Vestiges

The Republican Jacobins at work:

Victoria Day is the starkest reminder that we're still linked to the British monarchy. As a first step toward ending all ties to the monarchy, this outdated vestige of our colonial days should be renamed.

When I suggested last year that we get rid of Victoria Day and replace it with something that more accurately reflects Canada, I was swamped with letters and emails.

One columnist accused me and others who want to change the holiday name of "insolence" and of being "ignorant" and "ill-mannered."

Even the Star's editorial board disagreed with me, saying in a Victoria Day editorial, "on too few occasions do we celebrate our history. Today is one of them"

Actually, replacing the name Victoria Day with a name that better reflects Canadian history could result in raising awareness of our history much better than by honouring a foreign queen who died 108 years ago and never visited here.

Huh? Queen Victoria isn't part of Canadian history? Is Sir John A Macdonald part of Canadian history? When the British North America Act was passed, John A was presented to Her Majesty. As Donald Creighton relates in his epic two volume biography, this was our first Prime Minister's statement to Queen Victoria:

"We have desired in this measure to declare in the most solemn and emphatic manner our resolve to be under the Soveriegnty of Your Majesty and your family for ever."

Creighton analyzed the comment thusly:

"It was only a sentence; but if he had been asked to state the political purpose of his life in a single sentence he could hardly have done better."

Had someone suggested to Sir John A that they replace Victoria Day with, say, Sir John A Day, he would have been apalled at the immodesty.

Most Commonwealth countries dropped their ties to the monarchy long ago without creating constitutional or political chaos...

Well yes, but most of those countries are basketcases. The surest sign of stability in a Commonwealth country is having the Queen on the money and the Queen's ministers in charge. The Queen does not rule she reigns. For those who live under nations that recognize her as Head of State, the maintenance of the monarchy is a pact with tradition. Tradition eludes the Jacobin. The author imagines that because something is old, and especially old and British, it is a relic of times past. Nations, no less than people, are not invented overnight. In continuing to maintain the monarchy the 16 nations over which Her Majesty reigns have affirmed their allegiance to what the British Empire represented.

For all its sins, which in the sweep of history were common place enough, it stood for liberty and the rule of law. That psychological continuity is essential. With the coming of independence not everything had changed. The wigs, the black robes, the formal teas and royal visits; links with the past. The objection here, one senses, is not to the monarchy itself but to the British link.

Tradition acts as a check on the pretensions of the modern age. While change and innovation is essential in science, technology and business, in government and politics it is to be regarded warily. The state is a blunt instrument, easily destructive in its efforts. Bound down by history and law, it can become reasonable and almost humane. Most Canadian republicans are statists and collectivists. Since the 1960s they have dreamed, and to a large measure succeed, in reinventing Canada in their own image. The British link and the Crown are a reminder of what came before. When Ezra Levant, the publisher of the Western Standard magazine, was hauled before the falsely labeled Human Rights Commission of Alberta, he instinctively reached back to Magna Carta. His rights, our rights, were not invented in the late afternoon of Canadian history, a gift from Pierre Trudeau. They were the culmination of a thousand years of legal and constitutional evolution. Not something to be shrugged off for today's fashion. Attacking the monarchy is often a back door to attacking our tradition of freedom in Canada. We resist assaults on our memory as we do on our liberty.