This is the last or concluding draft chapter of Randall White’s political-history work in progress, Children of the Global Village : Democracy in Canada Since 1497. A final version will be published in hard copy by eastendbooks in the near future.

* * * *

[UPDATED 12 OCTOBER 2024]. There is no doubt more than one story of democracy in Canada since the late 15th century. There may even be as many as there are Canadian citizens.

And in the end all such stories are political in some deep sense.

The ultimate conclusion of this story is that Canada’s 21st century democracy still has unfinished business, of the broadly constitutional sort that began in the 1960s and then stopped with the failed referendums on the 1992 Charlottetown Accord.

And this conclusion arrives in a world where political scientist Donald Savoie has in 2019 published his “magnum opus”called Democracy in Canada: The Disintegration of Our Institutions.

Renewing the democratic constitutional odyssey …
very gradually

The Preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867 (still in force, alongside the Constitution Act, 1982) declares that Canada is to have a “Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom.”

This had a somewhat different meaning in 1867 (also the year of first publication for Walter Bagehot’s classic on The English Constitution) than it does more than a century and a half later.

In a 2021 review of Linda Colley’s book on Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World, the distinguished Scottish journalist Neal Ascherson (in the deep wisdom of his late 80s) offered some jagged reflections on the principles of the United Kingdom’s constitution today. And they did not share Walter Bagehot’s later 19th century optimism. (Also the zenith of Gilbert and Sullivan, whose buoyant operettas reminded the economist Kenneth Boulding of the Canada he came to know first hand just after the Second World War.)

In his usual refreshing way Mr. Ascherson urged, for instance, that the “idiotic doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty — the late 17th-century transfer of absolutism from kings endowed with divine right to an elected assembly — excludes any firmly entrenched distribution of rights. Popular sovereignty in Britain is a metaphor, not an institution.”

Ascherson is more sympathetic to the kind of “world’s longest surviving written charter of government” in the US Constitution of 1787-89, as opposed to the largely “unwritten” UK constitution handed down by the late 17th century. A person of broadly similar interests who lives in 21st century Canada may be more reserved.

In the former first self-governing dominion of the global British empire today we have both the unwritten doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty UK or “Westminster” style (1867) and a (“more US/French”) written Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) — allegedly reconciled via the idiotic “notwithstanding clause” of the Constitution Act, 1982, allowing sovereign federal and provincial parliaments to suspend key parts of the Charter for five-year intervals in particular legislation.

* * * *

On the side of Canada that does still share Neal Ascherson’s admiration for the “world’s longest surviving written charter of government” in the US Constitution of 1787-89, it remains a great and tragic flaw that the “American people” of the late 18th century did not include Indigenous and African Americans.

See eg the last chapter of De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, volume one : “The Present and Probable Future Conditions of the Three Races That Inhabit the Territory of the United States.” (And note that De Tocqueville saw “the Anglo-Americans” as the essential creators of the flawed 1830s democracy he so influentially described.) Much more recently see Jill Lepore’s masterful new American history survey (first published in 2018) on even such founding fathers as James Madison — and the Thomas Jefferson who spent his later years after the death of his wife with the mixed-race Sally Hemings, who bore him several children : “none of these men could imagine living with descendants of Africans as political equals.”

Allowing that the American people has now logically, happily and democratically grown to include all adult US citizens regardless of “race, color, or national origin”(Title VI, Civil Rights Act 1964), one strong-in-theory feature of the US Constitution of 1787-89 is its fundamental grounding in “We the people of the United States.” (And, as explained by Americans Overseas today, echoing the Constitution’s 14th Amendment : : “A person may become a United States citizen by birth or through naturalization. Generally, if you are born in the United States, or born to US citizens, you are considered to be a US citizen.”)

So the preamble to the US Constitution memorably (if highly incompletely in the 1780s) declares : “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Ultimately it seems more than merely arguable that Walter Bagehot’s English Constitution of 1867 (and Canada’s 1867 “Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom”) has this ingredient as well, if when tracing its descent backwards you do not stop at the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, but go all the way to 4 January 1649.

