec nationalist movement in the 1960s with the demands for an independent republic of Quebec put forward by both the Front de libération du Québec which advocated violent methods and the parliamentary Quebec indépendentistes who formed the Parti Québécois. Queen Elizabeth's royal visit to Quebec City in 1964 provoked a militant anti-monarchist and Quebec nationalist demonstration which was put down by police with 36 arrests and scores of injuries in what is remembered as samedi de la matraque (truncheon Saturday). Support for the monarchy remains weakest in Quebec to this day.
Simultaneously, the idea of a Canadian republic where the Queen would be replaced by an elected head of state gathered strength in English Canada among those who saw the abandonment of what was seen as the vestiges of colonialism as both a means of stengthening national unity between English and French-Canadians and as a means of asserting Canadian sovereignty and nationhood. The Toronto Star, English Canada's largest circulation daily newspaper first endorsed the creation of a Canadian republic during the Canadian centennial year of 1967, however the publication no longer supports this movement.
[edit] Constitutional implications
While the idea of a republic was a minor issue during the Canadian Constitutional negotiations of the 1970s, when a new Constitution was agreed to in 1982 it included a provision requiring unanimous consent of the federal government and all ten provincial governments before any change could be implemented to the status of the monarchy. This was agreed to by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as a concession to his two closest allies among the provincial premiers, Bill Davis and Richard Hatfield, both of whom were fervent monarchists. As a result it is constitutionally more difficult to remove the monarchy in Canada than it is in any other Commonwealth realm including the United Kingdom. However, retired political science Professor Edward McWhinney, a constitutional expert and former Member of Parliament, argues in his book The Governor General and the Prime Ministers that Canada could become a republic "quietly and without fanfare by simply failing legally to proclaim any successor to the Queen in relation to Canada." Still, this theory remains unsupported by either the Canadian government or other constitutional scholars. [1].
[edit] See also
- Monarchy in Canada
- Constitutional Monarchy
- Debate on the Canadian monarchy
- Republic
- Monarchism in Canada
- Republicanism
[edit] External links
- Citizens for a Canadian Republic Canada's republican movement
- Monarchy-Free Canada Canadian republican and anti-monarchy news site
- Res Publica International anti-monarchy database: Canada
- Monarchist League of Canada Canadian monarchist organization, resource, and site
- Canadian Royal Heritage Trust Canadian monarchist organization, educational resource, and site
| Republicanism in Commonwealth Realms | |
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| Australia | Canada | New Zealand | United Kingdom |
