Inferring that she has is to confuse form with reality, and the Explainer should bone up a bit on the latter.

In the UK, the Queen is a constitutional monarch, which means that she does what the government tells her to do, no more and no less.

In Canada, her power is even further attenuated. She does not, except as a pure formality, appoint the Governor General. The Canadian government of the day does, and the Queen, as it were, ratifies the selection as a matter of course. The Canadian Governor General, like the Queen, does what the government tells her (the current Governor General is a woman) to do. She formally dissolves Parliament, as the Queen does in the UK, but has never and will never do so on her own authority.

It is nonetheless true that monarchy, even as in Canada once removed, has an antique air about it.

An essentially identical republican alternative can be found in countries like Germany and Italy. There, unlike in the US, presidents have no real authority. Like the Queen of England, they formally dissolve legislatures and call on people to form governments. In reality, as in the UK or Canada, all actual power lies with the legislature and, therefore, the Prime Minister (called the Chancellor in Germany).

Another alternative is an arrangement like France or Ukraine, where the president does have real power but much or most of the executive function is under ministers beholden to the legislature and the prime minister, not the president. Historically, these arrangements have run into difficulty when the president and the legislature are not controlled by the same political party, as in periods of so-called co-habitation in France and currently in Ukraine. Finally, of course, we have the US, where the executive function is wholly under the President and there is no prime minister function at all.

Not strictly true. In 1975 the Australian Senate refused to pass finance bills sent to it by the House of Representatives. The Prime Minister, as is required, and the majority in the House of Representatives but in the Senate the opposition had a majority. The opposition party claimed misconduct by the government and sought a general election. When it became likely that the government could no longer pay the bills because of lack of funds the Gov. Gen. dismissed, on his own initiative, the Prime Minister and appointed the Leader of the Opposition in his place. Then on the advice of a new Prime Minister called a double dissolution of Parliament. In Australia that means every Member of the House of Representatives and every Senator must seek reelection. This is unlikely ever to happen again in Australia but could theoretically happen in Canada as well.

The first post is more accurate, in Canada. In modern practice, the governor general gets to make only one kind of decision: whether or not to call an election when the prime minister asks for one ahead of the required time, if the governing party does not control the House of Commons, and there is a credible alternative (presumably, some sort of coalition of opposition parties). Given that this choice is rare and generally informed by precedent, this is no more undemocratic than, say, having an election dispute settled by appointed judges.

lloyd667:

The Canadian Governor General, like the Queen, does what the government tells her (the current Governor General is a woman) to do.

Depends on the situation. If you are Canadian surely you recall just in April of this year when the Prime Minister had to ask the GG to prorogue Parliament in order to avoid an election, and there was genuine uncertainty about whether or not she would agree. (In the end, she did and there was no election.) She certainly didn't have to do what anybody but she chose to do in that situation.

If you are Canadian surely you recall just in April of this year when the Prime Minister had to ask the GG to prorogue Parliament in order to avoid an election, and there was genuine uncertainty about whether or not she would agree. (In the end, she did and there was no election.)

I presume you're referring to an episode from last December, not April; please correct me if I am wrong. On that occasion, the GG acted in the constitutionally correct manner by following the "advice" of the Prime Minister. The PM can certainly be criticized for trying evade a parliament that might have expressed non-confidence in his government (though it did not, when the opportunity next arose), but that's a separate issue. The practical subordination of the monarch or her representative to parliament was never truly or formally in doubt, and so to return to the original issue, I don't think anyone has reason to think that anyone in London will be calling the shots in Ottawa in the foreseeable future.

If authority is constitutionally ill defined, the question will finally become who does the military listen to, and how does the military decide who to listen to? That's really all that matters when determining where the buck stops ... everything else, again if constitutionally ill defined, is a poker game among functionaries.

@tracke

good point although this remains a coup if it results in a change notwithstanding any veneer of civilian leadership

Of course the Queen of course has such power.

See wikipedia for the entire article including citations:

"In practice, the role of head of state of Australia is divided between two people, the Queen of Australia [Elizabeth] the Governor-General of Australia [appointed by Elizabeth]. Though in many respects the Governor-General is the Queen's representative, and exercises various constitutional powers in her name, they are also independently vested with many important constitutional powers by the Constitution.

The Sovereign of Australia [Elizabeth] is also the Sovereign of fifteen other Commonwealth Realms including the United Kingdom.

Section 61 of the Constitution provides that 'The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor‑General as the Queen’s representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth'. Section 2 of the Australian Constitution provides that a Governor-General shall represent the Queen in Australia. In practice, the Governor-General carries out all the functions usually performed by a head of state, without reference to the Queen.

Under the conventions of the Westminster system the Governor-General's powers are almost always exercised on the advice of the Prime Minister or other ministers. The Governor-General retains reserve powers similar to those possessed by the Queen in the United Kingdom. These are rarely exercised, but during the Australian constitutional crisis of 1975 Governor-General Sir John Kerr used them independently of the Queen and the Prime Minister."

The emphasis in the last paragraph was mine. The reserve powers can and will be exercised at the will of the Queen. All movements to abolish the monarchy in Great Britain, Australia as well as Canada have failed for decades. The bit about duties being carried out "without reference to the Queen" is obviously deceptive as the GG is an appointee and representative of the Queen and can be removed by the Queen. Last November the Canadian PM made headlines by suspending parliament but not without the acquiescence of the GG who remains beholdent to the Queen.

For obvious reasons, it is in the monarchies interests to maintain the common belief that is it merely ceremonial.

Ah, but Australia and Canada don't have precisely the same rules. I don't know how it works in Australia but when Canada repatriated our consitution in the 80s; checks and balances were included. Please see the wikipedia article on "Canadian Govenor General" for more information but I quote the pertinent section:

"Per the Constitution Act, 1982, any constitutional amendment that affects the Crown, including the Office of the Governor General, requires the unanimous consent of each provincial legislature as well as the federal parliament."

Also from the article on the partiation:

"Canada was until 1982 governed by a constitution that was a British law and could be changed only by an Act of the British Parliament. Patriation thus specifically refers to making the constitution amendable by Canada only, with no role for the Parliament of the United Kingdom to play in the amending process. Hence, patriation is associated with the adoption of the Canadian amending formula, and the corresponding acquisition of full sovereignty"

While I'm not a constitutional scholar by any stretch of the means, my understanding is that no this cannot happen in Canada. First, the British parliment has NO standing in Canadaian affairs, ONLY the queen in her role as Queen of CANADA. Our constitution cannot be altered unilaterally by her. Should the politcal situation change so the monarch of Canada feels the need to unilaterally step in and order the governor general to take control per say, there is the ability for the federal parliment together with the provincial legislatures to make ammendments to the constitution and change the role of the crown.

That being said, we in Canada generally have a faily good relationship with the Monarch and there's pretty strong precident for the role to be mostly ceremonial. However, my poli sci degree focused mostly on international relations and it's been a while since my Canadian government class, so if I've missed something, please let me know!

The emphasis in the last paragraph was mine. The reserve powers can and will be exercised at the will of the Queen. All movements to abolish the monarchy in Great Britain, Australia as well as Canada have failed for decades. The bit about duties being carried out "without reference to the Queen" is obviously deceptive as the GG is an appointee and representative of the Queen and can be removed by the Queen.

I'm pretty sure the Queen is not allowed to remove a Governor General without specific advice from the govenment.

This probably isn't formally in the constitution, but Canadian courts have long acknowledged that many important aspects of their Constitution are customary, and that Parliament is the only body that can decide what precisely those customary rules mean.

Last November the Canadian PM made headlines by suspending parliament but not without the acquiescence of the GG who remains beholdent to the Queen. For obvious reasons, it is in the monarchies interests to maintain the common belief that is it merely ceremonial.

And how would this have changed if they called the GG President, and were officially a Republic?

An American view, surely. Canada, more from good fortune (and inherent cheapness) than good policy, has avoided the sort of military-industrial complex that, in the US, makes talk of a military coup somewhat plausible.

Chrisle

Why bring this celebrated episode up? It has nothing at all in common with the possibilty that the Queen of England might take over Australia (or Canada), as the UK government--not the Queen, it is worth emphasizing once again--did in Turks and Caicos.

First, and most obviously, the Australian governor general is not the Queen. Second, this episode did not result in Australia coming under the tutelage of the UK parliament (or the Queen), it resulted in a perfectly normal election.

In any parliamentary system the titular and largely ceremonial head of state (the governor general in Australia and Canada, the president in countries like Germany and Italy) retains a sort of marginal tie-breaking role. The power is very marginal, however, and to suggest that it somehow means these countries are not democratic is either to have a definition of democracy that is so narrow as to be useless, or to misunderstand the facts.

Americans, in particular, have a tendency to judge all democracies against their own, peculiar and probably unique, constitutional setup. Deviations in other countries tend to be expanded to some huge blot on democracy. This, I think, is an example of the "continent cut off" syndrome. A good example recently is the move in some latin american countries to abolish or extend presidential term limits. The American press seems to regard this as, ipso facto, an attack on fundamental democracy. But most democracies have no term limits, and even the US had no such limit for most of its glorious history.

Nick B II

You are once again confusing formality with reality. In reality, the Canadian Governor General is appointed by the Canadian government. She cannot, in practice, be removed by the Queen.

The plain fact is that it really is ceremonial. There is no royalist plot to subvert Canadian democracy. Contrary to the implication of the original column, there is no constitutional way for the Queen (or the UK government) to take over Canada. The existence of a titular head of state, which is a common arrangement among democracies--constitutional monarchs (UK, Sweden, Spain, Japan, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Canada, New Zealand, Australia) or titular presidents (Italy, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Greece)--does not mean that democracy in these countries is somehow limited.

Palmer is either out of touch, or (as his choice to highlight an incorrect Fray comment that backs his erroneous views) is one of those Americans, all too common I'm embarrased to say, who thinks that deviations from the peculiar institutions of this country must somehow signal a democratic deficit.

As to the celebrated events of last fall, when the Canadian Parliament was "prorogued", as they say, the Governor General did what she was required to do, and took the advice of the government. There was nothing unusual about this, except of course for the fevered press speculation that something else might happen.

You should not get caught up too much in fevered press speculation, you know.

Sorry, Nick, these comments were not directed at you, but at the guy you were directing your comments to.

My mistake.

*** In the UK, the Queen is a constitutional monarch, which means that she does what the government tells her to do, no more and no less. ***

Whatever the powers of the Queen, that IS MOST CERTAINLY NOT the meaning of the term "constitutional monarch." A constitutional monarch is one whose powers are limited, not nonexistent.