Just 26 days later King Charles I “was convicted of treason and executed on 30 January 1649 outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.” At this highwater mark of the thorniest (and most thoroughgoing) English Revolution the Rump of the Long Parliament had resolved on 4 January that “the people are, under God, the original of all just power,” and “the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme power in this nation.”

Mr. Ascherson might justly remain unhappy with this historic declaration of the Commons of England. And few who try to pay attention may want to think that the toxic shouting matches in the 21st century Commons of Canada too often on TV have any supreme power anywhere.

It is in any case the first verse of the Rump Parliament declaration of 4 January 1649 that matters : “the people are, under God, the original of all just power.” (Note as well that the preamble to the present 1950 Westminster parliamentary Constitution of India also begins with : “We the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India … ”) And that now means the decisive supreme power in Canada’s Constitution similar in principle to that of the United Kingdom belongs to all the Canadian citizens, who vote to choose the Members of Parliament in regular if not always predictable elections.

(And, it is worth quietly underlining, the Canadian citizens who also vote to choose policy options offered in three federal referendums so far — in 1898, 1942, and 1992. So Elections Canada today publishes an online table called “Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums.” The lowest in a Canadian federal election over the period 1867–2021 has been 58.8% of all eligible voters in 2008, and the highest 79.4% in 1958.)

* * * *

How is it then, some might ask, that almost all sensible people know the supreme political power in Canada today belongs to the Prime Minister of Canada? Not in any conspiracy-theoretical sense, but as a plain matter of practical fact. (And as limited and reasonable as Canadian prime ministerial power may often be — as in Ian Brodie’s 2018 account of the Stephen Harper experience he saw up close, At the Centre of Government : The Prime Minister and the Limits on Political Power.)

It can also be said that a strong-prime-minister version of parliamentary democracy has been built into Canadian federal government by what we now call the Constitution Act, 1867. (Or as the Government of Canada website explains today : “The Canadian Constitution places executive power in the King. However, in practice this power is exercised by the Prime Minister and his ministers.”)

As similarly explained by Frederick Vaughan’s 2003 book on the long journey to Canada’s 21st century “reluctant republic,” old Toronto Globe founder (and Liberal/Reform Party leader) George Brown, in a letter to his wife during the 1866–1867 London conference, somewhat unhappily reported that “our Constitution is dreadfully Tory … but we have the power in our hands to change it.”

Brown’s last thought about “the power in our hands to change it” was not exactly true until the Constitution Act, 1982. But Canada’s ongoing unwritten “Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom,” guided by a parliamentary sovereignty always and increasingly tilted towards the prime minister, did permit substantial democratic evolution at the hands of Liberal and post Second World War Progressive Conservative governments in Ottawa. And it seems likely enough that George Brown would have approved of at least some main directions.

Meanwhile, the “dreadfully Tory” legacy of the Constitution Act, 1867 lives on — perhaps something else that can nowadays be blamed on the John A. Macdonald who set himself on fire while reading and smoking in his hotel bed during the 1866-67 London Conference (and had to be rescued by his once again indispensable partner, George-Étienne Cartier). In any case Macdonald, who after Cartier’s untimely death in 1873 virtually pioneered the office of Prime Minister of Canada, 1867–1873, 1878–1891, can at least be blamed (among many other things) for starting the strong prime minister model of Canadian federal government.

The model has since expanded. And the recent careers of both Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau suggest that many Canadian voters have ultimately come to believe the office of Prime Minister of Canada today probably does have somewhat more largely unchecked power and influence over the Government of Canada than ought to be, in what the Constitution Act, 1982 quietly alludes to as “a free and democratic society.”

* * * *

The expansion of the strong Canadian prime minister model in the more recent past has also been part of broader international trends. Increasing concentration of power in the prime minister’s (or chief executive’s) office has been a 20th and 21st century syndrome in parliamentary (and other) democracies in many places.

