Du sens, de la mémoire, s.v.p.! / Make sense, remember, please!


Nonsense, amnesia and other conventional wisdom are the targets here:
A critical look at media-political discourse in Canadian federal politics, notably but not only regarding the Quebec-Canada relationship. Also of interest: the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canada, and Canada's place in the world. In early days, this blog will be tiny. We'll see if it may grow.

La sottise, l'amnésie et autre sens commun sont mes cibles: un regard critique sur le discours politico-médiatique en politique fédérale canadienne, notamment en ce qui concerne la relation Québec-Canada. Aussi: la relation entre les peuples autochtones et le Canada, et la place du Canada dans le monde. Ce blog commence tout petit. On verra s'il peut bien grandir.

dimanche 29 janvier 2012

Harper's Crown

Until this past week, the Harper government’s infatuation with Canada’s royal connection seemed mostly harmless, if a little creepy. The Queen’s portrait to be displayed prominently in all embassies, the insertion of the word “Royal” in the Canadian Air Force’s and Navy’s official designations: these initiatives were embarrassing in a minor key, at once laughable and cringe-making. They had the perhaps remote potential of increasing the disconnect between francophone Quebecers and anglophone Canadians, but it’s not as if the majority of the latter were either of English origin or all gung-ho for Rule Britannia: for the most part, nobody cares, and so be it. It was easy to believe that these royalisms didn’t matter.

This all changed on Tuesday, January 24th, as the “Crown-First Nations Gathering” convened in Ottawa. This was a highly ritualised meeting between Prime Minister Harper and several of his cabinet ministers, on the one hand, and hundreds of Native chiefs led by the Assembly of First Nations’ National Chief, Shawn Atleo on the other. I’m not actually concerned with the meeting’s lack of substance, although much could be said about the on-going scandal of Canadian governments’ contempt for Indigenous peoples. There was and there remains a wide gulf between the government’s approach and that of the First Nations, in particular, and the “Gathering” changed nothing.

What I’m troubled by right now is the name that was given to the event and the way in which the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is framing the federal government’s role as that of “the Crown.” In the history of meetings between federal officials and First Nations, the use of this label is more than a little unusual. The opening lines of the PMO’s Outcome Statement offer this context for the event: "Since first contact and the issuance of one of our founding constitutional documents, the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the evolving Crown - First Nations relationship has helped shape modern-dayCanada (sic). First Nations fought as allies of the Crown in the American Revolution (1775-1783), the War of 1812; and have continued their support ofCanadain (sic) every major conflict since. (...) In this year, the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 and with next year being the 250th anniversary of the Royal Proclamation of 1763, it serves as an appropriate time to reinvigorate the Crown-First Nation relationships."

Forget the poor writing, the non-existent copy-editing, the obsession with military conflict, and even the wildly incorrect linking of "first contact" with the 1763 Royal Proclamation. The insistent invocation of "the Crown" - not "Canada," not "the Canadian people" - tells us that there was nothing casual in the naming of the January 24th event as involving "the Crown."

But the federal cabinet is not “the Crown.” Neither is the Prime Minister – it’s bizarre to have to write this, but it seems apposite. So, what happened this week in Ottawa was emphatically not a meeting between “the Crown” and First Nations. Surely, Stephen Harper and his minions know this. How, then, should we understand that framing? First, it is now clear that these past months’ royalty-affirming moves were anything but weird little prime ministerial whims: they were early expressions of something much bigger, although it’s not yet clear what the royalist rhetoric will amount to.

Second, we might want to remember how Harper prorogued parliament in the Fall 2008 to avoid a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons, shortly after an election that had produced a hung parliament. The opposition parties had announced their intention of defeating the Conservatives in the House within days, and of asking the Governor General (GG) for the opportunity to form a new government. Instead, GG Michaëlle Jean acceded to Harper’s requested prorogation, allowing him to govern for several months without the support of the House – and indeed in the face of the opposition’s stated intention to bring him down. In acknowledging that he might not have obtained his request, Harper had noted that he would use all legal means to stay in power – but while some such means may be legal, they are not necessarily democratic. He didn’t say so, but Harper thereby called on the 17th century precedent of the absolutist king Charles 1st, who dismissed four parliaments and ruled for eleven years without recalling it rather than bend to its budgetary authority. Charles 1st’s absolute rule led to civil war, which was followed by the lasting compromise of a parliamentary monarchy. What would soon emerge as the democratic principle has thus been associated with parliament as counterweight to the Crown’s executive authority. In the British tradition, in other words, democracy has emerged and developed against the Crown.

Third, from his first days in office as a minority Prime Minister, Stephen Harper has not been shy about using his considerable discretionary power and making very little case of voices that oppose him and his government. This government has sought, often successfully, to curb democratic spaces within and outside parliament; it has ignored Supreme Court decisions that it finds inconvenient (eg. on the necessity of consultation with farmers on the future of the Canadian Wheat Board; on the obligation to consider alternative sentencing for aboriginals convicted of a crime); it is eliminating public financing of political parties, in a blatantly partisan move to cripple opposing parties, etc..

Answering a reporter’s question on the weakened state of the other parties after the May 2011 election, in which 60% of voters had not backed the Conservatives, and the passing of NDP leader Jack Layton, Harper said that "the government is prepared to adapt and to listen to the Canadian population when necessary." (emphasis added)[1] No doubt the Prime Minister thought himself magnanimous in saying so, which makes the statement all the more remarkable: how is it that a democratically elected government would care to listen to the people only "when necessary?" We might also ask what it is that will count as necessary, and who will decided that listening has indeed become necessary. The answer to the latter questions is painfully obvious: the Prime Minister will not think that listening is often necessary.

It is in light of these features of Harper’s rule that his government’s increasing use of royal markers should be seen. While British monarchs have come to accept a much reduced role, “the Crown” as such has never been a democratic institution. It’s not a stretch, then, to suggest that Stephen Harper is keen to surround himself with the Crown’s aura so as to create an air of undisputed and indeed apolitical authority. Harper’s people evidently perceive a gravitas in “the Crown” that, once harnessed, would propel the government and the Prime Minister himself beyond politics, into the realm of sovereign statecraft. At this point, we may think of crossing the Channel to borrow from a French king the appropriately authoritarian motto for Stephen Harper: L’État, c’est moi.


[1] Gloria Galloway, Layton’s death alters political landscape for Harper, in The Globe and Mail. August 25, 2011. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/laytons-death-alters-political-landscape-for-harper/article2142562/. Accessed on August 25, 2011.

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