Is there any reason to keep that form of government other than tradition?
That’s pretty much it, in Australia at least.
Granted, the Queen (through her appointed intermediary, the Governor-General) does have some power, but it’s very rarely used - once that I can think of.*
There’s a fair bit of Republican (not in the US sense, obviously) sentiment, a fair bit of traditionalist sentiment, and a fair bit of “it ain’t broke, why fix it?” sentiment. As a American expat, I’m pretty much in the last category, and I don’t expect any change until the Queen dies/abdicates.
*A constitutional crisis back in the 70’s, basically ending when the GG dissolved Parliament and told the respective leaders to go sit in a corner. I don’t recall the exact details…
In Canada it’s really mostly inertia. Canada does have dedicated monarchists but they’re a small minority. Many people feel the monarchy is absurd, but because it has no impact on day to day life, it’s not an important enough issue to make it, well, an issue.
Constitutional change in Canada is structurally difficult and a political minefield of death, an absolute nightmare of issues that would take several posts to explain. To change Canada’s status as a monarchy is to open the Constitutional change issue and the small matter of the monarchy is not even CLOSE to worth it.
It allows them to separate the Head of State function from the Head of Government function.
That’s not trivial. The Head of State is primarily ceremonial: They show up at various functions as a representative of the country: bridge openings, the opening of the legislature, attending state funerals.
The Head of Government is the one who runs things. He or she is the chief executive who decides on how to execute the laws and who has to work with the legislature to get laws passed.
By separating the functions, the Head of Government can be busy getting things done without having to go off to represent the country at ceremonial events. In the US, the two roles are combined into one, so the president is always called off – sometimes with little notice – in order to represent the country.
There are plenty of republics in the world that manage to have separate heads of government and state.
Do Canada, Australia , etc. waste tax money on this royal stuff? I assume they do spend some tax money on it.
Obama does not go to all ceremonial events. For some he sends his wife, or Biden, or some members of Congress. He almost never goes to state funerals, the one he did go to was Nelson Mandela.
It occurs to me that in Canada retention of the monarchy may have value as a point of distinction from the countries large and culturally dominant neighbour. The challenge for Canadians forging and maintaining a national identity is not to distinguish themselves from the UK, but to distinguish themselves from the US. The monarchy is useful here.
The same issue doesn’t arise in Australia. There is, as galen ubal points out, a signficant republican movement in Australia, and there was a referendum on the subject in 1999 in which voters were invited to choose between the existing monarchy, or a republic with a president appointed by Parliament. The vote was 55:45 in favour of the monarchy. Opinion polls suggested that in fact a majority of Australians favoured a republic of some form, but no particular model of republic (including the one offered in the referendum) could command majority support, and people would prefer the monarchy as a least-worst alternative rather than a model of republic which was not the one they wanted.
The issue has gone off the boil somewhat since 1999; there is currently no appetite amoung the political establishment for a further referendum. Opinion polls show that levels of support for the monarchy bounce around quite a bit, depending on what is passing at the time in terms of royal visits, royal marriages, royal babies and such. There is a general feeling that the question will not be revisited officially during the life of the present Queen.
The separation is good for more than logistic reasons.
Constitutionally there needs to be a root of power. The monarch or monarch’s representative appoints the government and the executive. This person also dissolves governments and calls elections. You really want this person to be totally separate from politics. Countries that have both an elected parliament with prime minister and an elected president end up with two people who think they run the country. This is never good. The UK monarch makes for a very convenient root of power. They can’t be swayed by politics, and the evolution of the mechanisms by which they can act leaves us with a system that has, so far, avoided problems of power rivalry. (The 1975 dismissal of the government was effected by a representative of the monarch who had years before been a member of the party that he dismissed from government - so party politics were one thing that did not play a part in this part of the crisis.)
