"I join with all Canadians on this first 
National Day for Truth and 
Reconciliation to reflect on the painful 
history that Indigenous peoples endured 
in residential schools in Canada, and on 
the work that remains to heal and to 
continue to build an inclusive society" 

~Her Majesty the Queen

"As we mark the first National Day for
Truth and Reconciliation, I think back to
how my childhood shaped me. How so
many in our community, and thousands
more Indigenous children across Canada,
were ripped away from their homes,
separated from their families and sent to
residential schools, where they were not
allowed to speak their languages or
honour their cultures, and were punished if they did.

As the child of a white father and an Inuk mother, I was not
allowed to attend. I stayed behind, home-schooled, and
visited families where there was a palpable void. I was a
stand-in, a well-loved substitute, for mothers and fathers
who desperately missed their children.

We all felt it. The sorrow of missing a part of our
community.

Since the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
of Canada and the publication of Calls to Action—and more
recently, with the discoveries of unmarked graves of
residential school children—Canada’s real history has been
laid bare. The legacy of colonization has had devastating
repercussions for Indigenous peoples, including the loss of
language, culture and heritage. This pain has been felt from
generation to generation, and it continues today.

These are uncomfortable truths, and often hard to accept.
But the truth also unites us as a nation, brings us together to
dispel anger and despair, and embrace justice, harmony and
trust instead.

Reconciliation is a way of life, continuous, with no end date.
It is learning from our lived experiences and understanding
one another. It is creating the necessary space for us to heal.
It is planting seeds of hope and respect so that our garden
blooms for our children.

As we strive to acknowledge the horrors of the past, the
suffering inflicted on Indigenous peoples, let us all stand
side-by-side with grace and humility, and work together to
build a better future for all."
​
~Her Excellency Mary Simon

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

The following is a survey of the party 
candidates running in the riding of 
Fundy Royal on the topic of the 
monarchy. It is mostly for my own 
use as a voter but the questions may 
be of use to other monarchists who
want to ask their own candidates 
​what their views are. 

Rob Moore, Conservative Party (Incumbent, 5th run)

Whitney Dykeman, Liberal Party (1st run)

Tim Thompson, Green Party (2nd run)

Josh Floyd, New Democratic Party (1st run)

Wayne Wheeler, People's Party (1st run)

1. What are your views on the monarchy?

Moore: I think it’s important for Canadians to understand
and be proud of our history within the Commonwealth and
the role of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. 

Dykeman: Canada and the United Kingdom share a long-
standing and valuable history, which we respect and
acknowledge. As a constitutional monarchy with a Parliament
comprised of the Sovereign, the Senate, and the House of
Commons, Canada’s form of government is among the most
stable and enduring in the world. We were proud that, on the
Prime Minister’s recommendation, Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II has approved the appointment of Mary Simon as
our Governor General.

Thompson: I believe that a constitutional monarch plays an
important role in Canada and support maintaining our place
as a commonwealth nation with the Queen being the Head of
State. I also recognize the challenges surrounded by
colonialism and believe we need to follow through with the
Calls of Action for Truth and Reconciliation.

Floyd: [The] Monarchy generally is less relevant to
Canadians today, but any kind of constitutional change isn’t a
priority for us or for Canadians during the pandemic.

Wheeler: My view on the monarchy is this - it’s part of our
history and therefore should be taught in schools; but I think
we should be our own country.

2. As MP would you push to make the Advisory
Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments that was
active between 2010 and 2015 a permanent part of
the process for choosing governor generals and
lieutenant governors?

Moore: Conservatives created the Vice-Regal Appointments
Committee as a non-partisan appointment process to
nominate Canada’s Governor General - and it works. We’ve
seen, and will pay for, the consequence of the Liberals
snubbing this proven process.

Thompson: Choosing a GG, LG and/or territorial
commissioner is a very important process.  I support the
Advisory Committee but would ensure to have First Nations /
Indigenous representation on the committee, which has not
been done before. 

Floyd: We would like to see a more transparent and multi-
partisan approach to selecting the Governor General.

Wheeler: As for the Advisory Committee, it could still be
useful to find qualified people for the position  but I think
they should be voted on by Canadians other then appointed.

3. During the previous parliament the government
cancelled a program that mailed physical copies of
the Queen's portrait to any Canadian who asked free
of charge. Would you restore this program?

Moore: When the Liberals ended the service of sending
portraits of The Queen to Canadians, they said that a digital
copy would be universally accessible. That would only be true
if all Canadians have access to a computer and reliable
internet - they should know better than anyone that this isn’t
the case. Government agencies send hard copy
correspondence to Canadians regularly. I would be interested
to know why this particular service was ended, and how it
could be salvaged under a Conservative government.

Thompson: Canadians and NGOs that wish to have a copy
of the Queen's official portrait should be able to visit their
constituency office and a copy be provided. In an effort to
reduce the amount of copies printed that are not sent out and
to promote engagement with MPs I think offering this service
locally across Canada would benefit all Canadians.

Floyd: It is not currently a focus of the NDP to restore the
portrait program.

Wheeler: The program to supply portraits not a problem
with that whatsoever...it’s part of our history.

4. The government also removed the Queen's portrait
from the lobby of the Foreign Affairs Office and
replaced it with paintings by Alfred Pallen. Would
you find a way to have both paintings and portrait
share the ample wall space of the Foreign Affairs
Office lobby?

Moore: When the Liberal’s removed The Queen’s portrait
from the lobby of Foreign Affairs shortly after their election in
2015, they signaled to Canadians that it was okay to ignore
that history. The Conservative Party of Canada takes a very
different approach to acknowledging and respecting our ties
to the monarchy.

Thompson: With the Queen being the constitutional 
monarch in Canada the official portrait should be displayed
by Canadian Departments. With this I would also wish to have
Indigenous Art displayed to recognize Canada's diversity. 

Wheeler: ...the portrait should be on the walls of parliament!

5. There are currently no plans for a Platinum
Jubilee Medal to mark Her Majesty's reign in 2022.
Given the large number of health workers (among
others) deserving of special recognition will you
work towards making sure a medal is issued?
(Note: This question was added after replies from the NDP,
Liberals, Conservatives, and People's Party had already been
received. I will contact the other parties again and add their
responses if given.) 

Thompson: As a veteran that has served Canada and the
Monarch for over 14 years I believe it is important to mark
this special occasion. Covid_19 has demonstrated that
essential workers are the true heroes in Canada. Utilizing the
Queens Platinum Jubilee with the creation of a medal would
be a very respectful way of saying Thank you to those front
line workers.   I would work towards marking this milestone
with a medal.

Thank you to all the candidates who took the time to
get back to me and good luck with your campaigns.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

The world was shocked earlier this 
month when the Taliban effortlessly 
retook control of Afghanistan. Ever 
since a great deal of ink has been 
spilled trying to explain why. Some 
hold this to be a direct result of the 
manner in which the USA withdrew from the country. Some 
argue it is due to longstanding issues with political corruption 
in the halls of power which sapped the country's strength. 
​Still others argue this result was inevitable as the Taliban 
were freedom fighters seeking to overthrow a puppet regime. 

All of these explanations have a bit of truth to them but I 
consider them to be symptoms of a larger problem. A problem
stemming from the events of one day when Afghanistan had
the potential to avoid its current fate; June 10th, 2002.

On that day the Loya Jirga met to decide how the new Afghan
government would be organized. There were to be 1450
delegates to the meeting from all walks of life. In the end
2000 delegates were given permission to participate. This
included 50 added at the request of various warlords. But a
funny thing happened. A petition started circulating that
called for Zahir Shah, former King of Afghanistan, to retake
his throne, even if only in a ceremonial role. It had 800
signatures when the USA and UN got wind of it. This would
have been a majority of the original number of delegates and
it is likely it would have reached a majority of the enlarged
delegation. In a move that was largely seen as an attempt to
buy time the meeting of the Loya Jirga was pushed back by
one day. 

No one knows what went on during that time but when the
day came Zahir Shah announced he was not a candidate for
any position in the government. The former king had been
preparing for a return for some time so it is odd that he
would step aside so easily. Odd and unfortunate.

What Western powers had not understood about Afghanistan
was that there was very little sense of national identity on
which to draw. Indeed, one of the pressing issues for the
monarchy during its time had been instilling a common
identity. They were never completely successful and when the
monarchy fell only two institutions held the loyalty of the
Afghan people; the monarchy and Islam. Having banished
one the communists made an enemy of the other. And when
the communists were sent running Afghanistan was left a
patchwork of ethnic factions and a new religious faction; the
Taliban. The Americans kicked out the Taliban and sought to
build an Afghan government. But the rules persisted from
before and there were still only two institutions that held the
people's common loyalty; the monarchy and Islam. And if the
Kingdom of Afghanistan had barely managed to create the
start of a national identity then the chances of the Americans
succeeding were slim.

