Lemmy
The issue at the core is "doing something". When you have elected heads of state, like the US president say, said head of state feels pressure to be seen "doing something". And in my experience, when a politician feels the need to "do something", trouble results.
In Canada the monarch has virtually no power. Indeed the one real power the monarch has left is the ability to dissolve Parliament and force a new election. In Canada this can be done directly by the monarch, or by their appointed representatives, the Governor General (federal) and Lieutenant Governors (provincial). There are a few other powers the monarch holds (technically a law is only passed once approved by the monarch, for example) but these are basically rubber-stamped because the monarchy isn't stupid and realizes the first time they say "no" they risk Canada turning into a republic and going to shit like the USA did. The only real sword the monarch carries in their sheathe is that ability to just say "no" to their current government and call for a do-over. And they so rarely draw that sword at anything other than formal, symbolic occasions that most people don't even realize the sword is there.
So why is this good? Well, the monarchy, being an inherited position and one which is not subject to recall, is secure. They don't have that intrinsic need to "do something". Indeed they work best when they do the minimum amount possible. 99.44% of the time they are a figurehead, not a politician. And that means you don't have some ambitious twat trying to make their name like, I don't know, tearing down a third of the presidential palace to build a garish ballroom, or trying to glue his name on every institution, or starting wars just to convince his followers he really is tough and totally isn't a wimp, etc. I mean seriously, look at the utter fucking idiocy American presidents, or Hungarian presidents, or any other elected head of state anywhere in the world does each year and compare it to my entire lifetime (60 years) under a monarch. There's no contest. Trump alone has done more utterly fucked-in-the-head things in the past week than Lizzie did all her life.
And here's the fun part. The monarchy is cheap. Indeed in the UK the monarchy is a net benefit to the economy; some of the largest amounts of tourist money pouring into the UK are specifically for people visiting royal properties. In Canada we have to pay a little (a state visit by the monarch comes with some significant costs), but even a major state visit by the monarch is less than the damage an idiot president does to the USA in a week. If we had an elected head of state, I can guarantee you that we'd be paying through our teeth for them in no time flat as they get that urge to be seen "doing something".
So let's give a solid example. Way back when, PM Brian Mulroney and his party had Canada's Parliament in a tight grip. They had a very secure majority government and very strong party discipline, so they could cram anything they wanted through. And one of the things they wanted to cram through, and were preparing to cram through, was NAFTA. The thing is that NAFTA was really unpopular for a lot of very loud people. There was a lot of bad blood going on, and there was doubt if Mulroney had an actual mandate for such a drastic agreement, since that agreement was nowhere near visibility at the time of his election. Had things continued on that course Brian would have forced NAFTA through, and there would have been a cloud over that agreement from every day past that forever.
In the middle of the acrimony, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, dropped by for a visit. (This is ... weird. Royal Visits are planned meticulously months in advance.) Ostensibly she was just doing a Royal Tour, but the timing was very suspicious and the fact it took everyone by surprise was even more suspicious. And in part of her visit she had a private, in-camera meeting with Brian. After the meeting, Lizzie came out looking quite refreshed and unworried while Brian was pale and uncharacteristically quiet. There was a persistent and very credible rumour from that time that Lizzie threatened Brian with proroguing Parliament and calling an election unless he called the election. If Lizzie prorogued, it would be guaranteed that Mulroney would have lost simply on the moral strength of Lizzie's position. So Mulroney was forced to ask her to prorogue (so it was "his idea"
and it instead gave him a chance to make his case to the people.They spoke their subsequent platitudes. Lizzie went home. And a short time later Bri-Bri called an election. His party campaigned on NAFTA. The other parties campaigned anti-NAFTA. His party won. He had a clear mandate for NAFTA, which he signed shortly thereafter.
(Note: I am explicitly not commenting on whether NAFTA was or was not a good thing for Canada. That's out of scope. What's in scope is whether or not the government had a genuine mandate from the people to negotiate it. By forcing an election—if, indeed, that's what happened; it's a rumour, remember—Lizzie made sure that there was.)
Now tell me, how do you think this would play out in a republic? (Hint: you're seeing it unfold in real time as Trump and his coterie of billionaires and sycophants destroys the USA.)
This is why, although not a monarchist, I am in favour of a constitutional monarchy (both words are important there!) over a republic if you're going to have hierarchy at all. Though it would be even nicer if political parties would be outlawed.
11 Jun 2026 04:11
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