Upon her appointment, Mme Arbour declined to call herself a monarchist, and went on to offer her preferred choice of words for her new role:
I will be the representative of the crown in a constitutional arrangement that I think has served Canada extremely well.
That seems excellently phrased. To my ear, it acknowledges an actual monarch is superfluous to a parliamentary democracy -- as is indeed the case in most of the world's parliamentary democracies, from Ireland to India to Germany.
Describing herself as "the representative of the crown in a constitutional arrangement," Mme Arbour nicely suggests we hardly need a foreign king and the royal family and all those trappings in our egalitarian society. A distinguished Canadian represents the state, and our politics are handled democratically through our elective institutions. What's not to like?
At his Substack, constitutional scholar Philippe Lagassé, an advocate of monarchy, calls Arbour's statement
fairly pro-Crown when measured against contemporary Canadian attitudes toward the monarchy. It may not be sufficient for the decorative plates crowd, but it's sufficient for those who emphasize the constitutional in constitutional monarchy.
I can agree with that.
Meanwhile, Parti Quebecois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, he of the slightly aristocratic name and the democratic politics, said, "Regarding the institution, I repeat that it is one of the worst wastes of public funds."
It's not in any sense a waste of public funds to support the office of Governor General in the role Louise Arbour explains so diplomatically! But I agree with him when he goes on to say: "
We are still in an archaic system where the king of England has anything to say in our democracy.