So it is no accident the government gave Zahir Shah a place of
honour in the country but in failing to restore the monarchy
they made themselves vulnerable. The Taliban, on the run but
not destroyed denounced the republic as a puppet regime. 
The Afghan government, lacking a strong national identity nor a figure of respect to lead them, took to spreading the
country's wealth among their own supporters.

June 10th, 2002 was an opportunity for the new government
to put at its head a man whom all Afghans respected. It was a
chance to set Afghanistan on the right footing for the future.
And the failure to see this doomed America to a humiliating
defeat and Afghanistan to the tender care of monsters.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Release July 3rd.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

The year 2022 will mark the Queen's 
70th year on the throne of Canada. It 
is customary for medals marking a 
jubilee to be given out to deserving 
​Canadians during the jubilee year. 
However, it was learned earlier this 
year that no such medal is planned 
to be issued for the Queen's Platinum 
Jubilee. This is made all the more 
unfortunate by the pandemic having 
produced a long list of people who 
are deserving of special recognition 
of the type a periodic medal would 
​be well-suited to provide.

April 9th: Before this decision became public knowledge a
petition was already being posted on the House of Commons
website by MP Cheryl Gallant.
April 29th: Chairman Finch of the Monarchist League of
Canada informed the membership that he has learned there
are no plans for a platinum jubilee medal. A call for a letter
writing campaign was made at this time. 
May 14th: Chairman Finch posted an update noting he has 
had several good conversations with various individuals, in
and out of public life.
May 19th: NDP MP Daniel Blaikie called one League
member stating he was surprised to learn no medal was being
considered and noting, "I've known many that have received
the Diamond Jubilee Medal and it was a wonderful
encouragement to them."
May 29th: The League released a simple infopic for posting
to social media:

June 13th: Two League members shared excepts from their
conversations with their MPs. They were MPs Nelly Shin and
Michael Chong and both expressed support for, at the very
least, a platinum jubilee medal.
June 16th: Chairman Finch provided an update on the fight.
The government was reviewing the costs associated with the
issuing of a jubilee medal. It was also revealed several
premiers had been privately advocating for the medal.
June 19th: Monarchist League details the social media reach
of a single League member. Currie Dixon, the Leader of the
Official Opposition in the Yukon Legislature thanked the 
League for its efforts and informed them Motion 77, urging
the federal government to issue a platinum jubilee medal, had
been added to the order paper.
June 28th: A League member in Ontario was thanked for his
letter writing campaign which has seen hundreds of letters go
out.

And this is where the jubilee medal campaign stands today. It
is possible with MPs returning home for the summer and the
pandemic restrictions lifting it will be easier to do the sort of
in-person advocacy that greatly benefits these sorts of
​endeavors.​

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Happy Victoria Day! It is amazing how much difference a 
year makes. This time last May Canada was still coming to 
terms with what fighting Covid-19 would look like (even as 
New Brunswick remained an island of security) and we didn't 
know when things would start looking up. But now there is 
light at the end of the tunnel and a hope that the events of the 
past year and a half can finally be behind us. Queen Victoria 
herself lived through the cholera pandemic of 1854
which she noted in her diary along with meeting Florence
Nightingale. Much like the current pandemic there was a
great deal of fear. No one knew how cholera spread and
victims would often die within days. This actually leads to an
odd connection. The doctor who figured out what was causing
London's repeated cholera outbreaks was a man by the name
of John Snow. In previous years he had used anesthesia to
help the Queen give birth to two of her children. Anesthesia
had until this point been seen as unethical to administer
during childbirth but the Queen's repeated use of it and John
Snow's research into making anesthesia safer led to it being
more widely used in the following years.

The month of May also marks seven years of The Maple 
Monarchists. The rest of this post is a bit of an update
on what I've been up to over the last year as Longtime readers
will note that I don't post as often as I once did. This largely
due to other activities taking up an ever larger portion of my
attention.

For starters, I continue to be the New Brunswick Chairman of 
the Monarchist League of Canada. Recently a list of educators 
in the province was compiled so that educational resources on
the monarchy can more easily be made available to classroom
teachers.

I'm also a moderator of a monarchist subreddit. While I have
been a moderator for many years now, the growth of the
subreddit over the last two years has been exponential.  It has
now surpassed 27,000 members and the moderation team
has had to step up its efforts as a result.

