RCN and RCAF Return to Canada

August 16, 2011 11:15 PM

What's in a Name? Canada gets (back) a Navy, Army and Air Force

Some of you might be surprised to learn that, since 1968, Canada, that perennial participant peacekeeping operations and fighting wars alike, has not technically possessed a navy, army or air force. As part of the Pearson government’s programme to transform Canadian society with a new brand of nativist nationalism, the old Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), Canadian Army and Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) were combined into a single organisation called the Canadian Forces (CF). The independent services found themselves stripped of their colours, uniforms and distinctive rank titles (although sailors quickly had their 'naval' ranks returned when it was pointed out that the use of the army rank 'captain' for junior officers was confusing at sea), and the combined service was kitted out in new uniforms copied from the cut of the US Air Force uniform and the colour of the US Army one.

Paul Hellyer, Pearson's uncompromising defence minister, saw the unification of the armed forces as a step into the future, one that would sweep away petty interservice rivalries of the age, as well as the disturbing independence of some service leaders, and lead the Western world in a new model of military organisation.

Members of the armed forces tended to see the reforms differently. In military culture, stripping a unit of its colours, uniform and ceremonial honours is a punishment reserved for only the most heinous infractions (warning: disturbing photo). The senior leadership of the navy resigned en masse at what they could only view as a devastating attack on their martial honour. A generation of talented young officers quit in disgust, perhaps contributing (some would claim) to the high-level leadership problems that plagued the CF twenty-five years later. Most controversially, however, some perceived Hellyer's reforms as
part and parcel with a programme to civilianise the armed forces, and weaken the Canadian 'profession of arms'. Hellyer repeatedly refered to the armed services as 'civil service departments' in his book on the subject [PDF], and dramatically increased the number of civilians working at all levels of the Department of National Defence.

This Tuesday, however, the most visible component of Canadian Forces Unification was reverse. With the stroke of a ministerial pen, full ceremonial honours have been restored to the RCN, Army and RCAF. But the conflict and controversy over this strange episode in Canadian history have been far from laid to rest. This is just another chapter in a fascinating story which touches upon Canada's cultural ties with the Commonwealth and the United States, with the relationship between civilian and military culture, English- and French-Canadians and with party politics in the Great White North.

posted by Dreadnought (93 comments total)

Next step, the Royal Arctic Force defending our territorial and mineral rights.

I can see why the Forces are happy about this move though, restores lost honours and pride.
posted by arcticseal at 11:23 PM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Holy crap Dreadnought, way to flesh it out better than the press!
posted by Hoopo at 11:27 PM on August 16, 2011 [6 favorites]

I am obviously missing a lot of historical context, but to me stuff like this sounds like a good thing:

1. Get rid of inter-service rivalry
2. Reduce the ceremonial (not essential to actual function) aspects of a job
3. Do away with the idea of "martial honor"
4. Have a good number of civilians in the defense establishment

The first article does say that "changes announced by the federal government Tuesday do not affect the unified command structure of the Canadian Forces introduced in 1968", but if it is only a name change, then it sounds like an even more pointless exercise.

And this - Asked to put a price tag on the decision, MacKay said it was "priceless" - made me laugh (Mastercard product placement!).
posted by vidur at 11:47 PM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder if they'll get rid of Pearson's Maple Leaf flag next (I have no idea why we need a monarchy in Canada).
posted by KokuRyu at 11:48 PM on August 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

if it is only a name change, then it sounds like an even more pointless exercise.

And that, in a nutshell, describes the Conservative government.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:50 PM on August 16, 2011 [10 favorites]

So now it's the Harper Navy, Harper Army, and Harper Air Force?
posted by drjimmy11 at 11:51 PM on August 16, 2011 [14 favorites]

But the initials for the Royal Canadian Army is "RCA'. Do they have to take military action to get control of Nipper?
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:53 PM on August 16, 2011

I didn't realize that the RCN and RCAF had lost those names when the forces were unified. I thought that, at least unofficially, the navy was still the Royal Canadian Navy and the air force was still the Royal Canadian Air Force (as opposed to Maritime Command and Air Command).

The most interesting part of all of this, to me, is that the Army lacks the "royal" designation. Is there a historical reason for this?
posted by asnider at 11:57 PM on August 16, 2011

> I am obviously missing a lot of historical context, but to me stuff like this sounds like a good thing:

The problem is, when you ask people to die for their country, they want a lot of ceremonies and religiosity to go with it. Because you are asking them to participate in matters of life and death, and human's have always attached special things to those events.

I am not supporting the decision to reverse it, but being among the first countries to make the switch, and to break tradition is in a way fighting an uphill battle. While looking neat on paper, it is doing away with the core identity of the individuals involved. It would take at least another generation or two before the idea of unified forces would have taken hold, but it also sounds like someone didn't realize the importance ceremony. There is a reason why we have them, there is a sanity behind their creation, even if it doesn't make sense in our modern perspective. You can't dismiss them at once and expect everyone to follow.
posted by mrzarquon at 12:03 AM on August 17, 2011 [5 favorites]

The most interesting part of all of this, to me, is that the Army lacks the "royal" designation.

This is also the case in the UK where the naming originated. While the Army is not royal as a whole, the individual regiments often are.

According to the National Army Museum in the United Kingdom.

Our Army is not called the Royal Army (unlike the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force) because, after a historic struggle between Parliament and monarchy, the British Army has always been answerable to Parliament and the British people.
posted by Harpocrates at 12:20 AM on August 17, 2011 [4 favorites]

The most interesting part of all of this, to me, is that the Army lacks the "royal" designation. Is there a historical reason for this?

Yes there is. The basic unit in the army is the regiment. Historically, regiments were raised independently, so you get the Royal Canadian Rgt or Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry or the Royal 22eme Rgt. The navy and air forces, by contrast, were unitary entities, so they got their ceremonial royal sponsorship at the service level.
posted by Dreadnought at 12:21 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, for fuck's sakes.

Nice post, though.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:48 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's not a pointless exercise and, as shown above, the return to what it should always have been in the first place is clearly popular with the Canadian Armed Forces. It's hard to overstate the importance of tradition and identity in the services and the "Canadian Forces" thing caused a lot of disruption domestically while entirely failing to entice other western forces to follow suit.
posted by joannemullen at 12:48 AM on August 17, 2011

Does this mean the CBC has to rename the Air Farce?
posted by srboisvert at 12:48 AM on August 17, 2011

Kind of heavy with the editorializing, eh?
posted by Pseudonumb at 1:03 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Useless, pointless, retrograde waste of money.

The Harper government is gutting Environment Canada to protect Alberta Oil from scrutiny under the hand-wringing pretense of "saving money." And they're spending how much on divisive and frivolous military cosmetics?

Oh, that's right. A "priceless" amount.

Any blather about "tradition and identity" might be relevant if this change hadn't happened in 1968. How many people serving in the forces today are feeling the sting of this hypothetical loss of "identity" 43 years ago?

How many haven't gotten over it in four decades?

We were once a forward-thinking nation. Harper is putting his shoulder to the wheel and sparing no effort to turn clocks back wherever he can.

If I'm grateful for anything, I guess it's that he's blowing our tax dollars on frivolities, rather than things more actively damaging to the nation. But this kind of tone-deaf money-burning gladhanding to the right wing while many of our essential services are screaming for financial support is so staggeringly typical of the Harper regime that it blows my mind that they have the gall to position themselves as "fiscally responsible."
posted by Shepherd at 2:07 AM on August 17, 2011 [19 favorites]

I was in support of the change when I first read the article. It did sound like Canada didn't have an Army, Navy, or Air Force. So renaming them to make this more apparent make a lot of sense.

Then it occured to me: the other names were awesome.
Maritime Command - awesome name.
Land Force Command - even more awesome name.
Air Command - eh, that does need a little work. Sky Assault Command maybe?
posted by BurnChao at 2:45 AM on August 17, 2011 [5 favorites]

Kind of heavy with the editorializing, eh?
editorializing? I don't think so, just a really good post.
posted by bystander at 3:34 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Empty pompous Harperian gesture to his ever-wrinkling constituency. Canada's lurch to the right continues, and the peeps are luvin' it.
posted by aeshnid at 4:00 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Rule, Canidanida!
posted by blue_beetle at 5:36 AM on August 17, 2011

I'm pretty happy with anything that reinforces Canadian ties to Britain. I certainly didn't see this coming, though.
posted by Palindromedary at 5:49 AM on August 17, 2011

Here the Tories go, flipping the bird to the Quebecois again. Given that French Canadians enlist for military service at a fairly high rate, you'd think even the clinically oblivious Harper government could figure out that shoving monarchist crap down their throats is a bad idea.

Plus I really did like the abbreviations: MARCOM just sounds cool.
posted by t_dubs at 6:00 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

flipping the bird to the Quebecois again

Huh? We should ignore our history and pretend our links to the Crown don't exist to please Quebecers? If they don't like being part of Canada, they can leave.
posted by Dasein at 6:08 AM on August 17, 2011

To be clear, most of the problems people have with this is the use of the word "Royal". There's almost no objection to using the Army, Navy, Air Force designations. See the comments from the NDP member in the linked article, for example. If it had been simply the CA, the CN and the CAF, nobody (but a rail company) would have blinked. Those terms have been used by the Forces themselves informally for years, decades.

Many people, even those who continue to support the idea of the Queen as our monarch, think this is backward looking. It isn't 1945. The CF aren't the Queen's army, they're the army of and for the Canadian people. If names matter so much, this should be the most important thing.
posted by bonehead at 6:18 AM on August 17, 2011

I love the objection to the Royal designation that one person in TFA brings up: "It's a step back towards colonialism" (or something to that effect). Well, if that's such a big deal, when are you getting rid of the Queen as your official Head of State?
posted by eoden at 6:23 AM on August 17, 2011

I wonder if they'll get rid of Pearson's Maple Leaf flag next

I hope not. I just bought a 30" x 42" Canadian flag and ordered a flag bracket online. I'm planning on "running up the flag" on my front porch on Remembrance Day, Victoria Day, Canada Day, and to celebrate other events such as say, a Olympic gold in hockey or in the event the Harper Conservatives meet with humiliating defeat in the next federal election (ohpleasepleasepleaseplease).
posted by orange swan at 6:33 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Frankly, I see this is a step back from an independent Canadian identity.

I find it astonishing that in this year 2011, we are reasserting monarchical, colonial links. The trend of the world has been completely counter to that for however long now, and we're celebrating and reinforcing our colonial past?

Of course, it is our history. Colonialism is a huge part of that. It is also true that without the monarchical link to Britain, Confederation would never have happened. There would be no country 'Canada' without it -- but is that past requirement enough to justify -- nevermind elimination -- an increase in the monarchy's presence in a modern Canadian state?

But why define our country's own institutions primarily using those colonial and monarchical links? Why should the 'Royal' take precedence over the 'Canadian' in 'Royal Canadian Navy', or 'Royal Canadian Air Force'? Should they not be 'Canadian' first? Why should they still be 'Royal' at all?

Of course, this is nothing but show politics, and perhaps part of a trend there as well. Removing Pellan's paintings from the Foreign Affairs building, in favour of putting up a portrait of the Queen? If anywhere, how we choose to present ourselves to the world, and what we come up with is a picture of the British Queen to say "this is who we are"? And now, our armed forces will present a Canadian face to the world which looks like a subsidiary, a branch operation?

And just to be clear, I have nothing against the British monarchy, nor anything against Elizabeth herself. She's done an excellent job. I just see the monarchy as a British institution, and not at all a Canadian one. Having a head of state who doesn't even live here seems a prepostrous idea to me. Nevermind that I, as many Canadians, don't have any personal links to Britain whatsoever, and that all my patriotic longings are directed to Canada herself. But whatever.

And also nevermind that -- as I understand -- there was no-one in the Armed Forces who didn't call it the 'Army', 'Navy' and 'Air Force' internally anyway, making this all just show politics for the Conservative base, rather than any principled stand of "correcting a wrong".

But I've rambled on long enough. Progressivism is on the way out in Canada, and I can't for the life of me figure out why, or what happened to make it that way.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:41 AM on August 17, 2011 [5 favorites]

Well, if that's such a big deal, when are you getting rid of the Queen as your official Head of State?

Personally, I'm all for that, but I also know that absent conditions where we have to rewrite the Canadian Constitution wholesale -- if we're defeated in a war or something -- this kind of change is never ever going to happen. Benign indifference is probably the most a small-r republican can hope for.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:50 AM on August 17, 2011

One bright word: that perennial football, the Canadian Coast Guard---they've been with three or four ministries in the past ten years, depending on how you count---is remaining the Canadian Coast Guard. Three cheers for being too small to notice!
posted by bonehead at 7:01 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Huh? We should ignore our history and pretend our links to the Crown don't exist to please Quebecers? If they don't like being part of Canada, they can leave.

Haven't they tried?

Disclaimer that I'm an American, but this also sounds a lot like, "If immigrants don't like it here, they can just go back to where they came from." Just because something has historical ties doesn't mean it's always a good idea.
posted by andrewesque at 7:03 AM on August 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

Canada's lurch to the right continues, and the peeps are luvin' it.

The linked article ("Harper makes ‘remarkable’ gains in best-prime-minister ranking") is at odds with its own headline. The poll in question asks respondents only about PMs since 1968, of which there have been eight. Harper is ranked second, huzzah huzzah.

Of those eight, three served less than a year: two (Turner and Campbell) were the goats left by their predecessors (Trudeau and Mulroney) to bear the brunt of voters' anger and were ousted for the sins of the Party. The third (Clark) was well-meaning but the very definition of hapless, and was defeated after eleven months so Canada could get back to Trudeau.

Of the other five, one was a potential goat (Martin), but he survived an election and stayed in office for a little more than two years before being sent skirkling.

That leaves Trudeau, Mulroney, Chretien, and Harper. It is a truism that people don't get voted into office, they get voted out of it. Mulroney had so alienated the electorate that when he left Campbell holding the bag and snuck out the back door, voters reduced the Tories' seats in the Commons for 169 seats to 2*.

Chretien was similarly declining in popularity when he left. And Trudeau was, let us not mince words, polarizing at best.

Anyway, all this to say that PMs who left office in living memory still tend to have much worse opinion poll rankings than those in office. And you had better believe that Harper -- upon reading this news about being #2 behind a man whose positions he loathes, who has been out of office nearly thirty years and dead for ten -- Harper is grinding enamel off his teeth this morning.

As to the renaming of the elements of the Forces: as with so many things in the modern world, conservatives don't like the direction the train we are all on is going, so they are rushing to the caboose.


* Leaving only Jean Charest and Elsie Wayne to form the PC party's representation in Parliament. This led to one of my favourite political jokes: "Have you heard the shocking news from Ottawa? Apparently Jean Charest's wife is widely known to be sleeping with half the Tory caucus!"
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:11 AM on August 17, 2011 [6 favorites]

I don't think Harper will be happy until we're called the "Dominion of Canada" again and portraits of the Queen adorn classrooms.

