Stephen Harper’s new passion for restoring the British monarchy to the kind of position it enjoyed in Canada before the Second World War may be impressing a few people in other parts of the global village today. But others who watch Canadian current events remain unconvinced.

On Saturday, February 4, 2012, eg, Greg Barns and Henry Pill presented a paper to the Australian Republican Movement/Deakin University conference on the role of the Australian head of state. It was entitled “The Setting Sun – Recent Developments on the British Monarch as Head of State.” And it examined  “recent developments in Canada and Jamaica … two prominent Commonwealth countries where the ‘sun is setting’ sentiment is gaining momentum … where there is an emerging dialogue about how to best position surviving Commonwealth realms in a 21st century world where the United Kingdom is a shadow of its former imperial self.”

The Canadian development Mssrs. Barns and Pill focused on was the recent Young Liberal policy resolution on studying “the implementation of … a Canadian head of state popularly elected” and severing “formal ties with the British Crown.” Barns and Pill are of course aware that the resolution was finally defeated at last month’s Liberal convention in Ottawa. But they argue that “the republican genie is now out of the bottle in Canada.  A major political party has debated the issue and nearly 40 % of delegates to its federal convention supported a Canadian republic. Those that did not did so mainly for tactical reasons or because of age.”

As some counterweights readers will already be aware, the prominent Australian barrister, public policy advisor, and champion of high liberal causes, Greg Barns, was  National Chair of the Australian Republican Movement from 2000-02 and National Campaign Director of the ARM 1999 Referendum Campaign. His colleague and co-author Henry Pill is  Convenor, Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Republican Movement. We are fortunate in being able to make available a somewhat condensed version of their February 4 paper to interested North American readers (where “North American” here happily includes the Caribbean Sea).

Click on “Read the rest of this page” and/or scroll down to take a look at what Mr. Barns and Mr. Pill have to say. If you are interested in this issue at all, you won’t be disappointed.

Their most striking conclusion, we think, is: “Republicanism will play a role in Jamaica’s future. In the end we believe it will play a role in Canada’s, and in Australia’s too … But do not think a republic is inevitable. In Canada, and in Jamaica too, it is a constitutional development which is wrapped up in complex questions of culture, nation and identity which are far too hotly contested in this country to declare such a development to be a fait accompli … We will ‘get a republic’ in Australia, but the global lesson is that we will not get one without a fight.”

The Setting Sun – Recent Developments on the British Monarch as Head of State
Greg Barns and Henry Pill

There is in the Australian discourse on the future of the British monarch as head of state little by way of perspective on how that institution is faring in other countries of the Commonwealth.  It is as though, outside the United Kingdom itself, Australia is the only nation to be saddled with the colonial legacy of a foreign monarch as constitutional figurehead.

This is of course not the case.  The British monarch is head of state in 16 of the 54 current Commonwealth countries.

There is some significance to this statistic. It means that in less than one third of the nations bound by a British colonial past is the monarch in Buckingham Palace still the head of state. Since India became a republic on January 26, 1950, the days of the British monarch as head of state in Commonwealth countries have been numbered.  The sun is setting on the role of the Queen, or King, as head of state in so-called Commonwealth realms.

We suggest that the sun will continue to set on Buckingham Palace’s global reach in this respect. And one reason is that nations within the Commonwealth are seeking to forge new symbolic identities consistent with the emergence of new international powers in the 21st century.

Here we examine related recent developments in Canada and Jamaica. These are two prominent Commonwealth countries where the “sun is setting” sentiment is gaining momentum – and where there is an emerging dialogue about how to best position surviving Commonwealth realms in a 21st century world where the United Kingdom is a shadow of its former imperial self, and where its key current ally, the United States, is also likely to be eclipsed by China, India, Brazil and other emerging powers in a new kind of global village.

We think that developments in Canada and Jamaica are highly relevant to the debate about an Australian republic, and that Australian insights can be gained by examining how the republic issue is now being explored in those two other contemporary Commonwealth realms.

1. Canada

Late last year Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a close ideological and political soul mate of arch-monarchist former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, ordered Canadian diplomatic missions around the world to show pictures of the Queen in their offices. He also revived the old “Royal” prefix for the Canadian navy and air force.

Mr Harper’s gestures appear odd given a continuing decline in support for the British monarchy in Canada over the past few decades. As historian Jack Granatstein has observed however, Mr Harper’s moves are less  “about the military than it is part and parcel of a Harper government plan to put the monarchy upfront in Canadian symbolism and to undo the long effort to put Canada at the heart of this nation’s sense of itself.” (1)

Almost two years ago now, the highly respected Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson was urging that Canadians are becoming more confident about their own identity and symbolism.  He contrasted the then Canadian Governor-General, Haitian born Michaelle Jean, with Prince Charles, who visited Canada for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.

