OTTAWA — The time is ripe to reopen the Constitution and reassess Canada’s ties to the monarchy, New Democrat MP Pat Martin said during an appearance on The West Block with Tom Clark.
The Winnipeg MP said he believes he speaks for a growing number of Canadians who think it’s high time the country explores whether to “cut our apron strings” to English royalty.
“There seems to be a growing movement that this is the window of opportunity,” Martin said. “The transition period between monarchs seems to be the appropriate time to revisit this.”
Martin has held this opinion for some time. But it “gelled,” he said, when he attended a recent citizenship ceremony.
Immigrants and new Canadians are legally obliged to take an oath of allegiance to “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors,” according to the citizenship oath on Justice Canada’s site.
The oath also includes an avowal for the new Canadian to observe the laws of the land and fulfil his or her duties as a Canadian.
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“Watching these people from 30 or 40 different countries having to swear allegiance — not to Canada, but to the Queen and all of her heirs — it kind of just struck me at that moment that we are way out of touch.” Martin said.
If anything, he said, new Canadians should be swearing an oath to their country, Canada.
Martin said he was not speaking on behalf of the New Democratic Party, which doesn’t hold an official policy on the monarchy.
A recent Harris-Decima poll showed support for maintaining ties to the monarchy has increased, but is hovering barely above a majority, at 51 per cent. In Quebec, where voters had a huge hand in sweeping the NDP to official Opposition, support for the monarchy is waning, with only 24 per cent of respondents saying they are in favour of maintaining ties, that poll suggested.
When the Queen took the throne in 1952, she reigned over 32 countries. Today, Queen Elizabeth is the head of state of 16 countries.
Even as the Conservative government re-appropriates symbols of the monarchy — hanging the Queen’s portrait in foreign embassies and reinstating the word ‘royal’ to the naval and air forces — Canadians have to begin the discussion now, Martin said on the day the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in London — not once the she passes away.
Severing Canada’s ties to the monarchy would require reopening the Constitution — an act for which some critics have said there is no appetite.
Martin, conversely, said not only is there an appetite, but there is a need to reopen it.
“It’s been 20 years since the Charlottetown Accord failed,” he said of the federal and provincial governments’ 1992 package of proposed Constitutional reforms that was defeated when put to a public referendum.
“There’s a number of inter-governmental issues that could and should be dealt with… And this is the window of opportunity.”
Martin stressed that his position was “nothing personal” against the Queen — even saying he was grateful for her time served — but based, rather, on a belief that, as a developed nation in the G8, Canada’s head of state should be Canadian.
“If for no other reason that under the current system, no Catholic, no Jew, no Muslim and no woman is going to be the head of state forever in this country… They have to be a member of the Church of England. That in and of itself should be enough to offend the sensibilities of most Canadians,” Martin said.
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