What a fuckwit. The entire govt is living in a time-warp.
posted by modernnomad at 7:16 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Hey, I remember singing "God Save the Queen" in first grade! Everybody hated it when we switched to "O Canada!". GStQ is only about a minute and a half; the version of OC we had to use was quite a bit longer.
posted by bonehead at 7:24 AM on August 17, 2011

Huh? We should ignore our history and pretend our links to the Crown don't exist to please Quebecers? If they don't like being part of Canada, they can leave

It's not ignoring our history to leave "Royal" out of the names of the Canadian Forces. It's acknowledging our history and the decisions that were made to be more inclusive and, well, more Canadian. Why destroy the work done creating and maintaining a distinctly Canadian identity with a throwback to 1930 just for the Anglos?
posted by t_dubs at 7:29 AM on August 17, 2011 [7 favorites]

arcticseal: "restores lost honours and pride."

But that's not the point of having a military. Your job is to protect your f--ing country, and frankly the "first world" military structure is beginning to seem awfully anachronistic, and highly at odds with the way that we do things outside of the military.

You'd think that Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq should have caused the superpowers to rethink the role that ground forces have, and also begin to question the rigid top-down hierarchy that so obviously failed us in these conflicts, and also led to multiple atrocities being committed that would ultimately undermine the goals of all three of these conflicts.

After the American Revolution, the British Army realized that it was stupid to march in formation. Why, then, is the US army continuing to drive unarmored humvees over roads strewn with mines and other explosives? Why does the Army fly planes, and the Navy train ground troops?

It's really time for us to start examining the structure of our military. Canada's decision to rationalize its defense forces strikes me as a highly sane and logical one, tradition be damned.
posted by schmod at 7:50 AM on August 17, 2011

The independent services found themselves stripped of their colours, uniforms and distinctive rank titles (although sailors quickly had their 'naval' ranks returned when it was pointed out that the use of the army rank 'captain' for junior officers was confusing at sea)

My grandfather, a Captain in the US Navy in WWII & commander of several ships including Destroyer Escorts, found himself stationed for a while at an Army base. In order to assert his rank he found it necessary to have junior Army officers refer to him as "Captain Colonel Keller".
posted by scalefree at 7:54 AM on August 17, 2011

We should ignore our history and pretend our links to the Crown don't exist to please Quebecers?

Yes. Absolutely, yes. For the same reason that we tolerate divisive language laws in Quebec.

We love to trot out the old War of 1812 tropes because we revel in the fact that we are not a conquered nation. Quebec was a conquered nation. It's a festering lesion simmering in their collective identity. Cutting them some slack about that is taking the high road and saying we're big enough to lose a bit of our own past to make theirs less painful. To do reverese that progress is selfish, small minded and provocative of violence, so this stunt comes as no surprise from the new fascism conservatism.
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:56 AM on August 17, 2011 [10 favorites]

The only good thing about royalty is Pippa Middleton's ass.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:05 AM on August 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

As an USian, I have no dog in this fight. However, the idea of a Canadian and not a British/UKian/Empire armed force is a pretty awesome one. I don't think I understand the want to intermingle the forces because what a Navy guy does is very different from what an Army guy does, and it's not like one can transfer to the other branch willy-nilly.

As an executive assistant-type who wants to learn office management, I understand the need to want to have things be the same operationally speaking within the branches. If a transfer or promotion uses 3 forms in one branch and 5 in another, there had better be a good goddamn reason for those two extra forms. And one good organization should be able to handle the management of all the branches.

BTW, I am totally horrified by the information about the Somalia Affair, but not surprised I didn't know about it earlier.
posted by TrishaLynn at 8:07 AM on August 17, 2011

I don't think I understand the want to intermingle the forces...

As the stories go, and from the anecdotal conversations I've had over the years, it was done to reduce bureaucratic infighting between the services, and to allow for deployments that needed coordination between all the service branches. Army units that needed Naval transport or air lift, for example. That goal has arguably been achieved. The CF has been increasingly focused on using interdiciplinary "Commands", integrated structures which can draw on all three services. Most deployments are organized through Canada Command (domestic), Expeditionary Force Command (foreign) or one of the more spcialized ones like the Special Operations Forces or Operational Support Commands. That's not going to change with this announcement.
posted by bonehead at 8:20 AM on August 17, 2011

I hereby suggest that ALL Western military units everywhere immediately revert to the nomenclature used by their original antecedent, the Roman Army. 'Cause if tradition, honor and ceremony are the most important things to military service, they ought to give credit where credit is due.
posted by briank at 8:24 AM on August 17, 2011

Air Command - eh, that does need a little work. Sky Assault Command maybe?

I'd suggest Sky Captain and the Flying Legion.

Love that movie.
posted by Celsius1414 at 8:25 AM on August 17, 2011

Does this mean the CBC has to rename the Air Farce?

Well, no, since the troupe has always been the Royal Canadian Air Farce. The TV show had a shorter name, but that was the name of the show. The troupe never lost sight of their connection to the Queen.
posted by KS at 9:00 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

The current Canadian military is actually very monarchist in its culture -- as it should be. Because Canada, like Britain, uses the Crown/Govenor-General as its block on facism/military dictatorship/other bad stuff. The Crown has little day-to-day power, but the allegiance of the military is carefully crafted to look to the Crown, not the government. So if there is a crazy government, the military will support the Crown in dissolving parliament and calling new elections.

My point is: regardless of how some Canadians feel about the Crown, the people who are actually serving in the military (and dying, being disabled, having PTSD, etc) are quite monarchist. Monarchism is part of the culture they are inculcated in after they join the military, its part of their unit cohesion. When the Queen Mum died, I remember that they went to interview one of the regiments that she was a personal sponser for and the sergeant they interviewed was all cut up because he had actually met her. Look at how much time the royals and the GG spend with military troops - they take time to not just review but also to personally meet and interact with the troops.

For any Americans not understanding -- and for Canadians who know military culture better through American media: imagine that the Congress (not the President) issued an order that the Marines were no longer allowed to be called the Marines, lost their swords and white gloves and distinctive uniforms, and were told that henceforth they would be dressed as regular Army. They stripped units of their colours -- I mean, I've seen Sharpe's Company and when the regiment lost their colours, it was considered worse than having 1/2 the regiment killed.

As for the Quebec and Crown history -- yes, they were a conquered people in 1759, but come 1775 the Qubequois conciously sided with the British against the Americans (largely because the British supported Catholocism in Quebec while the American rebels didn't) - so the French-speaking Quebequois fought for the British crown against the Anglophone rebels. The relationship between Quebec and English Canada doesn't necessarily parallel the relationship between Quebec and the Crown, with which Quebec had over 100 years of independent history.
posted by jb at 9:08 AM on August 17, 2011 [5 favorites]

The only good thing about royalty is Pippa Middleton's ass.

I hear this is what they're re-naming the Princess Patricias.

Is it overly cynical that my first reaction was to question why this followed so quickly after the "Will and Kate in cowboy hats" media circus?


like Britain, uses the Crown/Govenor-General as its block on facism/military dictatorship/other bad stuff. The Crown has little day-to-day power, but the allegiance of the military is carefully crafted to look to the Crown, not the government.

Hang on, upthread it said that Britain's army isn't "royal" because it reports to parliament.
posted by Hoopo at 9:18 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Monarchism is part of the culture they are inculcated in after they join the military, its part of their unit cohesion.

Sure (as much as I disagree with that principle). And that culture has survived in the 40-odd years of unification as the Canadian Forces. That in itself forces the question of what 'problem' or 'wrong' needed to be addressed, if that monarchical culture is still going strong within that uncorrected structure.

That very questions simply reinforces my own suspicion that the change had nothing at all to do with the inner workings of the armed forces or its traditions, but to playing to a conservative base, making it all show politics -- correcting some perceived-but-probably-not-actual problem for the purposes of political gain.

No different than the elmination of the long-form census in that regard. Fixing something that ain't broke, with unknown consequences. It's reckless and backwards.
posted by Capt. Renault at 9:35 AM on August 17, 2011

Paul Hellyer, Pearson's uncompromising defence minister, saw the unification of the armed forces as a step into the future, one that would sweep away petty interservice rivalries of the age, as well as the disturbing independence of some service leaders, and lead the Western world in a new model of military organisation.

Every organizational move we make as a bureaucracy (public or private sector) is a step into the future, including when we reform organizational charts in the same way we had in the past. I've seen 4 re-orgs since joining the public service and we've nearly back to how we were when I joined. But we'll continue marching forward.

Another example: the province of Alberta got rid of all their health regions, and organized health delivery through a single agency, as a way to step into the future, eliminated rivalries and duplication. Now, a few years on, the province will divide that agency into several regional agencies, as a way to step into the future, orient service closer to community needs and allow competition to generate best practises. And, in time, it will no doubt be once again necessary to combine regions, in order to step into the future, eliminate rivalries and duplication. Such is life.

As innovative as we are, we cannot help but continue this inevitable progression into the future, the 'future' invariably illustrated through varying simple and complex org charts. It is a state of nature no less predictable than the tides or the the seasons, which while also cyclical continually harken the passage of time, and thus steps into the future, turning the present into past.
posted by Kurichina at 9:38 AM on August 17, 2011 [6 favorites]

Hang on, upthread it said that Britain's army isn't "royal" because it reports to parliament.
posted by Hoopo at 12:18 PM on August 17 [+] [!]

Yeah, the National Army museum people are wrong. (They are largely cultural and art historians -- but still, this is undergraduate level 17th century political history). After the Civil War between the Parliament and the Crown, the Restoration of the Crown in 1660 set the clock back on the constitutional relationship between the military, the Crown and the Parliament. The New Model Army was disbanded; only the Coldstream Guards (instrumental in the Restoration) and the Royal Horse Guards (later the Blues and Royals) survived - don't know what the Blues and Royals did to get the favour. The Royal Navy, notably, owes more to a Cromwellian root than the (non-Royal) Army. And, as pointed out upthread, many individual regiments have been honoured with Royal patronage (and it seriously is an honour).

The post-Restoration and post-Glorious Revolution relationship between the Crown, Parliament and the military was as follows: the Crown was the head of the military and into the 18th century reserved the right to declare war or not (don't know when/if this changed - my world ends in 1820), but the Parliament controlled all of the money. It's like if you owned a car, but I bought all the gas. This effectively gave Parliament a whip-hand on the military in the 18th century, but still the Crown and Parliament would struggle/negotiate (the 18th century Crown was very politically active - the Crown didn't start to take a back-seat to Parliament until Victoria, and even now the monarch has more political power than many people realise).
posted by jb at 9:40 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hang on, upthread it said that Britain's army isn't "royal" because it reports to parliament.

I'm sorry to say that the National Army Museum people are mistaken (much as it pains me to say so, as I know many of them personally). They may be referring to some esoteric element of UK law, but in practice it works like this:

All of the armed forces are commanded by, and responsible to, Parliament (in Canada through the Minister of National Defence, the egregious McKay). Each soldier is, however, personally loyal to the crown. So if you wanted to subvert democracy, you would have to subvert both the Parliament and the crown, which is (at least in theory) harder to do.

The technical difference between the navy and air forces and the army is, well, technical. But if you want to know here goes: historically, when you joined the forces, you didn't actually join 'the forces'. What you joined was either the navy or the air force or a regiment of the army. Naval officers got their 'commission' (the certificate which says they're a personal retainer of the queen) from the Royal Canadian Navy. Army officers got their commission from their regiment, not from the army.

An interesting side note to this is that the Canadian Army didn't actually exist until 1940. Canada had a Royal navy, a Royal air force, and a bunch of Royal, Princely, Ducal (or whatever) regiments (which were colloquially, collectively, referred to as the army). To add to the confusion, an 'army' didn't mean a single bureaucratic structure, but a very large military formation roughly equivalent to the naval term 'fleet'. In 1940, the various regiments of Canada (which had previously fought together as part of a 'force' and a 'corps') were grouped together into a new super-organisation called the Canadian Army.

tl;dr: in the Commonwealth system, you get called 'Royal' when you're an organisation which gives out commissions and warrants and stuff. The Canadian Army never did this (its regiments did), so it isn't 'Royal'.
posted by Dreadnought at 9:46 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

You make nice points jb. It would be wonderfully ironic if the army had to send tanks to 24 Sussex Drive to forestall a Harper dictatorship on behalf of the monarch and the people. In a constitutional monarchy the monarch is both head of state and a servant of the people (a glorified civil servant if you like.) Having an apolitical source of influence, the monarch is a bulwark against a corrupt political power-grab.
posted by binturong at 9:52 AM on August 17, 2011

Yeah you're right, although it is true that the British Army does not have the "royal" in its name for whatever reason.
posted by Hoopo at 9:56 AM on August 17, 2011

I'm really not sure to what extent I'm permitted to comment in my own thread: I've been trying to keep my comments to 'neutral' pov statements about military history and legal theory thus far. Would you guys mind if I give my views on some of the very interesting issues raised by other people here? Bearing in mind that, as a working naval historian who has tought for the Canadian Forces, my veiwpoint is not neccesarily disinterested, although I'll try.
posted by Dreadnought at 9:56 AM on August 17, 2011

Not at all! Fire away
posted by Hoopo at 9:57 AM on August 17, 2011

arcticseal: "restores lost honours and pride."

But that's not the point of having a military. Your job is to protect your f--ing country,

Military services generally see honors and pride as an important part of the military system that allows them to protect the country. Morale is a key part of getting soliders, sailors, and airmen to be succesful in battle.

and frankly the "first world" military structure is beginning to seem awfully anachronistic, and highly at odds with the way that we do things outside of the military.

You might consider that military structure will always be at odds to some degree with how things are done outside the military since they do different tasks and form follows function.

You'd think that Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq should have caused the superpowers to rethink the role that ground forces have,

It has.

and also begin to question the rigid top-down hierarchy that so obviously failed us in these conflicts, and also led to multiple atrocities being committed that would ultimately undermine the goals of all three of these conflicts.

Atrocities haven't generally been the fault of rigid top-down hierarchy.

After the American Revolution, the British Army realized that it was stupid to march in formation.

It didn't. The infantry squares at Waterloo being an example. The continued use of the infantry squre in colonial warfare, etc. etc.

Why, then, is the US army continuing to drive unarmored humvees over roads strewn with mines and other explosives?

You've heard of the MRAPM? Rumsfeld was right in a sense that you go to war with the army you have. They've innovated since then. Perhaps not as much or as fast as one would like, but things have changed somewhat since 2004.

Why does the Army fly planes, and the Navy train ground troops?

The U.S. Navy generally doesn't train ground troops, with the exception of SEALs, who have a naval mission. There are naval personnel who end up in ground fights... and increasing jointness has meant more of that not less. I'm not sure what the rational for continuing the Army fixed-wing program is, though I expect they have one.