In its part of the broader trend the Canadian political party system is tighter and more disciplined today than it was in the 19th century, in the interests of what was at first called “cabinet dictatorship” over the theoretically sovereign parliament, and then became still more centralized as “prime ministerial dominance.” And as Neal Ascherson urges that the “idiotic doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty” is just “the late 17th-century transfer of absolutism from kings endowed with divine right to an elected assembly,” we have arguably now come to the point where the elected assembly has bequeathed most of its monarchical absolutism to the prime minister (at least elected by the citizens of his or her electoral district).

Beyond the modern prime ministerial command of parliament, even with only minority governments (as Stephen Harper showed brilliantly enough), it is finally the executive power of the more absolute monarch from which much of the prime minister’s present sometimes over-bearing might descends. And this leads logically enough to the remaining vestigial place of the British monarchy in the 21st century Constitution of Canada. (Written and unwritten. And note again : “The Canadian Constitution places executive power in the King. However, in practice this power is exercised by the Prime Minister and his ministers.”)

On the story advanced in this book democracy in Canada today (as more widely recognized in other similar tales) begins with the diverse democratic traditions of diverse Indigenous first peoples and First Nations. To some early modern European minds, they were the original human beings “born free” in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s state of nature. And we are just beginning to understand what Harold Innis urged in a book in 1930 — that Indigenous peoples and cultures have been fundamental to the growth of modern Canadian institutions. On the same story Canadian democracy has continued to grow over the past 500 years. And it is now modern Canada’s decolonized democratic destiny to become an altogether independent parliamentary republic, broadly on the model of such other democratic UN member states today as India, Ireland, Germany, or Iceland (and especially the first two fellow former British dominions).

Some still dispute this destiny, but it is deeply rooted in Canada’s deepest modern history — something often obscured by the continuing “dreadfully Tory” Constitution Act, 1867. Remember, for instance, the New England gentleman historian Francis Parkman who in the later 19th century also noted early Indigenous influences in the old French Canada: “Against absolute authority [of the Sun and other Kings of France and their agents] there was a counter influence, rudely and wildly antagonistic. Canada was at the very portal of the great interior wilderness. The St. Lawrence and the Lakes were the highway to … savage freedom … Their lesson … was well learned, and for many a year a boundless license and a stiff-handed authority battled for the control of Canada.”

Something of a similar struggle, it could be said, carries on even today, in both French and English-speaking Canada, and from Indigenous peoples to the newest Canadian citizens from around the global village. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, according to the 20th century anglophone historian of Canada or New France, W.J. Eccles, visitors were struck by “the very independent attitude of the habitants,”and “the Canadians’ notorious reluctance to recognize and submit to the authority of their superiors either temporal or spiritual.” And here are at least some deep roots of the free and democratic (if still somewhat reluctant) Canadian republic of the 21st century.

A First Step : Democratizing the Office of Governor General

It is sometimes said by those in the shrinking minority of Canadians who do not want to see an end to the British monarchy in 21st century Canada that this must involve some dramatic and even “basic constitutional” change in modern Canadian democracy.

Yet any introductory survey of the political history of what is now just called the Commonwealth since the First World War will show that this is simply not true. (And again note especially the growth of Westminster-style parliamentary democratic republics in Canada’s fellow former self-governing British dominions of Ireland and India.)

All that is needed is some formal passing on of the monarch’s theoretical as well as practical power to the governor general. (And this has already been prefigured by the 1947 Letters Patent for the office in Canada, the same year the first Canadian Citizenship Act came into force. The Letters from George VI, in theory — and signed in practice by “W. L. MACKENZIE KING, Prime Minister of Canada” — empower “Our Governor General, with the advice of Our Privy Council for Canada or of any members thereof or individually, as the case requires, to exercise all powers and authorities lawfully belonging to Us in respect of Canada.”)

And then the “free and democratic society” in the Constitution Act, 1982 more than arguably implies some kind of democratization of the process by which the governor general is selected. (The reformed office may or may not be given some change of name as well.)

It is also true enough that, in the Constitution Act, 1867 and even the Constitution Act, 1982, the King of the United Kingdom (and present Head of the Commonwealth) is the current Canadian head of state, represented in Canada by the Governor General of Canada. And according to section 41 of the Constitution Act, 1982 an “amendment to the Constitution of Canada in relation to” the “office of the Queen [King], the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governor of a province” must be “authorized by resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons and of the legislative assembly of each province.”

The failed Meech Lake and Charlottetown Accords of the late 1980s and early 1990s arguably show both the almost terminal impossibility and yet still clear possibility of any such constitutional amendment in Canada.

The ultimate failure of Meech Lake in 1990 demonstrated how hard it is for the federal government and all 10 provinces to agree on anything (let alone the “distinct society” in Quebec). Yet in 1992 at least the governments (if not exactly the legislatures) in Ottawa and all the provinces (and the territories and four Indigenous organizations) did agree on the draft legal text of the Charlottetown Accord (which only failed in two popular referendums — in Quebec and the rest of Canada).

* * * *

Listening to many (well at least some) Canadian political classes, elites, and establishments of the 2020s (in all regions) can illustrate the sharp insight in the late University of Guelph political scientist Frederick Vaughan’s allusion to the aspiring “reluctant republic” in 21st century Canada.

There are Canadians today who reject any long-term future for the “offshore monarchy,” but are still reluctant to altogether embrace a full-bodied Canadian republic. (Some among this esteemed community seem to see a republic as somehow not quite consistent with Canada’s traditional heritage over the longue durée — from Francis Parkman’s The Old Regime in Canada [1874], say, to Richard Gwyn’s two-volume biography of John A. Macdonald [2007, 2011].)

There is evidence for a much warmer republicanism among the broader Canadian people (or peoples). To take just one example, see two opinion polls from the Vancouver-based Angus Reid Institute, in November 2021 and April 2022. Both reported that two-thirds of Canadians (66-67%) do not support continuing with the monarchy after the passing of Queen Elizabeth II (which finally if still somewhat surprisingly happened on September 8, 2022 when the Queen was 96).

In these polls just over 50% of Canadians did not support the monarchy even under the much admired Queen Elizabeth. More than 90% of this growing majority also believed in “Try to change the constitution to cut ties with the monarchy even if it is difficult.” And only a quarter of Canadians (25-26%) answered a bold Yes to “do you think Canada should continue as a constitutional monarchy for generations to come?” (And then, some seven months after the sad death of the Queen, in the spring of 2023 just before Charles III’s coronation, the Ottawa-based Abacus Data reported on a poll result that “2 in 3 Canadians would eliminate the monarchy.”)

Institutionally, the simplest approach to ending the role of the monarchy in a former self-governing British dominion — turning the now domestically appointed governor general into a head of state in theory as well as practice — has, as noted, been pioneered by Ireland and India. In both cases there has also been some democratization in the selection of the new ceremonial head of state (in both cases renamed “president” as well).

In Ireland the democratized governor general has been chosen in a popular election since 1938, among candidates nominated by national and municipal legislatures. In today’s diverse federation and world’s largest democracy of India the new parliamentary republican head of state has been chosen by an electoral college of federal and state legislatures since 1950.

Canadian republicans (and/or anti-monarchists) have also discussed more minimalist institutional options.

On one view these leave any change in the present selection method for governor general (appointment by the prime minister!) to the mid-term future, after a constitutional amendment just doing away with (or “vacating”) the monarchy. Some also argue for (say) approval of the prime minister’s choice for governor general by a two-thirds majority in a free vote of the Canadian House of Commons.

In the end it will almost certainly be important as well to include some role for both federal and provincial legislatures in any democratized selection process for the office of governor general. (And Indigenous governing bodies might be added to this list.) Even in minimalist models of reform provincial legislators could serve as advisors or nominators.

