The Queen can't send Canada into war; what can she do?

Sure, Canada is a constitutional monarchy. But that doesn’t mean Queen Elizabeth calls all the shots.

In fact, she has few direct powers inside the country. And many folks will be happy to learn that she cannot unilaterally send Canadian troops into battle. And those who oppose the monarchy in Canada note that she has few other actual authorities, thanks to the arms-length that Canada’s governor-general provides.

Tom Freda, president of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, says that despite the pomp and circumstance surrounding the monarchy in Canada, the Queen has little actual ability to directly affect its affairs.

“First of all, the Queen has no power to do anything in Canada without first being asked by the Canadian government. That includes royal visits,” Freda wrote in an email to Yahoo Canada News.

“She must be invited to come to Canada. No invitation, no royal visit. She doesn’t even write her own speeches that she delivers here. The Ministry of Canadian Heritage does.”

The issue of the Queen’s direct reach into the affairs of Canada was raised this week in a court decision involving a former soldier who questioned her role in the military.

Aralt Mac Giolla Chainnigh, a now-retired professor of Irish heritage, who served as captain in the Canadian Forces, objected to the Canadian military’s direct connections to the monarchy.

He did not feel he should be required to sing God Save the Queen, or toast in her name at formal military dinners.

The National Post’s Joseph Brean wrote about a long-running battle between Mac Giolla Chainnigh and the Canadian Forces, which culminated in a recent ruling by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

The judge ruled that Mac Giolla Chainnigh’s freedom of religion and freedom of conscience had not been violated, stating “it is not an oath to the Queen as an individual but to our form of government of which the Queen is a symbol.”

The ruling echoes the decision from another recent court battle over new Canadians being required to swear allegiance to the Queen – which effectively notes that while the Queen is the symbolic leader of Canada, she is but a figurehead.

Or as Mac Giolla Chainnigh puts in, via the Post, the Queen “cannot issue orders within the military establishment.”

It’s all a roundabout way of confirming that the Queen position as the head of the Canadian military is a formal one. But it does raise some interesting questions about whether she can flex her might in other ways.

As the British Monarchy’s website notes, “Even though many duties have been delegated to her Canadian representatives, The Queen herself has a very personal involvement with Canada and Canadians in every region of the country.”

Still, it is interesting to note that the Queen’s ability to call Canada into battle did hold firm until 1977 – some 30 years after the most monarchy’s authority in Canada was transferred to the governor-general.

In his correspondence with Yahoo Canada News, Freda notes that the Queen has taken direct action in Canada at least once in recent memory. In 1990, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney – while seeking to ensure the passage of the unpopular GST – received unprecedented permission directly from the Queen to flood a Liberal-dominated Senate with eight new Conservative members.

“So how’s that for a democracy! All a Canadian PM has to do to counter a senate defeat is get the Queen to approve more senators from his or her party!” Freda wrote.

The Citizens for a Canadian Republic says it does not directly fight against the “symbols of the monarchy” – like those being opposed by Mac Giolla Chainnigh. Instead, it focuses its work on ending the monarchy in Canada from the top down.

Freda does note, however, that while the judge in Mac Giolla Chainnigh’s case called the Queen Canada’s commander-in-chief, the title is elsewhere granted to the governor-general.

“The matter surrounding our head of state is so complex and convoluted, even a prominent federal justice doesn’t understand it,” he writes. “If he doesn’t know this fundamental fact about the Canadian state, how are we to expect the Canadian public to know?”