A few days ago, on the drive home – back from the city grind to rolling pastureland and trees – your truly was greeted by the dulcive tones of a CBC radio reporter declaring that the Federal government has reintroduced the title “Royal” with reference to Canada’s naval and air services. To those unaware, this obstensibly completes the reversal of a policy decision in 1968 – that of “unification” of the nation’s armed services.
Under the direction of then Defence Minister Paul Hellyer, the Royal Canadian Air Force, the Royal Canadian Navy, and the Canadian Army were melded into a polyglot ‘Canadian Forces’ with the branches given such inspiring names as ‘Land Command’, ‘Air Command’, and ‘Maritime Command.’
All military personnel were issued new cap badges that were an amalgam of all three services emblems, and were outfitted in stylish dark green polyester jumpers.
Unlike most bad fashion choices of the late 1960’s and 1970’s, these lovely vestments continued until the years of Brian Mulroney, when Air Command and Maritime Command could once again dress like sailors and pilots.
Given the overwhelming support for the move within the military ranks, and the general support outside, it has always seemed like unfinished business – that one would roll back part of a clearly unpopular policy without even considering the possibility of finishing the task. While some can remark on the relative speed of the decision to take this step, it comes twenty years after a partial reversal of a forty year old decision.
While the proponents of the move, by any objective measure, outnumber its critics by a mammoth margin, there are those who still wish to take task with the decision to ‘restore the royal honour.’
Like any good sailor who senses that the winds are blowing in the opposite direction, they have changed tack and changed the terms of the debate. Their strategy now is to cast the whole debate in terms of the question of Canada’s status as a constitutional monarchy. Rather than restoring a proud tradition to our military, Canada is self-imposing some form of subservience to Britain – that we are, in essence, promoting ‘colonialism.’
Yours truly has read online posts from dyspeptic pundits and everyday citizens who exhort that “We are Canadian – Not British” and that “The Queen is a foreigner”, et cetera and ad infinitum.
This debate, to my mind, raises two fundamental issues. First, it calls into question the understanding that individual Canadians have of their own history, which appears to be woefully inadequate bordering on shameful. Just as important, albeit more esoteric, is the question of nationalism and national identity itself. That is, what makes us who we are, as opposed to any other people in the world.
What critics of this move seem to lack appreciation of is the role that the Crown has had in defining the existence and the purpose of this nation from the beginning. Despite the Hollywood glamour machine’s ability to disseminate and promote the idea that the American Revolution was universal in its appeal, and that British forces were as evil as Nazi stormtroopers, not everyone embraced their ‘liberty’.
The recent Canadian broadcast of the HBO miniseries “John Adams” is a good illustration. Based on the book by acclaimed historian David McCullough, the story begins with the title character (played very well by Paul Giamatti) taking on the defence of individuals involved in the Boston Massacre, where many near riotous citizens were shot by British troops – some being killed. Yet, the people that this future signer of the Declaration of Independence and President of the United States (and father of a future President) was defending were the British troops themselves. There is also the scene where the title character makes clear his disgust of the tarring and feathering of a local customs official by the mob assembled. Even during the scenes taking place at the introductory Continental Congress, where Adams has now become adamant about a break with Britain, there still remained delegates from New York, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina who argued for negotiating a better relationship within the Empire. One might speculate whether Dominion status, had it existed, would have been the popular option.
Not only was society split, but so too were families. My mother’s family, the Peters of Hebron, Connecticut, were staunch Loyalists and paid the price of that loyalty. One Peters daughter was the wife of Samuel Jarvis, who was deputy to Upper Canada’s first Governor-General John Graves Simcoe. That family had also produced one General in Washington’s Army, as well as a future Governor of Connecticut, and a Supreme Court Justice in that state.
The central point, of course, is that English-speaking Canada exists solely due to the arrival of the United Empire Loyalists, and their sole reason for leaving the future United States was a loyalty to the very same Crown that some people believe we should shelve because it isn’t ‘Canadian’.
Another charge is that promotion of the Crown is an insult to Quebec. This, too, is predicated on a selective ignorance of history. While the fixation is on 1759 and the Plains of Abraham, people conveniently ignore what took place next. They ignore the Royal Proclamation and the Quebec Act where Quebecois were given protection by the British Crown to remain French and Catholic. They also ignore the fact that the fledgling United States was so hostile to this accommodation of les Quebecois, Thomas Jefferson took the time to use his pen to embed this displeasure in the Declaration of Independence. That is, the United States was willing to put in writing the idea that allowing Quebeckers the right to remain a ‘distinct society’ was a partial excuse for revolution and war. Support among French Canadians for the Crown in 1776 and 1812 might seem a mystery to their descendants, but it was abundantly clear in their minds.
But all of that is history –they argue. We cannot live in the past, they retort.
And yet, this attitude begs its own questions. First, exactly what is outdated and foreign about our system? First, when compared to the vagaries of American election campaigns, and the recent histrionics that were the debt-ceiling debate, do we honestly believe we would have fared better as a republic with a partisan head of state. Secondly, on the foreign point, we are not ruled by the Queen of England. She is the Queen of Canada. One could ask these learned critics as to whether we would automatically lose our head of state should Britain choose to be a republic? The answer, of course, is no – that her role here is distinct and separate. Just read the oath that she, and her successors, must take at their coronation for proof of this fact.
Nowhere in this lengthy post have I answered the real raison d’etre for this move – or at least the one that supercedes the addressing of a failed policy. I will not recount the various points I made in the essay on this blog entitled “A world without friends”, but if one wishes to understand the prescience of reminding Canadians of their justification for existing as a unique nation, I commend them to give it a cursory view.
The only coda I may add to that, and to the final question – the nature of nationalism – is that for the first time since the 1960’s, there is a tacit realization that nationalism is an organic thing. The era of prefabricated Canadian-ness, ushered in by Pierre Trudeau, was a failure. It held such contempt for people that it thought that long standing loyalties and affections could easily be replaced by invented customs and practices. It was the height of hubris that they assumed that Canadians would forsake the symbols and customs that brought them together and helped them endure war and privation in favour of some generic lowest common denominator sales pitch contrived by bureaucrats and advertising executives.
Those who have criticized the government’s restoration of the royal honour are severely vehement in their criticism not just because of their fundamental opposition – of which they have the right to express – but likely due to the shock from the realization that after four decades of spoonfeeding Canadians an artificial version of their country, we seem to prefer the real thing, and by a wide margin.
As I have said previously, the world is changing. In the next couple of decades, we shall exist in an international system that, on the surface, seems to favour those whose fundamental values and beliefs differ from our own. Our allies and friends, by contrast, will appear lethargic and weakened.
Just as in any time of change and upheaval – in the life of an individual, or a society - the only defence against the coming storm is to know oneself. This recent, seemingly symbolic, act is an acknowledgment of this truth, and a step along the road of rediscovering who we truly are.
Like the lake, the trees, and the landscape of this humble home, the eternal and true defy the machinations of mortal hands.
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