Provincial legislatures may also be more inclined to vote for a constitutional amendment that gives them a role in the selection of the governor general as new head of state. (Moreover, under the Constitution Act, 1867 the governor general in theory appoints provincial lieutenant governors. And this might actually happen at last, as the prime minister loses another of his or her current few too many powers, under the new modestly reformed regime of the democratized ceremonial head of state.)

* * * *

Again the question no doubt continues to bear asking. Can any of this ever happen in 21st century Canada, even long after Queen Elizabeth II has now been succeeded by the less popular King Charles III?

Can the Canadian peoples and their (federal, provincial, and Indigenous) political leaders ever agree on a constitutional amendment politely retiring the monarchy across the seas — and welcoming the slightly reformed all-Canadian governor general to succeed the monarch as ceremonial head of state (under whatever new or old name)?

To believe that this is ultimately not possible — or is at least far more trouble and expense than it is finally worth — is to take a view of Canada and its future with claims to respectability in the first few decades of the 21st century. A certain kind of realism urges that the monarch who lives across the seas plays virtually no practical role in government and politics in Canada today. And, the story goes, it isn’t worth interfering with an already largely democratic political system that works well enough, in any realistic comparative perspective — in the interests of changing something that does not have any great practical impact in the first place.

There is an already quite long tradition of thinking this way, in the spirit of “Canada is a country whose fundamental problems are never resolved.” (And trying to resolve them just makes everything worse!) At the same time, wisdom of this sort probably was good for the future of Canada as it looked in the Age of Mackenzie King, during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. But it is almost certainly not the best policy for the country’s future 100 years later, in the 2020s, 2030s, and 2040s.

Similarly, one apparently strong argument against pursuing any constitutional amendment to end the monarchy in Canada is that, as history shows, once you open up debate on one constitutional issue in the confederation of 1867 others will rush in to demand their own place at the table. And this will finally lead to a bad-karma reprise of the late 1980s/early 1990s Canadian constitutional dead ends.

Yet the realism of this expanding constitutional issue prospect is itself a testament to the ongoing relevance of the ultimate conclusion here : Canada’s 21st century democracy still has unfinished business, of the broadly constitutional sort that began in the 1960s and then stopped with the failed referendums on the 1992 Charlottetown Accord.

Early drafts of this epilogue included a long appendix on further constitutional issues in some mythical Canadian future. Yet, whatever else, this was the wrong ending for this book. And it has now been consigned to the world wide web where it first appeared.

This book just ends here, at a particular point in the already long growth of Canadian democracy (or democracy in Canada?). What the book is at least meant to finally suggest is that the logical and otherwise altogether most sensible next step in the growth of Canadian democracy is a constitutional amendment which politely waves goodbye to the monarch in Buckingham Palace, and quietly democratizes the office of governor general as the monarch’s successor in theory as well as practice.

This is the best and most effective first step on any further Canadian constitutional odyssey that may or may not pursue such issues as Indigenous rights, Quebec in confederation, Senate reform, and all the other more interesting 21st century plots to enhance and extend the free and democratic society of the Constitution Act, 1982. Put another way, a constitutional amendment, turning Canada’s present offshore monarchy and domestic parliamentary democracy into a simpler and more relevant parliamentary democratic republic, is the logical place to begin any broader consideration of the unfinished constitutional business that lies before all Canadian citizens (the original of all just political power), in what remains of the first half of the 21st century!

And in the very end — who knows just when? — Canada’s diverse human political systems may at last start to live up to the grandeur of its vast and varied physical geography. The modern Canadian democracy that at least started to begin in the wake of John Cabot’s visit to northern North America in 1497 will reach some initial full height, while still looking and working much as it does right now.

SOURCES

This is an initial dry-run at what will finally appear in a published hard-copy text, subject to further checking, correction, and editing. The order of the items here broadly matches the order of the text above. The online linkages reported are as of early Spring 2023.