Simpson wrote that the “contrast between the very Canadian, contemporary, bilingual, multicultural, modern, worldly Ms. Jean and the stodgy British prince and king-to-be” was “startling.” And he stressed that Mme Jean was in her own right “an excellent host, and showcase for Canada” as she greeted “the many heads of state attending the Winter Olympics.” (2)

In the much more recent past Simpson’s theme has been picked up, albeit gingerly, by the Liberal Party of Canada. The Party’s January 2012 national Convention debated a resolution from the Party’s youth wing on moving towards a republic.

Among other things, the resolution urged that Canada is a multicultural nation, that Canadians believe in earning one’s position in life, that “our head of state should be a true representative of the People of Canada,” that “Canada prides itself in being a democratic nation,” that, as matters stand, “individuals not of the Anglican faith” cannot rise “to the position of head of state of Canada,” and that, again as matters stand, “an unelected individual can and is prepared to supersede the will of the Parliament.”

With this as background, the resolution proposed “that the Liberal Party of Canada, urge the Parliament of Canada to form an all party committee to study the implementation of instituting a Canadian head of state popularly elected and sever formal ties with the British Crown.” (3)

It is interesting to note that the arguments put in this resolution are similar to those which are traditionally put by republicans in Australia.  Like Australia, Canada is a nation built on values such as fairness, egalitarianism and the idea that we are being hamstrung in becoming truly independent by the presence of a foreign head of state at the apex of our constitutional structure.

In the end, the motion was defeated with 62% of delegates at the Liberal Convention voting it down. (4)  However the vote reflected age on the part of the delegates. Young delegates to the Convention spoke passionately for the resolution; older delegates did not. Furthermore, many delegates who voted against the resolution did so because they do not think now is an opportune time for a party in the midst of a rebuilding process to embrace the issue.  In the words of Greg D’Cunha, one such delegate, the vote against the resolution was not an affirmation of Liberal Party support for the monarchy, it was a vote about politics. (5)

The bottom line is that the republican genie is now out of the bottle in Canada.  A major political party has debated the issue and nearly 40 % of delegates to its federal convention supported a Canadian republic.  Those that did not did so mainly for tactical reasons or because of age.

2. Jamaica

On January 5, 2012 Portia Simpson Miller was sworn in as Jamaica’s Prime Minister.  Miller had previously served as Jamaican prime minister, from March 2006 to September 2007. But this time she was elected in a landslide.

Miller used her inaugural address as Prime Minister to announce that Jamaica will become a republic. Miller put it this way:

“I love the Queen, she is a beautiful lady, and apart from being a beautiful lady she is a wise lady and a wonderful lady …

“But I think the time has come.

“As we celebrate our achievements as an independent nation, we now need to complete the circle of independence.” (6)

In addition to the significant fact that Britain’s colonial legacy in Jamaica is a sorry one, one of the major drivers for Miller and her supporters is that Jamaica’s economic and cultural ties are now positioned towards North America.  The move to become a parliamentary democratic republic with a ceremonial president also provides an opportunity for a broader discussion on Jamaica’s constitutional structure.

3. Australia in the Commonwealth

What should be remarkable is not what is going on in other Commonwealth nations but that it surprises Australians at all. Surely, as a nation of the Commonwealth, we should be well attuned to the goings on of our fellow Commonwealth nations?

Our membership of the Commonwealth, despite its significant duration, has never inspired in Australia any great sense of internationalism.

The fact is that Australia is on many levels an insular nation.

One has only to look to how oblivious the electorate has been to the global financial crisis to realise that, partially because of our geography and partially because of our charmed economic situation our links to the rest of the world are not overly strong. (7)

If we are to be a member of the Commonwealth (and republic or not chances are we will continue to be), it is important that we stay at least attuned to the developments in other Commonwealth nations, and to the changes occurring around us.

The examples of Canada and Jamaica show us alternate paths and unfolding national narratives which should not be entirely lost on Australians.

4. Canada: The Culture Wars Redux

For Canadians, the skirmishes around Monarchist symbolism go far beyond a question of national tradition.

The question of the monarchy is a divisive one, particularly in French-speaking Quebec, where the monarchy is overwhelmingly seen as irrelevant. (8)

In rebadging Canada’s military and institutions and reintroducing royal symbolism in to every day life, Harper is attempting to refashion Canadian national identity.

