It is elections time! Which sounds like a perfect excuse to talk about todays topic: the Canadian government. For those of you who don’t know Canada runs as a parliamentary democratic government with a constitutional monarchy. The work is divided between our provincial, federal and municipal governments. But how much of our current system do we really need? One of the more talked about topics is the constitutional monarchy and whether or not we still need the Queen as the head of state.

So why is it that this is a debated topic? Well many people have begun saying that because the Queen is a figure head, she is not needed in the affairs of our country. In places like Australia the campaign to become a republic is growing as well. So the question is should Canada follow suit? Well, in order to figure that out how about we start with; what does the Queen do anyway?

The Queen has representatives that hold certain responsibilities in our government. In Canada we have the Governor General and the Lieutenant General. Their main jobs are to open and close parliament, and to approve of bills passed through parliament. The most notable thing the Queen has power over is to dismiss a prime minister or to dissolve the parliament.

As far as power goes that’s all the Queen does. And half of it is just in her name. She really is just a figurehead. So here’s the argument: Canada is an independent country and doesn’t need to have a monarchy especially when they live overseas.

Ottawa is where the House of Commons is. Buckingham palace is in London.

To many, this is a pretty valid argument. However, few consider the consequence of such actions. Having the Queen as our head of state doesn’t actually hold much consequence for us – we have most of the power and we get to keep international relations. We are not the only country with the Queen as our head of state, so keeping it as such helps to maintain future prospects with these countries. This in turn improves our trades. It would also cost a lot in order to fully remove the U.K from Canada. Also everyone knows who she is. Her face is hung up in schools and businesses. There are movies and songs dedicated to her. Why break tradition when all it will cause is confusion? The outcome would not be worth it – leaving us with strained relationships, a whole lot of money problems and a divided country. With the amount of problems already surfacing within Canada, there’s no justifiable point for this to happen for the foreseeable future.

One more thing that stops this from happening. It is practically impossible for Canada to remove the Queen as our head of state.

…Yep! Turns our a bunch of years ago when we first made the Queen head of state, we also made it really difficult for us to change that. In fact, out of all the countries with Queen Elizabeth as head of state, Canada would have the hardest time removing ourselves.

So is this really worth it? No! Although some might disagree at this point there isn’t a real reason for anything to happen. If we really wanted to be apart from the U.K this change should have happened years ago. All in all a constitutional monarchy works for us and has worked for the past 40 yrs. We have a system that works so I see no reason to change it. How much do you guys know about our Queen? If you have any cool facts or questions? feel free to leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts!

Now that that’s cleared up maybe we can move on to things within Canada itself? Like maybe… what’s the most important democratic principle? Check out Holly’s blog to find out!