It's really time for us to start examining the structure of our military. Canada's decision to rationalize its defense forces strikes me as a highly sane and logical one, tradition be damned.

You talk like the Goldwater-Nichols Act never happened. The professional journals are full of constant discussion of this kind of thing.
posted by Jahaza at 9:59 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

The Americans also marched in formation for most of the major battles in the American Revolution. The use of irregulars didn't change the course of the war - indeed, the existence of guerilla-like fighters really bothered the American military officers because that style of fighting was considered to be dishonourable. What changed the course of the war was the entry of France in about 1780, with a large, regular army. (Also Arnold's victory at the Battle of Saratoga was significant, and then Arnold's failure to deliver West Point to the Brits in 1780 -- had he succeeded, the Brits could have divided the colonies on either side of the Hudson Valley. But the entry of the French probably would have still lead to defeat).
posted by jb at 10:06 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure what the rational for continuing the Army fixed-wing program is, though I expect they have one.

It's probably easier to get your own A-10 Warthog to attack the bad guys in front of your company than to send a nice note to the Air Force requesting an RSVP.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:07 AM on August 17, 2011

"Here the Tories go, flipping the bird to the Quebecois again."

No kidding. Have the conservatives just written off ever winning in Quebec again?

Celsius1414 writes "It's probably easier to get your own A-10 Warthog to attack the bad guys in front of your company than to send a nice note to the Air Force requesting an RSVP."

Which of course is the problem with treating these organizations as distinct entities and one of the compelling reasons for unification in 68. Calling in an airstrike shouldn't require inter agency cooperation any more than fuelling a tank. Treating these agencies as separate organizations is bound to lead to duplication of effort and inter-agency mistakes. The only upside I can see is it might make it harder for a military coup to succeed.
posted by Mitheral at 10:15 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thesis: Harper has written off Quebec as a dead loss and is ok with rising seperatism to weaken the NDP and any possible Libreal resurgence.
posted by bonehead at 10:19 AM on August 17, 2011

No kidding. Have the conservatives just written off ever winning in Quebec again?

Apparently they don't have to, so why not?
posted by Hoopo at 10:19 AM on August 17, 2011

The U.S. Army doesn't have fixed wing attack aircraft (A-10's or otherwise). Their fixed wing is cargo/passenger/utility.
posted by Jahaza at 10:31 AM on August 17, 2011

The U.S. Army doesn't have fixed wing attack aircraft (A-10's or otherwise).

Right, that's the point. Of course they do have air cavalry choppers, but it does seem to make at least some sense to have (relatively) heavier options at hand. The Army is denied the privilege of fixed-wing combat airplanes by the Air Force, so the speculation is moot.
posted by Celsius1414 at 10:59 AM on August 17, 2011

Not to derail, but...

> Because Canada, like Britain, uses the Crown/Govenor-General as its block on facism/military dictatorship/other bad stuff.

> Having an apolitical source of influence, the monarch is a bulwark against a corrupt political power-grab.

Were it so. When the Crown's proxy the Governor-General prorogued Parliament TWICE -- suspending the representative democratic process itself -- did the Crown/GG act as a bulwark against a corrupt political grab? Did the Crown/GG defend against tyranny, or accede to it?

The 'bulwark' argument is common among supporters of the monarchy, but I would argue that in practice, that bulwark is as prone to succeed or fail as any one particular individual is, as we recently saw. That makes it a no better or more disinterested bulwark than any other person could be. Our bulwark doesn't have to be a monarch, it can be something more in line with who we are collectively and what values we hold.
posted by Capt. Renault at 11:03 AM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Don't worry, we have the Senate to act as a check and as a balance against a tyrannical executive.
posted by KokuRyu at 11:22 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Don't worry, we have the Senate to act as a check and as a balance against a tyrannical executive.

(I asked this in the post-election thread which is probably a better place for this question, but do we not have both a Government and an Opposition now who have been on record as being in favor of an elected Senate? Is that happening now?)
posted by Hoopo at 11:26 AM on August 17, 2011

but do we not have both a Government and an Opposition now who have been on record as being in favor of an elected Senate?

The Opposition is officially in favour of abolishing the Senate, not electing it.
posted by Kurichina at 11:34 AM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

In practice, reforming the Senate is nearly impossible, as it would acquire a Constitutional amendment ratified by all provinces. Sez Wikipedia:

Most kinds of amendment can be passed only if identical resolutions are adopted by the House of Commons, the Senate, and a two-thirds majority of the provincial legislative assemblies representing at least 50% of the national population. This formula, which is outlined in section 38 of the Constitution Act, 1982, is sometimes referred to as the "general amendment procedure" and is known more colloquially as the "7+50 formula."

Theoretically, creating an elected Senate (or abolishing it altogether) is possible, but extremely unlikely. The best we can hope for are term limits for senators, but even Conservative senate appointees revolted against Harper's push for 8-year terms (which is a pretty goddamned outrageous display of arrogance and entitlement).
posted by KokuRyu at 11:53 AM on August 17, 2011

Since there seem to be no objections, I shall go ahead and vent my spleen in my own thread (with apologies to Pseudonumb).

Ok, first Nationalism, and then Politics and then I get on to my Main Point:

Clearly, nationalism lies at the very heart of the debate we're having today. People have come out and called for Canada to get closer to its British historical roots, people have worried about the alienating effect on Canada's French-speaking minority, people have decried the whole renaming exercise as a step backward into a colonial past. This last view has been vocally put forward by my esteemed colleague Jack Granatstein, and was very much at the heart of Hellyer's reforms.

Now, full disclosure, I don't agree. I happen to be a strong supporter of the monarchy, and I think that the monarchy is an essential part of our military structure. But I don't want to further derail by rehashing the argument that I've discussed extensively elsewhere on mefi. I'll try as much as I can, though, to set that prejudice aside for the purposes of this discussion.

Hellyer's motivations when it came to Forces Unification were clearly highly complex and contained, within them, a thread of paradox. Heller was and is a strong egalitarian, a value at odds with much military culture. He was also ambitious: a political rival of Trudeau he needed a big splashy project with which to make his political name and position himself as the natural successor to Pearson as Prime Minister. But, at the heart of everything, was his desire to create a new, nativeist nationalism for Canada, in line with the rest of his government's programme of the day.

And yet all these impulses contended with their exact opposites in Hellyer's personality and political reforms. Hellyer, the egalitarian, proved tragically unwilling to listen to his own underlings when they questioned his policies. By the hight of the debate, he was reduced to virtually hiding in his office, corresponding with the rest of his Department through a few, trusted deputies. Hellyer, the ambitious politician, nevertheless put principle above politics at every turn. When his policies became deeply unpopular, even among many in his own party, he stuck firmly to his guns. When his rival Trudeau won the party leadership, Hellyer refused to toady to the new regime and marched, head held high, straight into the political wilderness.

Most importantly, Hellyer, the nativist nationalist and die-hard Canadian patriot, nonetheless framed many of his reforms in terms of the world outside Canada. Hellyer deeply admired the Americans and the US armed forces. When it came time to design the new, unified service, Hellyer made sure that the new Canadian uniforms would look like American ones, and many of his ideas were probably based on the US forces unification debates which had been going on since the end of WWII. As for the formal organisation of the Canadian Forces, it escaped no-one that Hellyer's system was modelled, more than anything else, on the armed forces of the Soviet Union. Both the 'commands' structure and the emphasis on civilian-military integration and the subordination of the military to the political were closer to Soviet concepts than anything which existed in the West. You can imagine how this went down with the Cold Warriors of 1968.

I would argue that Hellyer is symptomatic of a wider failure (I'm sorry, but I think it's true) of Canadian republicanism to mark out a truly home-grown ideology. Even as the Pearson Liberals attempted to create a new Canadian nationalism, they could not help but import American ideas which were every bit as colonial in outlook as the most conservative of the Diefenbaker Conservatives. Indeed, to my view they seem all the more so, in that the USA still retains strong political and cultural influence in Canada, while the UK has long since become Just Another Country with which Canada has strong ties, like Australia or France.
posted by Dreadnought at 1:10 PM on August 17, 2011 [4 favorites]

Part II: Politics

These references to the rivalry between the Liberal and Conservative parties echo down the years to the present day. Harper's Tories are nothing like Dief's, but nonetheless they have worked hard to resurrect that connection in the minds of older Canadians (who vote in large numbers). During the last federal election I campaigned for one of the opposition parties. Many of my elderly neighbours told me, point blank, that they wouldn't vote for my guy, but were going to support the Harper Tories because of ongoing political arguments, like this one, which date back to the 50's and 60's.

In this view, I actually think that the Conservative government has made a very canny political move. For all the worry put forward by the NDP, these changes in nomenclature have barely made a ripple in the Quebec press. By the next election, they will be totally forgotten by Quebec nationalists and, indeed, change very little within that province. After all, what are the major military organisations in Quebec society? The Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean and the Royal 22e Régiment. No, I don't think this will be a big deal in further alienating the Quebec vote from the Tories.

Simultaneously, and for the cost of exactly zero dollars (they have to replace their stationary and signage periodically anyway), they have won the undying support of tens of thousands of military service personnel and veterans, who might otherwise have gone for the Grits.

Yes, this happened forty years ago, as many have pointed out. But military people have long memories for things like this... not memories stretching back to the fall of the Roman Empire, perhaps, but certainly more than a mere four decades. All those grizzled old Chiefs and Warrant Officers, who form the backbone of military morale, cut their teeth in the aftermath of the Forces Unification era, and it still sits in the military imagination like an open wound.

It's not just that the Conservatives have closed that wound that makes this politically significant, it's also that the Liberals refused to do it, repeatedly, over the many years in which they held office. All the arguments that the Liberals made against 'restoring honours' are about to be proved baseless (in my view), and I don't think that many individual military voters will forget or forgive.
posted by Dreadnought at 1:11 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Part III: My Main Point

Which brings me, I guess, to my Main Big Point:

In my interpretation of the whole Forces Unification saga, the main factor which stands out above the others was the blank, mutual incomprehension that existed between Hellyer and his military subordinates. Hellyer didn't understand military culture, or even that there was such a thing as military culture. The military didn't understand that Hellyer failed to understand them.

I see that same mutual incomprehension in this thread. Now I'm very careful, here, not to say 'ignorance'. Ignorance is something different, and I don't want to be seen in any way to be standing in judgement over anybody here. But there is a palpable rift between the culture of Canadian civilians and their armed forces which I see reflected in this thread. Most Canadian civilians don't understand concepts of martial honour, mistrust military pomp and eschew military conceptions of collectivism. Many have this view for perfectly good and admirable reasons (especially those recently arrived from nasty military dictatorships). Members of the military, on the other hand, recognise these very same ideas as essentially elements of their culture and society, both to gird the will for battle, and to constrain the violent impulses of the soldier within the muzzle of honour-bound discipline.

I find it ironic, and rather sad, that the left in Canada has never been able to make that mental leap, to see the military mind as another culture which needs to be woven into the Canadian tapestry. I find it doubly ironic that the conservatives have been able to make that mental leap. For all the billions they spent on defence, the Liberals never managed to win the hearts and votes of alienated servicemen and women (a few months ago I had a chat about this with Bill Graham, who is still livid and uncomprehending) and I don't think the NDP will either.

Which brings us, at last, to one final irony: the party most associated, in Canada, with Americanisation, Harper's Conservatives, have stolen a march on the Canadian left by reversing an Americanising policy put in place by the Liberals forty years ago. Funny how it works out, sometimes, isn't it?
posted by Dreadnought at 1:12 PM on August 17, 2011 [4 favorites]

Thanks again, Dreadnought--to a civilian the whole thing seemed a bit silly and a token gesture, but it sounds like it means something to somebody.
posted by Hoopo at 3:05 PM on August 17, 2011

Well argued, even if it is kind of bad form to make a post here so you'd have a platform to write an essay about something.

My take is a little less nuanced.

In no particular order, fuck the Queen, fuck the very idea of monarchy, fuck Mr Harper, fuck the Conservatives, and fuck every last one of you sons of bitches who voted for them.

I'd be tempted to say fuck the military as well, but they have been known to do good work in terms of peacekeeping and UN-related work overseas, so I'll limit my fuck to, say, primitive tribalistic military traditions. I don't give a shit if tradition or 'honor' dictates expression of fealty to some toothless foreign potentate -- this is the 21st goddamned century, you apes.

At this stage, the country I once called home is so bent out of shape, so compromised in its ideals and twisted by bullshit, greed and stupidity, that I really would be better off just not caring any more, which is a harder task than it should be even from thousands of kilometers and many years distance.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:39 PM on August 17, 2011 [4 favorites]

What I find interesting about the reportage here is that the government has not exactly lied, but allowed people to believe all kinds of nonsense that has been both reported in the media and repeated in this post and its thread.

Take the idea of "lost honours." Plainly put, this is total bullshit. DEUs (uniforms distinct to each service branch) have been around since the 1980s, and distinctive regimental ceremonial dress has always existed. In the case of the army, beret styling has always made allowances by regiment or other role.

So no, despite the reporting this will not create a significant change in how military folks are clothed, honoured or distinguished by regiment. The impression that it will seems to be the result of blindly repeating Harper press that seems to imply the government deserves credit for something that happened decades ago.

In fact . . . fuck it. I'm going there. I'm accusing this post of shenanigans. I believe it is intentionally deceptive in the way that it implies uniform distinctions by service do not exist, when they have for a long time. This fact would be known to any military historian, as would the retention of regimental distinctions. It is a plain lie to say that this simple renaming has reintroduced them -- they weren't missing. In fact the forces remain administratively unified -- the *only* change is in the name.

To imply otherwise is to lie.
posted by mobunited at 6:06 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I don't give a shit if tradition or 'honor' dictates expression of fealty to some toothless foreign potentate -- this is the 21st goddamned century, you apes.


As a Canadian I'm just fine with Canada's head of state being the Queen. As our head of state she gives us many benefits. History and tradition are key aspects of a national identity and such an identity and as proud a history as Canada has had shouldn't be cast off with a 'fuck that' toss of the head. And there are still more reasons why our Constitutional monarchy is a fantastic system. We have the all the benefits of a republic without the ridiculous and paralytic bi-partisanship that comes along with having your head of state be a member of a political party.

That also means I can hate on Harper without hating on my country.

stavros, I'm curious as to what aspects of this idea of monarchy you're unhappy with. Frankly, I'm pleased with the way our constitutional monarchy sets us apart from the republics out there.
posted by dazed_one at 6:15 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Canada does in fact have a very active (although unarmed) Coast Guard. I have done, and continue to do the counterparty risk on them. Memail me if you want to know if they are good for bunkers.
posted by digitalprimate at 6:43 PM on August 17, 2011

Sure, I'll explain. But it's not aspects of monarchy I have a problem with -- like I said in my little rant earlier, it's the whole idea.

