Why in God’s name should Canada be sending MPs to Westminster?
I don’t think you fully understand how this country works. It’s an independent state. We should no more be sending MPs to Westminster than we should be sending senators to Washington or, for that matter, legislators to Brasilia, Jakarta, or New Delhi.
The Pythons said it better:
On a more serious note:
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Autonomy is simply the natural correlate to democratic and republican principles. If the people of a state choose to federate, that should be entirely up to them.
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Sure, but you haven’t explained why the people can’t choose a constitutional monarchy as the structure for their federation. That’s exactly what happened in Canada and Australia.
Second RickJay here - if Canada sent MPs to Westminster, that means that Westminster still would have legislative authority over Canada, and we would not be a fully equal country.
The Dominions were recognised as fully equal to the UK way back in 1926, with a ceremonial GG, just as you describe. Having representation at Westminster would have been a step backward.
I don’t believe rule should be imposed over one’s posterity. Laws can be overruled, constitutions amended and the successor to the throne will remain the same. I’m a fundamental democrat anyway, I believe referenda should be utilised at every opportunity.
Sure the succesor to the throne can be changed. It happened in 1689 and in 1701, and more recently in 1936, all by measures taken by the Parliament.
And then there was the referendum where the people of Australia were asked if they wanted to abolish the monarchy and move to a republic, and rejected the proposal. Sounds pretty democratic to me.
My opposition to hereditary succession comes primarily (in the instance of nominal heads of state) from republican rather than democratic principles. Terms of office are a sort of fusion of both, since one cannot assume that the generation proceeding from the current one will approve of our choice of head of state.
Still, it’d be a genetic fallacy to determine that historical abuses would endanger the institution, so there’s a more principled objection: namely that there is no attribute that is inherited that predisposes one to be a good head of state. Hitchens points out (paraphrasing Tom Paine, as far as I’m aware), that there are no positions for hereditary doctors or hereditary mathematicians. While certain concepts can be taught to children that are useful in such fields, they must still qualify for that position. No such qualifications exist for heads of state, hereditary or not, but a democratic principle is that democratic assent is an adequate substitute. With no fixed terms, such assent is assumed rather than sought in current monarchies.
I don’t feel the parliamentary measures resulting (indirectly) from the English civil war are a great example of democratic accountability considering how disenfranchised most of the population was at the time. The notion of succession remains (even if the successor changes), which is the fundamental contention for a republican.
:rolleyes: I’m imagining an alternate history here, where the British Empire is not entirely dominated by the UK/Old Britain, but is a sort of crowned federal republic; and its member kingdoms are all of constitutionally (if not politically) equal status, like States of the Union are now; and they are not independent, but are mostly autonomous. Which only works if they’re all represented in the Empire’s highest Parliament (whether the Westminster Parliament, or a separate Imperial Parliament).
Should’ve thought that was obvious.
Then you’d have the fun of discussing the West Lothian question and devolution in the 90s :p…
Equal yes, independent no, please don’t confuse them. If there were an Imperial Parliament, or a Westminster Parliament including members from the non-British kingdoms/dominions/colonies, then they get to lord it over Britain itself just like British members do (and would outnumber the British members, too, by the mid- to late-19th Century). Is this such a hard concept to grasp?!
It’s hard to grasp when you don’t explain it very well. You also said “subservience to an imperial force” “works well for Canada,” but again, it doesn’t. Canada isn’t subservient to the UK; we just share a monarch who happens to prefer the weather in England.
You can’t have a “ceremonial” governor-general if that governor-general isn’t in a ceremonial role, which s/he wouldn’t be if s/he was representing a government with actual power over Canada (or Australia, or whatever.)
Anyway, the idea of a pan-continental nation-state is fanciful. It’s hard enough to hold together a continent-sized country. Countries oceans apart wouldn’t stand for it; there’s no way Canada’s unique problems could be served by a Parliament mostly made up of Britons, or that if the USA was part of it Britain wouldn’t eventually lose patience with Americans dominating the conversation.
Meddling in Britain’s internal politics? For my part, I’d wallow in it! 
Sorry, I thought it was obvious – since your country already has a similar system internally, and so does mine (discounting the absence of the Crown).
I meant, being a dominion (or I guess you call it a “commonwealth” these days, which is another word for “republic” but let’s not go there) and having a monarch and GG works well enough for Canada.
Well, that’s why there are different levels. In the U.S., we have state legislatures doing some things and Congress doing others. There’s endless turf-battles between the levels, but, apart from one little kerfuffle in 1861-65, it always works out well enough. I envision a British Empire where every member kingdom would self-govern internally for the most part, and the imperial government would, at a minimum, have sole jurisdiction over inter-kingdom commerce and handle all matters military and diplomatic.
In fight, I think things might have gone better in the UK if there were none – that is, in 1707, instead of merging England and Scotland and abolishing the Scottish Parliament, they leave both in place, and give Queen Anne the new and constitutionally separate title of Empress (Yeah! A Protestant Empress! Take that, ya Papists!)* in a new state, the Empire of the British Isles, and create a new Imperial Parliament, sovereign over all kingdoms and representing all kingdoms (including Ireland – gets “Home Rule” in 1707 as a full equal with England and Scotland, might keep it indefinitely, might still be part of the Empire, who knows) and colonies (now under the imperial government directly, and understood to be on their way to kingdom status eventually).
Of course, the only reason all this looks like such a no-brainer in hindsight is that it is based on a system the U.S. later invented, and has been using for more than two centuries. It might have required some unusual political imagination at the time.
Mind you, I’m not talking about the world of The Two Georges. In that AH, the Americans negotiated nicely with the Brits and settled for some autonomy (and other unspecified concessions) without representation; and now, in the North American Union at the end of the 20th Century, GG Sir Martin Luther King is fretting that the Westminster Parliament (still all-Brit) “will not trust us to run our own affairs again for years” if the stolen Gainesborough painting (of George Washington and his delegation meeting George III and his ministers for the first time, in England) is not recovered.
Canada is not a “commonwealth” nor, really, a “dominion” - the official term for the country is simply “Canada,” and the “Commonwealth” is an affiliation of states.
Sending MPs to Westminster is a completely different ball of wax from happening to share the monarch. If you don’t understand why I’m not sure how to explain it in simpler terms aside from the fact that Canadians would not want power vested in London, as evidenced by the fact that WE BROKE OFF AND STARTED A SEPARATE COUNTRY. It was never, not once, ever seriously considered to have Canada elect MPs to Westminster, because it’s insane. Canada isn’t the same country, and the more it became a separate country, the more the two governments were divided; Canada’s Constitutional progress mirrored the country’s growing apart from the UK (delayed by a few years, hence the occasional spate of violence.) Attempting to combine them would have resulted in… well, bad things.
nm
We are a Dominion under the name of Canada (check out the Canada Act, 1867), and we are a Commonwealth Realm (check out the Royal Style and Titles Act, 1953).
No, and California is not the same as New York. But they thrive and share power within the same Union. It works.
Canada is a monarchy, and is not a republic. The Queen embodies the state. The USA is a republic, and is not a monarchy. President Obama is the head of state.
Oh, I didn’t realize we were in Cafe Society discussing fantasy stories. I thought we were in Great Debates.
Oh, wait …