In a bit of news more related to this blog I have received an
offer from a French Canadian to translate some of the articles
I post. It is possible that most future articles will be bilingual.
Stay tuned for more information on this.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

The NDP is having a policy convention this weekend (so are 
the Liberals in what must have been a scheduling snafu). The 
NDP membership has once again put forward policies 
concerning the Canadian Monarchy to be debated. The 
following is a summary of the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

I actually like this and would support it. The return of the 
vetting committee created during the premiership of Stephen
Harper would be a welcome reform. 

Essentially this proposal would end, or greatly limit, the
ceremonial role of the executive branch (unless the slack was
taken up by the prime minister which is another concern) and give the constitutional parts of the job to the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court. The obvious problem with this is that the chief justice is appointed by the governor general. Without a
governor general the chief justice would be in charge of
appointing their own replacement... and those of their fellow
justices. Even if everything is above board it looks sketchy as
all hell.

Putting aside the call to abolish the monarchy for a second I
just want to note that the actions of former Governor General
Julie Payette only confirm the dysfunctional nature of Julie
​Payette.

The last time this issue came up it wasn't even debated by
the entire membership. This time the party has a lot of
popular motions to debate (you will note each of these is only
supported by one riding association). Jagmeet Singh has also
been trying to walk back some of the more extreme proposals
so it may be possible they will avoid committing to large
constitutional reforms which would take the third proposal off
the table. The second proposal above raises so many legal
questions that it probably won't make it to a full membership
vote. I can see the first one being debated and passed. This
creates an interesting situation. Due to the limit placed on
how many proposals will be debated (70) does the party allow
a single issue to take up three slots? If you limit which ones go
through does this favour the policy most likely to pass and be
implemented? These policies, if they are to be debated, will
come up on Sunday so we will find out then. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: As predicted the motions did not even come up for
debate.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Earlier this month the government 
announced the creation of an ad hoc
advisory group for selecting the next
governor general. This is not a full 
revival of the former Advisory 
Committee on Vice-Regal 
Appointments. Still, this is welcome news and something 
this blog has been calling for since 2018. 

(Co-Chair) Dominic Leblanc, the President of the Queen’s
Privy Council for Canada and Minister for Intergovernmental
Affairs

(Co-Chair) Janice Charette, interim Clerk of the Privy
Council

Daniel Jutras (Rector of the Université de Montréal)
​
Judith LaRocque (former Secretary to the Governor
General)

Natan Obed (President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami)

​Suromitra Sanatani (Interim Chair of the Board of
Directors of Canada Post).

Unlike the previous committee the advisory group has been
created solely for choosing a governor general. Provincial
lieutenant governors are excluded from the group's mandate.
This may speak to how temporary this group is intended to
be. While disappointing it should be noted the previous
committee also started out as an ad hoc group.

A second major difference is the greater prominence of the
government in the advisory group's structure. The previous
committee had one (non-voting) representative of the
government in its membership. This advisory group makes
the government's representative a co-chair. And the member
in question also happens to be a close personal friend of the
​prime minister. If you are trying to create an arms-length
​process this is not how you go about it.

The inclusion of Janice Charette and Suromitra Sanatani may
be a nod to the tension created between the former governor
general and the bureaucracy. Suromitra Sanatani presumably
knows something about vetting candidates from their
corporate experience.

​Judith LaRocque's (former secretary to the governor general)
inclusion mirrors the appointment of Shelia-Marie Cook (at
the time the current secretary to the governor general) to the
previous committee. A current secretary was not included as that individual was shown the door the same time Governor
General Julie Payette was.  

Natan Obed is an interesting inclusion. Getting First Nations
input on the selection of the governor general makes sense
when you consider the close relationship they have with the
monarchy and the fact this relationship often flows through
​the governor general.

Overall, a positive step away from the prime minister being
able to unilaterally appoint their own boss.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

There are some poll results that get funnier the longer you 
look at them and consider the scenarios that could play out. A 
​recent YouGov poll carried out in the UK is one such example.
The idea of republicans actually getting rid of the monarchy 
only for the people to then elect Prince William is funny to 
me. And then there is the fourth place finish of 'Me' as the 
person those surveyed would like chosen. Finally, Nigel
Farage and Jeremy Corbyn make a match made in hell at 2%
of support each.

But seriously, there is some interesting information to be had.
For starters there is no unifying choice among respondents.
Even the Queen, who enjoys widespread support has uneven
support when voting is brought into the picture. There is also
an obvious disconnect between who people want and who
would actually get to vote for. David Attenborough has had 
plenty of opportunity to run for public office, takes public
positions on issues, and is obviously popular but has never
stood for election. Which leaves Boris Johnson as the most
credible candidate on this list to be president of a British
republic.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour