AFAIK, no, not even in theory. Now, Queen Elizabeth II is both the queen of England and of Canada; she could, in theory, exercise what little power she has in some way that benefits England over Canada. But her real powers are pretty miniscule and if she ever tried that we'd probably end up becoming a republic.
@Cerberus I don't know. Some of them were already self-governing, it was probably just a formality. "Take care of your own things".
The only kind of emergency where the GG or Queen wield power is when there is some kind of constitutional issue, such as when the government asked to prorogue parliament a few years ago. The PM asked the GG and she said yes. That was all.
She claimed that she consulted with constitutional lawyers and there was basically no justification for her to act in contravention to the government's wish.
Essentially, the Queen is ceremonial. She doesn't get involved. The GG likewise.
And the Queen being British instead of Canadian is pretty much the only link to England that remains.
But even in unusual circumstances, we have constitutional law, and if we ever found a situation where the constitution didn't actually function, then either A) it needs fixing and there is a process for that and certainly the Queen has no idea how to fix things, or B) if the constitution does not appear to apply then a regular law can be made to fix the problem.
Sure, we could have a situation where, say, the country is falling apart and devolving into rebellion or civil war or something. But in such a situation, would anyone care what the Queen said?
Personally I'd like for us to become a republic, but again, constitutional change being too hard and all, it'll never happen.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yes, something like that. When it's on the brink of something extraordinary to happen. Perhaps there will still be some people willing to heed her warning.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why? Don't you think it's fun to keep historical ceremonies?
For that reason, I'd like us to become a Republic again.
@Cerberus Enh. Not particularly. I'm not a big fan of monarchies and I think it's odd that our queen is British. I'm sure it's confusing to a lot of immigrants. We are our own nation, and we should have our own monarchs, or better yet, eschew archaic feudalism and embrace modern democracy fully.
More importantly I'd like to get rid of, or reform, the Senate; it's a mess, but again, constitutional reform is too hard, blah blah blah
Our senators are appointed by the PM and they serve for "life" and they can prevent legislation from passing.
as far as I can tell it's a colossal waste of money.
But maybe if we had, say, equal per-province representation in the senate (like the US does), then we could fix the House of Commons, where some provinces get way more members of parliament than they should, based on population.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Why not? I'm sure your government has tons of other rituals and customs that are old and serve no real purpose other than being fun for people.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I think the House of Lords is partly equally bad.
Rich party donors get appointed by the government, I think.
@Cerberus Yes, I find many of their rituals and customs odd. And since the government is meant to be a functioning apparatus, I think it behooves us to modernize things from time to time.
Only if you get material benefits from that. And you can modernize the necessary elements while keeping as many of the old elements as possible if they are fun for people.
@Cerberus Though I wonder what would happen if, say, all 10 provinces and the House of Commons all voted to abolish the senate. If the senate didn't pass the bill, but the rest of the country dismantled the institution, what would happen?
The institute is historical. And yet it perseveres. And it brings along certain flaws. Like, William cannot marry someone who's not Anglican. That's bullshit, right there. Also, Kate cannot refuse to have children. She is not a full person; her job is to have children, in order to preserve some dumb bloodline.
@Cerberus Sure, they can have their circuses. But then you have to concede that it's just a really old form of Paris Hilton. They're famous because people want famous things.
The pyramids do continue to exist. And they require upkeep, which is expensive. At least the upkeep of our historical buildings everywhere is extremely expensive. But we wouldn't want it any other way. If anything, we find it more important now than ever.
@Cerberus Maintaining old buildings is completely different from trying to make new old buildings in the old way just because we always made them that way.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 So what? That Caravaggio is better than your daughter's drawing (no offence) is also 100% subjective. And yet I'm sure you will agree that we want spend more money on preserving that which is more beautiful.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 All of Manhattan had old buildings once.
They destroyed them all.
Because they didn't care about history or aesthetics at the time. We, too, destroyed more old buildings in the past.
Making new people fill ceremonial roles, filling their lives with make-work, doing pointless ceremonies, etc, etc, because.... what? the monarchy itself is beautiful?
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Exactly. And also because many people like it, and it can make people feel more like...one country. Of course there are limits to this: if everyone really hates it, then perhaps it is time for a change.
Because the continuing existence of the monarchy and the continuing practice of the rituals are like the continuing existence and display of an historical building, as opposed to pictures of the building.
@Cerberus What about when a significant fraction of your country still harbours resentment over past injustices perpetrated by agents of that monarchy, to the point that they wish to secede?