Monarchy is primitive, it's an impulse out of our deepest, tribalistic, plains-ape natures. The very idea that members of a 'bloodline,' whatever the fuck that really means, should be hereditary rulers of anything is deeply, viscerally offensive to me. Inheritable right to power over people is not magically injected into a vagina by The King, nor is it squeezed out of the Queen's womb just before the afterbirth. DNA does not encode any Divine Right, from some notional god or anyone else. These are the kinds of idea that should be mocked until they fade away.

Every aspect of monarchy -- whether it's Britain's ludicrous set of inbred figureheads or any other -- is a retrograde drag on our cultural evolution. It is heartening that in many if not most places, these dinosaurs have been downgraded in public perception to figurehead status, but their continued existence and the reverence in which they are held by too many, in democratic nations or otherwise, is dangerous, distasteful, and on a par with female genital mutilation in terms of how utterly premodern and wrong and anachronistic it is. I'm not saying we ought to string them up, but I am suggesting that they should neither be revered nor respected for the accident of their birth, nor should they have any real, unearned power.

It's magical thinking, it's primitive, and even if in our 'modern' world it doesn't land us in the kinds of pointless wars, backsliding and impoverishment that it so often has throughout history, it has no place today, other than in the kind of pointless destructive nostalgia for a spuriously 'better' yesteryear that old fucks like me so easily fall into.

It is the kind of thinking (along with most religious beliefs, in my opinion, and much else, but that's a separate argument and a can of worms not worth opening) that ties our feet to the stakes set deep in the mud and mire and shit and blood of our thousands of years of violent, schismatic, profoundly stupid history as a species.

Now all that said, it's not something I think about often, or every, basically, the preceding notwithstanding, but when I do think about it, it makes me ANGRY STAV SMASH because I see it as a significant star in the dark constellations of primitive beliefs and behaviours that keep our species from truly growing the hell up.

In terms of political systems, well, I have no response: these days, they all seem to me equally compromised by money and ideology and lust for self-aggrandizement and power for power's sake.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:46 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

Stavros, you make many good points against absolute monarchy, most of which I would agree with. It is ludicrous to claim that some deity gave any one person dominion over anyone else; as an atheist I find that idea reprehensible too. However we don't live under a system like that anymore. I was talking about constitutional monarchy as a system of governance, which is what the Royal, when used in Canada, really means.

Constitutional monarchy and absolute monarchy are very different. The Magna Carta changed our monarchy in a very important manner - one of the 3 clauses still in effect as original is that of due process, a clause that protects the rights of the individual from the state.

I would loathe to dwell under an absolute monarchy as much as you, however given the choice between the republics out there (especially Canada's southern neighbour) and living in a constitutional monarchy, for the reasons in this response and my earlier one, I'll stick with out current system.
posted by dazed_one at 7:26 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

dazed_one, I agree with most of your arguments, but would Canada not receive the same benefits from any system with an apolitical, mostly ceremonial head of state? There are plenty of parliamentary democracies around the world with presidents who hold little to no power. Consider the presidencies of Ireland and Germany, for example, or many of the proposals from republicans in Australia. What harm would it do if Canada's de facto head of state were to become its de jure head of state? I can think of none. On the other hand, a republican system would have at least one benefit, albeit a symbolic one: Canada would have a Canadian head of state.
posted by neal at 7:35 PM on August 17, 2011

Constitutional monarchy and absolute monarchy are very different.

Yes, I am aware of that. I'm aware that 'chicken mcnuggets' aren't actually made of chicken as we might understand the word; I am not naively literalist. Saying that Canada operates under a constitutional monarchy is just fine, and it's a state of progress, of a sort, definitely, over even less modern arrangements.

Like I've said a couple of times, I'm talking about monarchy as a concept, not political systems. Regardless, though, the roots lie in the same historical sewer. Whether we're talking true monarchy, where you're standing waist-deep in the shit, or constitutional monarchy, where you might only be ankle-deep: either way, you're standing in the poop.

It may even be true that the organization aspects of a constitutional monarchy have advantages given Canada's unique circumstances over other possibilities. That's debatable, of course.

It's just that I'd rather sever the links -- conceptually and linguistically and organizationally as well as just operationally -- and get it over and done with, get on with being a sovereign nation, decouple our destiny both literally and figuratively. Especially from Britain -- shackling ourselves even conceptually to the UK is like a drowning man handcuffing himself to the proverbial 10-ton weight. That is not a nation on the rise, in my humble.

I would loathe to dwell under an absolute monarchy as much as you, however given the choice between the republics out there (especially Canada's southern neighbour) and living in a constitutional monarchy, for the reasons in this response and my earlier one, I'll stick with out current system.

That's groovy, and I never meant to suggest otherwise. I am, however, infuriated by the original topic of this discussion.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:48 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I would loathe to dwell under an absolute monarchy as much as you, however given the choice between the republics out there (especially Canada's southern neighbour) and living in a constitutional monarchy, for the reasons in this response and my earlier one, I'll stick with out current system.

I also think it's shortsighted to support the monarchy just because it differentiates Canada from the U.S. You could make the same argument in support of repealing the Charter and abolishing the Senate, and in opposition to fixed terms and equal-population ridings—but I don't see how it gets you anywhere. Better to consider those actions on their own merits rather than trying to be the opposite of the country next door.

In any case, Canadian republicanism wouldn't even resemble the American system. Canada could easily have a Canadian head of state without that head of state being an elected, executive president at the head of one of three equal branches of government.
posted by neal at 8:04 PM on August 17, 2011

Well put stavrosthewonderchicken.

I'm gonna be more blunt, FUCK THE MOTHERFUCKING QUEEN AND HER INBRED FAMILY OF FREELOADERS.

Now the UK can do whatever they want with the monarchy it's their problem.

For Canada, they have no power, make no decisions and just waste our money and provide distraction once in a while at great cost. We could just strike out everything related to that in the constitution and nothing of importance would change, the PM + parliament makes all decisions anyway and the GG rubber stamps em. The PM is the de facto head of state. Powerless or not that monarchy thing is an embarrassment for this country.

So I view any step trying to make their existence more visible in our country as an abomination. If the military isn't happy about not being 'royal', well they can resign. Nobody gives a shit what all the other state employees think, why should be make an exception for the military? That slavish devotion and admiration for the military needs to stop, they as worthy of praise/criticism as any other state employee.
posted by coust at 8:04 PM on August 17, 2011

Some of these links don't appear to me to suggest what's implied in the post--I don't see where senior leadership resigned en masse so much as they were forced out--basically I see that 7 guys essentially got fired. It also says that the members of the armed forces voted largely Liberal in the 1968 and 1972. That link makes it sound like this was a disagreement the old guard had with the political class. It hardly seemed to be a unanimous position held by all members of the navy according to that link, anyway.

Am I reading this wrong? It's entirely possible, I'm pretty tired today.
posted by Hoopo at 8:06 PM on August 17, 2011

But then again... if the queen wants to foot the bill for the Canadian Forces I'd be ok for all the royal (with cheese) that she wants.
posted by coust at 8:10 PM on August 17, 2011

stavrosthewonderchicken I appologise for unleashing an essay on the thread. That's why I put out a comment, ahead of time, asking if anybody had any objections. For what it's worth, this was not my original intention, it's just that lots of people were saying really interesting things and this is a topic which I find really, really interesting and have for years.

mobunited says:

I'm going there. I'm accusing this post of shenanigans. I believe it is intentionally deceptive in the way that it implies uniform distinctions by service do not exist, when they have for a long time. This fact would be known to any military historian, as would the retention of regimental distinctions.

