A Canadian head of state with same functions as the current GG. A figurehead to oversee the political process with no political power.
— Dave J (@DaveJudson) September 16, 2022
Appointed by the House for a five year term.
"Our" current head of state is hereditary monarchy on the other side of the Atlantic. Enough.
The tragic death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II have been bringing the typical Republican phlyarologists out to play.
Dave's silly idea is a generically typical version of this. There are of course several problems with this, but two in particular come to mind:
- What's the point?
- Where's the legitimacy?
So imagine we replace our current head of state (the Governor General speaking on behalf of the King of Canada) with a Governor General who speaks on his own behalf. He would have (presumably even fewer? "no political power" doesn't technically describe the current GG role) no actual authority to do anything but be a Head of State independent of the House and Senate.
So why bother? Just so clueless dolts who somehow object to the physical location our Head of State resides in will shut up about it? A piece of duct tape and a tyre iron can resolve that problem. This is quite a fundamental change in our system which seems to deposit us in the exact existing system except anti-royals can claim ownership of the position. Until, say, a Pierre Poilievre government chooses Don Cherry or Tamara Lich to the role, at which point the same people will decry how this person doesn't "represent who we really are" yadda yadda yadda and demand the new government replace them 1/3 of the way through their "5 year term".
We already have a system where the Governor General or Lieutenant Governor is being chosen by political hacks and where does this lead us? We end up with race-baiting wenches like Mary Simon, entitlement whores like Adrienne Clarkson, stealing cunts like Michelle Jean,psycho bitch sluts like Julie Payette, or anti-royal busybodies like Salma Lakhani. [maybe we need a "no girls allowed" rule as well... -ed] The only decent Governor General of the last quarter century was Daniel Johnson and he only got the job because Right Honourable Stephen Harper (pbuh) was a policy wonk centrist interested in a candidate who could do the job correctly and didn't have a hysterical vagina getting in her way. Can you imagine giving this role and these recipients even more legitimacy than the current status of "relaying messages to the Sovereign without getting your head cut off"?
Which dovetails into the second half of the question. Why should I give this new "nominated holder of supreme executive power" the time of day? As noted, Mary Simon is just a redskin with a good rolodex, it's the fact that rolodex includes the personal phone number of the King of Canada that means anything. The King of Canada gains his legitimacy by being the heir of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth who was the heir of George VI who was the second heir of George V who was the heir of Edward II...
[deleted the part where he continued to recite past Charles II and Charles I by memory... -ed]
...who was the second heir of William I who was the first King of England after its conquest in 1066. William I of course was also William II the Duke of Normandy, descended from Robert the Magnificent and... (why is my editor glaring at me?) ...well, suffice it to say that there's a bit of a historical line.
Canada, of course, was first settled by the British under King James I, who you may recall was the largest British proponent in the divine right of kings. You might say God infused Himself in Canada's first creation. It became, as we all know, a full Dominion under Queen Victoria, achieved its legislative independence under King George V (the first "King of Canada:), (foolishly) repatriated its constitution under Queen Elizabeth II, and is currently ruled by King Charles III. Thus a continuous and (mostly, cough cough interregnum cough cough) unbroken chain of authority from God Himself mandates the ultimate executive authority to which all His Majesty's subjects in Canada can and must owe their allegiance to.
Under Dave's system, pace William Shatner during his comedy roast, who the hell are you people? It's essentially the atheistic morality problem all over again. If the Governor General is just some hack chosen by the party in power (or were we planning to make the GG selection contingent on a unanimous vote?) then it's just some hack. The figurehead overseeing a political process doesn't mean anything if as a figurehead qua figurehead as it were: King Charles III is a figurehead because he's the personification of God's will over English soil (on both sides of the Atlantic, to borrow Dave's phrasing: indigenous and conquered). The legislature rules in service to the Crown. The courts rule in service to the Crown. That means something.
You'd think with the train wreck (I'll post more about this coming up) of failed and failing republics appearing and disappearing over the past couple centuries, it might tamp down a bit of this corybantic discourse. Yet no, even Lord Conrad Black fell into this trap.
They never did bother to explain why the monarch "on the other side of the ocean" is such a problem at the same time "shouldn't we import fewer people from across the ocean" has become the most hated sentence of our time?