Here in Oz, there was a referendum to become a republic, which despite having popular support failed due to a stupid splitting of the vote between two different models of appointing the required root of power. One of the models had an elected president. This would eventually have led to disaster. Sometime in the future you can be guaranteed this person would decide that they had a mandate from the populace, and were thus entitled to become involved in the running of the country. This would lead to politicisation of the job and eventually the job would be held by members of the main political parties - wrecking the entire point of the position.
So, inertia rules, but the current system makes it very hard to subvert the role, and that is a good thing.
Of course I often wonder how many people know the royal family is actually German? (starting with George I) Knowing that might change a few minds .
It saves them from all the hassle that would be involved in setting up a republican system and periodically holding elections for a figurehead president.
Unless you feel an emotional need to stick two fingers up in the face of the former colonial master, as some places like Ireland and India and the African colonies did, but as Australia, Canada and New Zealand apparently do not, why bother?
For those that are interested, the 1975 Australian constitutional crisis.
I see Francis Vaughn covered a bit, though I muddled some details; the GG dismissed the then Prime Minister and installed the other party’s leader; and then dissolved Parliament entirely, calling for a full election of both houses.
Nasty business all around - but it sometimes is good to have a neutralish third party looking out only for the good of the nation, and not so much the interests of one party.
to Bijou Drains: :shrug: I’m “originally” either English or Norwegian (or African, if you want to be pedantic). In reality, I’m American and Australian, and the royal family is English.
I guess they could have gone the way of France and rolled out the guillotine for George III.
Anybody who takes the slightest interest in the royals, I should think. Anyway, they are now a good deal less German than Obama is Kenyan. Indeed, less German than most Americans (let alone Australians, Canadians, etc.) are German, Irish, British, French, Polish, Italian, or whatever.
As RickJay has commented, one of the issues is what do you replace her with?
The Queen has, on paper, a lot of constitutional authority. However, she doesn’t exercise those powers on her own initiative, but on the advice of her elected government, except in very rare circumstances. The reason is that the elected government has democratic legitimacy and authority; the Queen lacks both.
That changes if you have an elected Head of State, elected directly by the people. In that case, the new HOS would have considerable democratic legitimacy and authority, and if the new HOS had all the powers currently held by the Queen, that new HOS might start exercising them. Substituting a directly elected HOS without changing the powers would potentially be a complete change to our constitutional system. So you’d have to consider what new limits to place on the new HOS. That could be a major political debate.
Or, you could have an indirectly elected HOS, as parliamentary republics like Germany and Israel have. However, then you have to come up with a way to elect the HOS indirectly. That could be a major political debate.
And finally, since a change to the office of the Queen requires unanimous consent, you have to put forward an option that satisfies the federal government and all ten provinces. That happens in Canada as often as two moons rise in the North.
It is pretty funny that they could not find anybody in England in 1714 to be King. 
We don’t pay any money to Her Majesty or her family. Our taxes do pay for the Governor General, who carries out the royal duties in Canada. But that doesn’t really count, since even if we had an elected HOS, we would have to pay for that official anyway.
We do pay the expenses for any royal visits to Canada, but those do seem to be popular, and don’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things.
I agree nothing changes until Big Ears takes over. Which at the current rate may be a while off.
As they were already operating under a royal family imported from Scotland, that wasn’t a problem; they were not the narrow nationalists you seem to think.
Their concern was not finding an English king; it was finding a Protestant king with some colourable claim to legitimacy. The most promising candidate happened to be German, but so what?
They did not mind having a German name until that World War I thing started. Then all of a sudden it seemed like a good idea to pick a new name.
OmiGawd! No! Really? Why has this been kept a secret from us all??? That changes everything!
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Seriously, by what definition of “German”?
The last King who was born in Germany was George II, who died in 1760.
All subsequent monarchs were born in England: George III, George IV, William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, and Elizabeth II.
That’s nine English born monarchs over two and half centuries.
As for the royal consorts, the last German-born consort was Prince Albert, who died in 1861, a century and a half ago. Since then, there have been four consorts: Alexandra (born in Denmark), Mary (born in England), Elizabeth (born in Scotland) and Philip (born in Greece).
But sure, they’re German. :rolleyes: