Brad Trost's campaign team has gotten
back to me with an answer to the question
I've been asking for a few months now;
What are your views on the monarchy?
Like several other candidates the answer
came via a campaign staff member (in this
case it was Mr. Murray Heinzlmeir). It has
taken a bit of time to get this response but
I understand the candidates are very busy.
So what does Mr. Trost have to say?

I feel there is a bit of a tangent here conflating monarchy with
cabinet government. While its true that some republics don't
have the executive face questioning on a regular basis, its not
true for all of them. This answer is perhaps a first in that it
would be better if it were shorter because the other points
regarding rule of law, parliamentary democracy, and the
​military are all valid.

So what has Mr. Trost had to say about the monarchy during
his time in Parliament? Well, nothing of substance as it turns
out. As Mr. Trost has been a Member of Parliament since
2004 he has had plenty of time to have made some statement
​on the monarchy. Overall, par for the course. 

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand
share many similarities, from a common
language to a common head of state. From
our shared history to our parliamentary
democracy, our similarities are greater than
our differences.

And in 2014 a group called the Commonwealth Freedom of
Movement Organization started advocating to leverage
those similarities to create a trade bloc with free movement of
people across borders. In January of 2017 the organization
was renamed CANZUK International to represent the
expanded focus on free trade and foreign policy cooperation.
​It is headquartered in Vancouver.

What is truly interesting is the importance CANZUK
International has attached to the prospective countries being
monarchies. From CANZUK International's website:  

This is exciting to a monarchist for a few reasons but the main
one is that it is very rare for an organization to highlight the
importance of the monarchy in this way and go so far as make
it a cornerstone of their proposal. Republicans would be
unable to claim that abandoning the monarchy would have no
negative effects (although even without CANZUK that view is
still inaccurate) if Canada were to join.

Her Majesty's realms have been cooperating on a number of
issues for years. Canada and Britain share embassy space
in a number of countries (Britain and Australia have similar
agreements) and all four countries share intelligence on
potential threats. This agreement stands to bring Her
Majesty's realms closer together while acknowledging their
independence. For information and a FAQ sheet on CANZUK
International you can check here.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the
​Queen's ascension to the throne. This
event is known as a 'Sapphire Jubilee'.
But what exactly is a 'jubilee'? In
simplest terms a jubilee marks an
important milestone. The term has its
origins in the Old Testament where every
50th year was to be declared a year of
jubilee when debts would be forgiven,
celebrations had, and slaves freed.

Within Christianity the first jubilee year
was held in 1300. The previous year and
seen an upsurge in the number of
pilgrims owing to war and disease
occurring in many parts of Europe. Some
pilgrims persuaded Pope Boniface VIII
that great indulgences had been granted
about 100 years before. The Pope decided
to institute a jubilee year for the
remission of sins and universal ​pardon.
Originally meant to be celebrated ever
100 years the duration was soon
shortened to roughly every 25 years. 

When monarchs started celebrating jubilee years is somewhat
unclear. George III was the first to celebrate a Golden Jubilee
(50 years on the throne). Relatively few monarchs have
reached such a milestone and in the British Isles relatively
few monarchs have reached their Silver Jubilee (25 years on
​the throne) the shortest jubilee celebrated. 

Traditionally royal jubilees occur in the following order:
Silver (25 years)
Ruby (40 years)
Golden (50 years)
Diamond (60 years)
Sapphire (65 years)
Platinum (70 years)

A 100 year anniversary is known as a centenary rather than a
jubilee. Obviously no monarch has celebrated a centenary of
their reign although Pharaoh Pepi II Neferkare of Egypt
supposedly came close with a reign of 94 years. Should Her
Majesty reign until 2022 she will be the first Canadian
monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee.

Jubilees have often been occasion to celebrate including the
issuing of jubilee medals to worthy individuals, parades, and
similar events.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

I have received a response from Lisa Raitt
to my inquiry on her views on the
monarchy. As a fellow Maritimer I was
quite interested to see what Mrs. Raitt's
views on the monarchy are.

However, in the response from her
campaign team I was told that no answer
would be forthcoming. As such this will be
a very short post.

UPDATE: Lisa Raitt's campaign replied through the
Monarchist League of Canada on April 10th:

Lets move on to checking the Hansard and Mrs. Raitt's public
comments. I found no significant mentions of the monarchy
by Mrs. Raitt during her time in Parliament. Likewise, I was
unable to find any public comments on this topic by Mrs.
Raitt either.

That is all.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

The government has recently announced that it intends to
modify the citizenship oath to include a nod to First Nations
treaty rights. Now, I find this slightly redundant as the
current oath already has the speaker swear that they "will
faithfully observe the laws of Canada". But as far as additions
go I guess its okay. 

The problems start when you consider the last battle over the
oath. Back in 2015 a man by the name of Dror Bar-Natan
took the oath of citizenship and then immediately renounced
the part concerning the Queen. It has already been
determined that such renunciations do not effect one's
citizenship status (as much as you might think it should) and
are a purely ​symbolic action. And so far you get a few crazy
republicans doing so from time to time. That the media has
covered such non-events is annoying but overall their entire
effort is not really a concern.

What does concern me is that by allowing the renunciations
we have essentially created a situation where any part of the
oath may be symbolically excised at the preference of the
new citizen. What is the harm in that you might ask? Well,
while concepts such as the Queen, succession, laws, and
duty are universal concepts of our fair dominion the First
Nations treaties are not widely perceived as such. While such
treaties were negotiated between various tribes and the
Crown (and as such should be respected) they largely effect
First Nations on a day-to-day basis and the rest of Canadians
only during periods of tension (pipelines, fishing/hunting
rights, etc). As such you already have Canadians who feel the
treaties should be ripped up. And those coming from other
countries could conceivably view the treaties as creating
unequal status. So lets consider what happens if they did
renounce that section.

Imagine if you will a person deciding to publicly renounce the
proposed section of the oath dealing with treaty rights. It
would be just as symbolic as the renunciation of the Queen
but would cut at the mutual trust between First Nations and
the rest of Canadians. Oh, and the media would cover it. If
anything is clear about the media after 2016 its that it will
cover the most obnoxious drivel imaginable. And opinions
denigrating First Nations would have their airing. And while
that might be as far as it goes (which is still too far) it could
create a climate where some feel violence is justified as has
​happened recently in Quebec. 

Such grandstanding might even lead some to say those who
renounce that part of the oath should have their citizenship
stripped. After all, as a monarchist I can understand where
that sentiment would be coming from; "Those people are
undermining a key pillar of Canada, they must be stopped!"

Which may be the correct response. As I have noted before
the Citizenship Oath is a reciprocal promise between subject
and sovereign. It was never meant to be an opportunity for
bigoted grandstanding and it shouldn't be allowed to become
one. So if the government intends to go ahead with the change
to the oath I'd like to suggest one common sense measure:

-Renunciation of a part of the oath constitutes a renunciation
of the whole oath.

Its not even a free speech issue since republicans have already
failed to kill the Citizenship Oath with that argument.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour