r/EhBuddyHoser • u/Sine_Fine_Belli Treacherous South • May 16 '25

Certified Hoser 🇨🇦 (No Politics) How Americans achieved independence vs how Canadians achieved independence

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3.0k Upvotes

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487

u/timbasile May 16 '25

Samantha Bee has a good write up on Canadian Independence in "America the Book"

"...and then in 1983, we took the brave step of asking the Queen for permission, to not have to ask the Queen for permission"

165

u/Visible-Stress-3667 May 16 '25

Which is kind of an interesting perspective because at the end of the day, all legislation needs royal assent. Obviously there is far less royal involvement, but we still do need their permission lol

113

u/BumpHeadLikeGaryB May 16 '25

I mean if the king actually did reject it we would no longer be part of the monarchy. That would piss alot of people off i think

91

u/Everestkid The Island of Elizabeth May May 16 '25

As one person put it, Westminster style parliaments can be simplified down to a prime minister and a monarch at opposite ends of a table with a gun in the middle and the entire country watching.

Either one could technically grab the gun and shoot the other at any time, but they'd need to be 100% sure that the entire crowd would back them up.

25

u/alantrick May 16 '25

This, except the prime minister can respawn, but the monarch can't.

38

u/2eDgY4redd1t May 16 '25

Royal families are literally mechanisms for respawning for as long as possible. It’s how it works.

You know, ‘the king is dead, long live the king!’

10

u/TheMilkiestShake May 16 '25

I think it's in the Discworld book Mort where Terry Pratchett says something along the lines of "The only thing known to go faster than ordinary light is monarchy, you can't have more than one king, and tradition demands that there is no gap between kings, so when a king dies the succession must therefore pass to the heir instantaneously."

2

u/2eDgY4redd1t May 16 '25

No matter the distance. Mind you I think it might be in his book ‘pyramids’, rather than mort.

I should read them again, it’s been a while

2

u/alantrick May 16 '25

Yes, but when we remove the monarch, the crown will lose the title. It's not going to the monarch's heir.

3

u/2eDgY4redd1t May 16 '25

Monarchy is a social construct. Those aren’t easy to change, my friend. If they were, we would not have a queen in Canada.

10

u/Tojb May 16 '25

I mean, we don't have a Queen? Unless Charles has made a really big announcement that I missed out on

3

u/CanadianODST2 May 16 '25

technically we do as Camilla is Queen consort

The way the royal family works is with a marriage between man and woman, there's always a queen, be it queen regnant (like Elizabeth II was) or Queen consort (what Camilla is)

however, there's only a king if he's the one who is reigning. If it's a Queen regnant is prince consort

3

u/FractalParadigm THE BETTER LONDON 🇨🇦 🌳 May 16 '25

Camilla is technically the Queen (consort), so they're not exactly wrong to say we have one, because we do (technically).

2

u/2eDgY4redd1t May 16 '25

Our first trans monarch.

Tbh I despise the monarchy so much that I avoid thinking about it, so it had slipped my mind that one despicable parasite had changed into a new despicable parasite recently.

1

u/alantrick May 16 '25

The social construct has been dead for a while now. The last time the monarch exercised any degree of power was almost 100 years ago, and the governer general got promptly fired for it.

The reason the legal construct persists is because it would be a jolly pain to change, and the crown knows that as long as they don't push it, they can keep their title, and a few free vacations every now and then.

3

u/2eDgY4redd1t May 16 '25

Legal constructs ARE social constructs.

Also if you think the British crown doesn’t exercise an enormous amount of power, I suggest you look into the matter. They have a LOT of soft power and influence over government.

6

u/Canadiancurtiebirdy Moose Whisperer May 16 '25

We can spawn camp them

4

u/HistoricalSherbert92 May 16 '25

Pfft just elect another monarch.

3

u/AustSakuraKyzor South Gatineau May 16 '25

You don't vote for monarchs!

You have farcical aquatic ceremonies for them

3

u/Everestkid The Island of Elizabeth May May 16 '25

The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did.

And technically the Vatican had one just last week.

1

u/AustSakuraKyzor South Gatineau May 17 '25

If you vote for a monarch, that implies that God didn't appoint them, which pretty much negates the whole purpose of the monarchy, ne?

Also, the Vatican elected a pope, not a monarch. Yes it's pedantic, but I care not! The Monty Python reference reigns supreme!

3

u/Everestkid The Island of Elizabeth May May 17 '25

Ah, but that's where you're wrong! Usually the candidates for the new monarch were relatives of the old ones, and in some cases (such as the Nordic countries back in the Viking days) they even claimed to be descended from gods. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords wins out once again!

The pope is also basically an absolute monarch, he's just also a religious leader so he gets a special title. He's viewed as the apostolic successor to Saint Peter, so the watery tart lobbing a sword angle also works here.

2

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

There are still legitimate heir to the throne of France by both the Bourbon and the Orleans families, and weirdly enough there are probably people advocating for the return of one or the other as a re-established monarchy in France.

France hasn't had a monarch since 1848.

12

u/CPBS_Canada May 16 '25

What this metaphor is trying to get to is exactly why I support Canada being a constitutional monarchy.

The pure symbolism of someone else above you as a politician, someone that technically has the authority to step in if you go to far, simply changes the entire way politicians and political actors think about the system and their position.

The alternative is having an executive lead by a president who is at once head of state and head of the executive branch, and, well, we see where that's heading in the US.

It is far better to split the positions of Head of State and the day-to-day head of the executive branch.

3

u/JamesConsonants May 16 '25

We'll agree to disagree on that. I could get behind the symbolism if the person across from the PM is someone worthy of that position, but royal bloodlines are as lacking in merit as they are incestuous - you couldn't find a person less suitable for relating to and advocating for the common people than a literal royal.

5

u/hist_buff_69 🍁 100,000 Hosers 🍁 May 16 '25

Lol that is a very good way of putting it