This should not be new to any Australian. Harper’s monarchical fashioning of Canadian institutions is pure John Howard ‘culture wars’. Howard claimed the undeniably conservative social shift which took place in Australia under his prime ministership, of which monarchism was a hugely important aspect, was a “corrective in our national sense of self”. (9)  Others have not been so flattering.

But the response of Canada’s Liberals is similarly familiar. Like good culture warriors they have responded to Harper’s attack heartily, delivering in their republican motion what reads like a summary of liberal cultural values today :  Multiculturalism, Egalitarianism, Democracy, Pluralism, and Republicanism itself.

Thus the monarchy-republic skirmish in Canada is perhaps symptomatic of a broader conflict over national identity and may remain so for a generation, with a society divided between those who broadly regard their nations as secular, pluralist, liberal societies and those who see Canada as a nation bound to its Anglo-British tradition.

This is the intellectual battlefield on which our modern republic debates in Canada and Australia are being played out. And the debate, in both countries, is far from over. Harper may have his Royal Canadian Navy, but the majority of Canadians are nowhere near as enamoured with the British monarchy as his Conservative party.

And while John Howard just a few years ago claimed triumph in his culture wars, the widely reported comments of eminent neurosurgeon Charles Teo, who recently recounted the story of his third-generation-Australian daughter’s battles with racism on Australia day, show that not everyone is happy with our so-called “corrected” national identity.

There is an exchange, at least in part, between those who see us as an integral part of an old British Empire, and the British Empire as an integral part of us, and those who see us, Australia and Canada, as nations who have outgrown our imperial pasts to become independent global citizens.

It is a debate about national identity which continues as Canada and Australia change, and as the world changes around us, and the question of the republic lies at its heart.

5. Time Has Come in Jamaica

There is no doubt where the Jamaicans sit in this debate.

“But I think the time has come.” says Portia Simpson Miller.

Time, for Jamaica, is 50 years since August 1952, when Jamaica first became an independent country in its own right.

For Miller 50 years of independence is long enough.

If only.

One has to admire Jamaica. It can apparently dive confidently into republicanism while Australia and Canada are, so far, reluctant to go the whole distance.

6. We will not get a republic without a fight

The question for Australia is which path will we chose with our national identity? Do we want to be the self-confident, regionally engaged nation which emerges as Asia does?

Or do we want to cling timidly to the coat tails of a United Kingdom of Great Britain preoccupied now more than ever with its complicated relationship with Europe?

Do we want to endorse republicanism and true independence, like the majority of our contemporary Commonwealth partners, or to preoccupy ourselves with the past, with the faded traditions of an Empire which will play a smaller and smaller role in our story in the future?

Republicanism will play a role in Jamaica’s future. In the end we believe it will play a role in Canada’s, and in Australia’s too.

But do not think a republic is inevitable. In Canada, and in Jamaica too, it is a constitutional development which is wrapped up in complex questions of culture, nation and identity which are far too hotly contested in this country to declare such a development to be a fait accompli.

We will ‘get a republic’ in Australia, but the global lesson is that we will not get one without a fight.

The sun is setting on the British monarchy. The question is, do we have to set with it?

NOTES

This is a somewhat condensed version of a paper presented to the Australian Republican Movement/Deakin University conference on the role of the Australian head of state, in Melbourne, Australia, on February 4, 2012.

(1) Comments made in a Reader Discussion, Globe and Mail, 17 August 2011. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/royal-ruckus-is-military-name-change-worthwhile/article2132133/

(2) J. Simpson (2009), Why Canadians owe great thanks to Michaëlle Jean, Globe and Mail, July 1.

(3) Liberal Party of Canada (2012), Biennial Convention, Resolution 114.  http://convention.liberal.ca/priority-resolutions/114-canadian-identity-in-the-21st-century/

(4) J. Taber (2012), Liberals vote to keep monarchy, legalise pot at Convention, Globe and Mail,  January 15.

(5) G. d’Cuna (2012), January 16, at:  http://uranowski.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/greg-dcunha-the-monarchy-the-non-priority-priority-resolution/

(6) BBC (2012), Jamaica to break links with Queen, says Prime Minister Simpson Miller, January 6.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16449969

(7) Essential Report Part 3 — Australia still insular and parochial, Crikey.com.au, May 5, 2009. http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/05/05/essential-report-part-3-—-australia-still-insular-and-parochial/

(8) Le Québec contre la monarchie, Le Journal De Quebec (French), 2 November 2009. http://www.journaldequebec.com/journaldequebec/actualites/quebec/archives/2009/11/20091102-224851.html

(9) Howard claims victory in the Culture Wars, Michelle Grattan, 26 January 2006. http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pm-claims-victory-in-culture-wars/2006/01/25/1138066861163.html