Sixty Joyless De-Britished Uncrowned Commonpoor Years (1949-2009)

Elizabeth II Vice-Regal Saint: Remembering Paul Comtois (1895–1966), Lt.-Governor of Québec
Britannic Inheritance: Britain's proud legacy. What legacy will America leave?
English Debate: Daniel Hannan revels in making mince meat of Gordon Brown
Crazy Canucks: British MP banned from Canada on national security grounds
Happy St. Patrick's: Will Ireland ever return to the Commonwealth?
Voyage Through the Commonwealth: World cruise around the faded bits of pink.
No Queen for the Green: The Green Party of Canada votes to dispense with monarchy.
"Sir Edward Kennedy": The Queen has awarded the senator an honorary Knighthood.
President Obama: Hates Britain, but is keen to meet the Queen?
The Princess Royal: Princess Anne "outstanding" in Australia.
H.M.S. Victory: In 1744, 1000 sailors went down with a cargo of gold.
Queen's Commonwealth: Britain is letting the Commonwealth die.
Justice Kirby: His support for monarchy almost lost him appointment to High Court
Royal Military Academy: Sandhurst abolishes the Apostles' Creed.
Air Marshal Alec Maisner, R.I.P. Half Polish, half German and 100% British.
Cherie Blair: Not a vain, self regarding, shallow thinking viper after all.
Harry Potter: Celebrated rich kid thinks the Royals should not be celebrated
The Royal Jelly: A new king has been coronated, and his subjects are in a merry mood
Victoria Cross: Australian TROOPER MARK DONALDSON awarded the VC
Godless Buses: Royal Navy veteran, Ron Heather, refuses to drive his bus
Labour's Class War: To expunge those with the slightest pretensions to gentility
100 Top English Novels of All Time: The Essential Fictional Library
BIG BEN: Celebrating 150 Years of the Clock Tower

Friday 23 February 2007

Trudeau and the Re-colonisation of Canada

The monarchical fawning in the international press over the young Trudeau and his decided plunge into Canadian federal politics is a Hollywood embarrassment (see Robert Fulford's "Pity Me, I'm Famous" to understand why the attention is wholly undeserved). As C.S. Lewis put it, the people, having been deprived of their spiritual nature, are busy gobbling poison. This is what happens when our taproot to Eden gets cut.

As it so happens, Trudeau's towering father, the late Pierre Elliot Trudeau, prime minister of Canada for nearly all of 1968-84, did much of the cutting. His crowning achievement twenty-five years ago was patriating the Constitution from Britain with a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, thereby depriving the fair dominion of its constitutionally organic and historical nature.

William Gairdner explains:

"Prior to the founding of Canada under the British North America Act of 1867, all those in the British colonies of the New World lived under English parliamentary law and their court proceedings were judged according to common-law precedent. Law made by parliamentarians was the highest law of the land. But even before deciding on new statutes, English parliamentarians would usually make passionate appeal to common law because in the public mind such precedents were considered a precious historical inheritance from what G.K. Chesterton called “the democracy of the dead.” Which is to say, a priceless gift of moral and legislative wisdom from our ancestors, near and far.

In the rising democratic spirit of the times, however, these Canadians-to-be once or twice revolted against British rule to achieve what they called “responsible government.” By this revolutionary slogan they meant they wanted those who made their laws to answer to them, the people. They were finished with colonial governors bossing them around who were responsible only to the English Parliament in London, or to the Privy Council some 6,000 miles away, for neither entity had any obligation to answer to those over whom they ruled. The BNA Act of 1867 changed all that, and Canada finally got responsible government. The new Canadians would now grow their own British-style parliamentary tradition and common-law inheritance (with the exception of Quebec, which would use French Code law in addition), and would at last have political masters responsible to them alone. They would at last be able to hire and fire their own law-makers..."

Read the rest of Chastising the Charter

1 comments:

The Monarchist said...

Tweedsmuir, you're absolutely right that we have been, in a sense, re-colonized by unaccountable powers. The populace inexplicably reveres the Charter and the Supreme Court Justices who read into it, as the new holier than though priesthood. I care squat for this right's code garbage, and lament the undermining of our common law heritage, in favour of judge-made law. The notwithstanding clause still means we have parliamentary supremacy in this land, but politicans won't touch that baby with any type of poll.