The city is not a museum either. And yet we want to maintain its old buildings.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, depends on the size of that fraction?
If everybody hates the pyramids and really wants to destroy them, like 99% of the people, and it isn't just a whim, then perhaps it is time to place large explosives in the holy shrine in the centre and blow everything up. Like the Taliban with the huge ancient Buddhas, except with 99% support.
I would cry, but there are limits to keeping old things.
@Cerberus But the customs can be maintained by anyone, i.e. actors, and the descendents should not be accorded special treatment on account of who their parents are.
@Cerberus And what I dislike about the monarchy is mostly the abstract thing.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, of course monarchs have done bad things. But also good things. And there are some ideals behind the institution that are noble.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It depends. All I'm saying is that I think the very fact that it is old is something that's cool. Doesn't mean there can be other, bad aspects to them that can make abolishing them the right decision; but the fact itself is nice. It's an argument—weigh it as you will.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Maybe all?
I haven't looked.
@skullpatrol I think there may be an indirect relation. But what I wanted to say was that monarchies do not necessarily oppress people any more than republics do. The worst countries in the world are republics.
@Cerberus Old things are nice and all. But I have philosophical problems with monarchy itself. Yes, fine, they've allowed themselves to be reduced to mere decorations, but they are still part of government. The represent all the good AND bad crap that's happened in the past. Just look at England's history, how much of it involved fighting for the throne. We should put that behind us. Especially here in Canada, where we are not England and the queen is meaningless to us.
I find it offensive that new citizens are made to swear allegiance to the queen.
The British Royal Family is financed mainly by public money, but there are also a number of private sources of income. The British Parliament meets the cost of the Sovereign's official expenditure from public funds. This includes the costs of the upkeep of the various royal residences, staffing, travel and state visits, public engagements, and official entertainment. The Keeper of the Privy Purse is Head of the Privy Purse and Treasurer’s Office and has overall responsibility for the management of the sovereign’s financial affairs.
== Income ==
=== The Civil List ===
Until 1760 the mon...
@Cerberus The buildings are artifacts. Once stripped of their toxic teachings and power-hungry priests, the buildings are just a glimpse of the past. But the Churches continue to teach wrong information and promote harm for society to this day, so I would like to see them die off. However, you can't just abolish churches. They're like Hydra, cutting off the head just makes two pop up.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't know: if the institution has become harmless, e.g. because it has been sufficiently marginalised, I kind of like keeping it, as an abstract monument. A monastery where all the nuns die of old age and no new women arrive to replace them, for example, that makes me sad. Even though I am really glad that not many people are nuns any more.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah, and in that way everything we are and everything we have is tainted. But I don't think that is a productive way of thinking. Now if it is really recent, or if it is the same people who actually did it, then perhaps they need to be erased. But otherwise, where is the end?
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Kind of! It would be really cool to have one alchemist school left, wouldn't it? Admit it, you would want to visit it!
But once things have been utterly destroyed and are gone, eventually we often start to care less. But the nuns are being destroyed under eyes (by time).
@Cerberus It would be cool, but just as cool as if the alchemy school was populated by well-trained actors who were accurately depicting their craft. Because the alchemy itself is worthless.
@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Nooo that wouldn't be the same! Surely you wouldn't want people to destroy the real David and replace it with an easier to maintain replica?
It is in a way irrational, but we humans like authenticity.
@Cerberus I mean we can look at something like the monarchy and decide that the symbol of patriarchy and birthright and divine mandate and all the rest of that crap is not worth keeping around in our functioning government, because we've grown past all of those ideas.
We can set up the government as a model of how to do things.
Instead of some kind of half-functioning, half-decorative thing.
But eventually, either you'd need people to study "real alchemy" and be students/teachers in the school, learning and teaching bogus crap for years, or else just fake it. Because alchemy itself is dead.
At some point, the last alchemists stopped being alchemists and became chemists. When that happened, it was because alchemy was finally accepted as a sham. When it is known to be a sham, you cannot have a school of it! Anyone in the school would either be a dupe or an actor.
@Cerberus Fine. So take the monarchs and put them in a museum. Train people to learn all the steps to the dances and words to the songs. Establish a continuity of knowledge if you want. Just remove it from the government.
@cpx They stand alone just fine. They specify the time as much as is needed. It could be yesterday, last year, 5 seconds ago, just not now. And it is not necessary grammatically to specify. For story purposes, sure, the listener probably wants to know when, but grammatically it is fine.