Donald J. Savoie, Democracy in Canada: The Disintegration of Our Institutions. Montreal and Kingston : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019.
https://www.amazon.ca/Democracy-Canada-Disintegration-Our-Institutions/dp/0773559027

Phillip Buckner, Review of Democracy in Canada by Donald J. Savoie. British Journal of Canadian Studies, Volume 33, Number 2, 2021, pp. 270-271.
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/806458

Martin Armstrong, “The State of Democracy : Global Democracy Index rates, by country/territory (2022),” statista, Feb 17, 2023.
https://www.statista.com/chart/18737/democracy-index-world-map/

Mickey Djuric, “Review of democratic processes needed as ministerial responsibility changes: experts,” The Canadian Press, April 9, 2023.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/review-of-democratic-processes-needed-as-ministerial-responsibility-changes-experts-1.6348178

Renewing the democratic constitutional odyssey …
very gradually

Canada, Justice Laws Website, Constitution Act, 1867. 30 & 31 Victoria, c. 3 (U.K.). “Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom:”
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-1.html

Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (With an Introduction by R.H.S. Crossman). London : Collins — Fontana Library, 1867, 1915, 1963, 1964.
https://www.amazon.ca/English-Constitution-Introduction-R-Crossman/dp/B001COLLTM

Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution. Second Edition 1873. McMaster University pdf file. Date unknown.
https://historyofeconomicthought.mcmaster.ca/bagehot/constitution.pdf

The English Constitution by Walter Bagehot. Project Gutenberg.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4351

The English Constitution. Walter Bagehot. Edited with an introduction and notes by Miles Taylor. Oxford World’s Classics : 1867, 2009.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-english-constitution-9780199539017?cc=ca&lang=en&

Neal Ascherson, “Scribbles in a Storm” (Review of The Gun, the Ship and the Pen: Warfare, Constitutions and the Making of the Modern World by Linda Colley), London Review of Books, 1 April 2021, Vol. 43 No. 7.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n07/neal-ascherson/scribbles-in-a-storm

See also “Declarations of Independence. Neal Ascherson, interviewed by Matt Seaton. ‘I saw how the British Empire could transform decent white people into puffed-up petty tyrants. Even if the Communist insurgents were not the “right side,” I realized I was on the wrong side.’”
New York Review of Books, November 20, 2021.
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2021/11/20/declarations-of-independence/

United States Senate, Constitution of the United States. “Written in 1787, ratified in 1788, and in operation since 1789, the United States Constitution is the world’s longest surviving written charter of government. Its first three words — ‘We The People; — affirm that the government of the United States exists to serve its citizens. The supremacy of the people through their elected representatives is recognized in Article I …”
https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm

Canada, Justice Laws Website, Constitution Act, 1982. “33 (1) Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the Act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15 of this Charter.”
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-12.html#h-51

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. (“The Henry Reeve Text as revised by Francis Bowen now further corrected and edited with a historical essay, editorial notes, and bibliographies by Phillips Bradley”). New York : Vintage Books, 1835, 1945, 1954, 1990. Volume 1, 343 ff.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/democracy-in-america-volume-1_alexis-de-tocqueville/337021/item/354483
https://booksrun.com/9780394701103-democracy-in-america-vol-1

Jill Lepore, These Truths : A History of the United States. New York : W.W. Norton, 2018, 178.
https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393357424

The United States Department of Justice, “What is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964? … Title VI is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin by recipients of Federal financial assistance.”
https://www.justice.gov/crt/nondiscrimination-basis-race-color-national-origin-sex-religion-or-age-law-enforcement-programs

Americans Overseas, “When are you a US citizen? … A person may become a United States citizen by birth or through naturalization. Generally, if you are born in the United States, or born to US citizens, you are considered to be a US citizen.”
https://americansoverseas.org/en/knowledge-centre/when-are-you-a-us-person-for-tax-purposes/when-are-you-a-us-citizen

Banqueting House, “The Execution of Charles I : Killing of a ‘Treasonous’ King … Charles was convicted of treason and executed on 30 January 1649 outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall.”
https://www.hrp.org.uk/banqueting-house/history-and-stories/the-execution-of-charles-i/#gs.1p34ee

‘House of Commons Journal Volume 6: 4 January 1649’, in Journal of the House of Commons: Volume 6, 1648-1651 (London, 1802), pp. 110-111. British History Online. [accessed 24 March 2023].
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/commons-jrnl/vol6/pp110-111.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second. Volume One. London : J.M. Dent & Co., 1848, 1906, 1909.

F.W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England. Cambridge University Press, 1908, 1974.

G.M. Trevelyan, The English Revolution 1688–1689. New York : Oxford
University Press, Galaxy Book, 1938, 1965.

Basil Williams, The Whig Supremacy 1714–1760. Oxford University Press, 1939, 1962, 1974.

Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume Two : The New World. New York : Dodd, Mead & Co., 1956, 1959. Mr. Churchill’s chapter 19 of this volume begins with (p. 285) : “The English Republic had come into existence even before the execution of the King. On January 4, 1649, the handful of Members of the House of Commons who served the purposes of Cromwell and the Army resolved that ‘the people are, under God, the original of all just power … that the Commons of England in Parliament assembled , being chosen by and representing the people, have the supreme power in this nation’.”

Christopher Hill, The Century of Revolution 1603–1714. London : Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1961, Sphere Books, 1969.

J.H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England 1675–1725. London : Macmillan, 1967, Peregrine, 1969.

Robert Beddard, A Kingdom without a King : The Journal of the Provisional Government in the Revolution of 1688. Oxford : Phaidon Press, 1988.

Adam Gopnik, “What Happens When You Kill Your King … After the English Revolution—and an island’s experiment with republicanism—a genuine restoration was never in the cards. The New Yorker, April 17, 2023, April 24 & May 1, 2023 Issue. (A review of Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World, Knopf.)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/24/the-blazing-world-jonathan-healey-book-review

Legal Service India, “Preamble To The Indian Constitution.”
https://www.legalserviceindia.com/legal/article-750-preamble-to-the-indian-constitution.html

Wikipedia, “Preamble to the Constitution of India.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamble_to_the_Constitution_of_India

Elections Canada, “Voter Turnout at Federal Elections and Referendums.”
https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=ele&dir=turn&document=index&lang=e

Ian Brodie, At the Centre of Government : The Prime Minister and the Limits on Political Power. Montreal & Kingston : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018.
https://www.mqup.ca/at-the-centre-of-government-products-9780773552906.php

Government of Canada, “Democracy in Canada … The Canadian Constitution places executive power in the King. However, in practice this power is exercised by the Prime Minister and his ministers.”
https://www.canada.ca/en/democratic-institutions/services/democracy-canada.html

Frederick Vaughan, The Canadian Federalist Experiment : From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic. Montreal & Kingston : McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003, 70.

Susanna McLeod, “John A.’s close call with fire,” Kingston Whig Standard,
January 3, 2017.
https://www.thewhig.com/2017/01/03/john-as-close-call-with-fire

Canada, Justice Laws Website, Constitution Act, 1982 : “1 The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-12.html#h-39

Neal Ascherson, “Scribbles in a Storm”.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n07/neal-ascherson/scribbles-in-a-storm

“Declarations of Independence. Neal Ascherson, interviewed by Matt Seaton.”
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2021/11/20/declarations-of-independence/

David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374157357/thedawnofeverything

Erik Hoel, “The Gossip Trap : On Rousseau, Essay Contests, Political Motivations for Revisiting the Origin of Human Civilization, and the Book Is Introduced,” berfrois, November 8, 2022.
https://www.berfrois.com/2022/11/the-gossip-trap-erik-hoel/

Victoria Jackson,“Children and Childhood in Wendat Society, 1600-1700.” A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Graduate Program in History. York University. Toronto. October 2020.
https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10315/38150/Jackson_Victoria_C_2020_PhD.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Harold A. Innis, The Fur Trade in Canada : An Introduction to Canadian Economic History (New Haven : Yale University Press, 1930), 397.

The Francis Parkman quotation that begins with “Against absolute authority” is from chapter XXIV of The Old Regime in Canada (1874). It is reproduced, eg, in Samuel Eliot Morison (ed), The Parkman Reader. Boston : Little, Brown & Co., 1955, 1970, 266–267.

W.J. Eccles, France in America. Revised Edition. Toronto : Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 1972, 1990, 134, 144.

A First Step : Democratizing the Office of Governor General

Paul Knaplund, Britain Commonwealth and Empire 1901–1955. London : Hamish Hamilton, 1956.

John Bowle, The Imperial Achievement : The Rise and Transformation of the British Empire. London : Martin, Secker & Warburg, 1974, Pelican, 1977.

The Canada Gazette, “Letters Patent Constituting the Office of Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada,” Effective October 1, 1947.
https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/001060/f2/1940/cgc_p2-0_v081_n012_t002_000_19471001_p00000.pdf

“Although the authority to appoint Canadian representatives abroad was transferred to the Governor General in the 1947 Letters Patent, that power was not exercised before 1977 …”
https://www.ourcommons.ca/marleaumontpetit/DocumentViewer.aspx?DocId=1001&Language=E&Sec=Ch01&Seq=6

Canada, Justice Laws Website, Constitution Act, 1982. “41 An amendment to the Constitution of Canada in relation to the following matters may be made by proclamation issued by the Governor General under the Great Seal of Canada only where authorized by resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons and of the legislative assembly of each province:
(a) the office of the Queen, the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governor of a province.”
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-13.html#h-57

Charlottetown Accord, DRAFT LEGAL TEXT … The attached draft legal text is based on the Charlottetown Accord of August 28, 1992. It is a best efforts text prepared by officials representing all First Ministers and Aboriginal and Territorial Leaders … OCTOBER 9, 1992.
https://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/Proposals/CharlottetownLegalDraft.html

The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Charlottetown Accord.” Article by Gerald L. Gall, Updated by Gord McIntosh, Richard Foot, Andrew McIntosh. Published Online February 7, 2006. Last Edited August 4, 2022.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-charlottetown-accord

Frederick Vaughan, The Canadian Federalist Experiment : From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic.

For one 20th century selection from The Old Regime in Canada (1874) see Samuel Eliot Morison (ed), The Parkman Reader. Boston and Toronto : Little, Brown & Co., 1955, 1970, Chapters IX–XVII..

Richard Gwyn, John A: The Man Who Made Us — The Life and Times of Sir John A. Macdonald #1. Toronto : Random House Canada, 2007.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/388414.John_A

Richard Gwyn, Nation Maker: Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Our Times. Toronto : Random House Canada, 2011.
https://www.amazon.ca/Nation-Maker-John-Macdonald-Times/dp/0307356442

Angus Reid Institute, “For many Canadians, interest in remaining a constitutional monarchy will die with Queen Elizabeth … Most say they’ll be saddened by death of Queen, but don’t wish to continue with monarchy under Charles,” November 30, 2021.
https://angusreid.org/canada-queen-elizabeth-constitutional-monarchy-republic/

Angus Reid Institute, “The Queen at 96: Canadians support growing monarchy abolition movement, would pursue after Elizabeth II dies … Prospects of ‘King Charles’ and ‘Queen Camilla’ received coldly by Canadians,” April 21, 2022.
https://angusreid.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2022.04.21_Royals_Queen_96.pdf

David Coletto, “2 in 3 Canadians would vote to eliminate the monarchy in Canada,” Abacus Data, May 4, 2023.
https://abacusdata.ca/monarchy-in-canada/

President of Ireland, Constitutional Role
https://president.ie/en/the-president/constitutional-role

Parliament of India, “Who elects the President of India?.”
https://ceoharyana.gov.in/Website/ELECTIONCOMMISSION/Images/fe7f343d-12bc-45e3-b3af-e6ffadf44be7.pdf