I'm... not exactly sure how to respond to this. Are you implying I'm some sort of deep cover agent for the Harper government? Please memail me if you want to learn my true identity and discuss my record with regard to working as an academic naval historian. Or, perhaps, you could refer to my many comments on naval history topics in this forum. Also, for what it's worth, I campaigned against the Conservatives in the last federal election.

To address your points:

No, nobody suggested that regimental distinctions were lost under Forces Unification. Incidentally, Hellyer initially wanted to get rid of the regiments, but found that it was politically infeasible.

The reintroduction of DEU's in the 1980's (for those following at home, they put the navy in black uniforms, the air force in blue) is a detail that I elided in my discussion here because my comments were already way too long (see stavrosthewonderchicken's comment above), but I don't think they carried the significance that you impute to them. The loss of distinctive uniforms was, indeed, a major complaint in 1968, and for practical as well as symbolic reasons. I read a wonderful interview with a guy who had been a sailor in '68 and he complained (in a manner consistent with social mores of the time) that since the Canadians were put in green uniforms, they couldn't pick up women in foriegn ports: "no girl wants to sit on a soldier's knee!"

But the reintroduction of distinctive naval and air uniforms (also by the Tories, we should note) did little to sooth the bad blood of the Forces Unification process among naval and air traditionalists. For all that navy people were able to wear navy-looking uniforms, the perceived 'punishment' of having their ceremonial honours taken away was unresolved.

Here's an interesting example: last year, the Harper government attempted to deal with the lingering forces unification issue while, at the same time, making nice with Senator Rompkey, a Liberal from Newfoundland who had latched onto the issue but didn't like the 'Royal' desingation. By way of compromise, they reinstituted the Command Curl (an item of uniform insignia) as a sort of centenary present for the navy. Far from settling the issue, however, this compromise almost caused a mini-mutiny. The head of the MARCOM pointedly embarrassed the government by announcing that several warships would be mothballed, right before the Queen was due to arrive in Canada to inspect the fleet. The government quickly moved to pour oil on the waters, the media treated it as a one-day story and never looked at the deeper issues involved, and everything was nicely settled down for Lizzy to visit. Publicly, the naval leadership disclaimed interest in reopening the Forces Unification issue, but behind the scenes a message seems to have been both sent and heard: Canadian sailors wanted to have a royal navy again, and not just be a "'command' of the army in naval-looking uniforms", as some would have it.

Hoopo: yeah, I was summarising. The actual chain of events was highly complex, as it always is. But the upshot was that the naval leadership either quit, or put the government in a position where they had no choice but to relieve them of their jobs. I used the term 'resigned' to signify both direct resignation as well as bureaucratic 'suicide by cop'. Naturally, were this an academic article, I would have been a lot more careful, but I was writing at, like, 2 am because I couldn't sleep.

Yeah, that's right, I've been so excited by this completely obscure news story that I've been losing sleep! How impossibly nerdy am I?
posted by Dreadnought at 9:05 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

No need to apologize!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:24 PM on August 17, 2011

I quite enjoyed the short essay, thanks Dreadnought.
posted by stp123 at 10:11 PM on August 17, 2011

So now it's the Harper Navy, Harper Army, and Harper Air Force?

Wanna bet Harper would would do it that way if he thought he could get away with it?
posted by e-man at 10:43 PM on August 17, 2011

I find it astonishing that in this year 2011, we are reasserting monarchical, colonial links. The trend of the world has been completely counter to that for however long now, and we're celebrating and reinforcing our colonial past?

Sorry if this turns into a de-rail, but I can't let this "monarchy implies colonialism" myth stand unchallenged.

Canada did indeed begin as a British colony - strictly speaking, a collection of disparate British colonies first brought together in Confederation in 1867. Most of our colonial links were cut with the 1931 Statute of Westminster, and full legal/technical independence came with the patriation of our constitution in 1982.

Canada and the UK are now two separate, equal, independent countries. The only remaining legal link is through the personal union of the Crown of Canada and the Crown of the United Kingdom - two completely and legally separate and equal entities - through Elizabeth II as Queen of Canada and Queen of the United Kingdom - two separate juridical "persons" who happen to co-exist in one individual.

No colonial links between Canada and the UK remain. I'll repeat that for the hard-of-reading: "No colonial links between Canada and the UK remain". Just because they still share a monarch does not imply any continuing colonial relationship - they are two completely separate issues.

By all means challenge the concept of monarchy as a political system as outdated or tribalist or whatever. But to attempt to frame the personal union of the two Crowns as I've described above as a mere remnant of colonialism is as backward-looking as any of the Harper regime's other policies.
posted by e-man at 11:38 PM on August 17, 2011 [3 favorites]

But to attempt to frame the personal union of the two Crowns as I've described above as a mere remnant of colonialism is as backward-looking as any of the Harper regime's other policies.

"Mere remnant"? How is it anything BUT a 'mere remnant'? Canada has a monarch only because of its colonial history. And yes, having a monarch is very much a celebration and continual reinforcement of a colonial past.

I did not say, however, that we were a colony. Only that we have colonial links. Which we do. I did not say that having a monarch implied that we are a colony. We do, however, have those colonial links of history.

Also: I'll repeat that for the hard-of-reading: "No colonial links between Canada and the UK remain".

Nice thing to say to the deaf guy. Sheesh.
posted by Capt. Renault at 6:24 AM on August 18, 2011

Canada only had white people because of its colonial history.

Wait, Canada only exists as one country because of its colonial history - maybe we should dissolve the Confederation and everyone whose ancestors were colonists should leave.

/says this as a white and definitely descended from colonists

and ironically enough, Native Canadians tend to be quite fond of the Crown - the Crown has stood as a protector (at times) between them and local/federal governments.
posted by jb at 8:56 AM on August 18, 2011

And yes, having a monarch is very much a celebration and continual reinforcement of a colonial past.

I disagree, for the reasons I outlined above.

Nice thing to say to the deaf guy. Sheesh.

Sincerely sorry for that - I had no idea.
posted by e-man at 10:34 PM on August 18, 2011

I disagree, for the reasons I outlined above.

That's full of shit.

Look at it this way, let's say we're a republic and the ruling party try to switch us to a constitutional monarchy, IT WOULD NEVER FLY. Nobody would agree with that. From that you can infer that a republic is valued higher in the population than a constitutional monarchy. So the only argument left in favor of a constitutional monarchy is that we historically had one, hence a reinforcement of the colonial past and continuity.

It's the same thing as being born in a muslim or christian community. The organized faith is dumb, nonsensical and retarded but you believe in it because everybody around you is on-board. Monarchy is one of those stupid belief.
posted by coust at 10:47 PM on August 18, 2011

>Nice thing to say to the deaf guy. Sheesh.

>>Sincerely sorry for that - I had no idea.

Even less need to apologize for this one -- that's just plain ridiculous. How on earth does an offhand comment about 'the hard-of-reading' offend some guy who happens to be deaf?

Fuck that noise.

Heh. Now that little joke, sure, might cause offense, now that we know there is a deaf guy (not also blind, I'm assuming) amongst us, and rightly so. SORRY BUDDY!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:13 AM on August 19, 2011

coust: several countries have gone from being republics to being monarchies.

The Dutch Republic became the Kingdom of the Netherlands. France went from republic to empire to monarchy to another monarchy to republic to yet another monarchy and then republic again. The Venetian republic became part of the Kingdom of Italy. Britain was a republic from 1649-1660, but for
much of that time Cromwell ruled with more absolute power than Elizabeth or James had held -- and the restoration of the monarchy came about due to the instability of the republican system after the death of Oliver Cromwell (was had been offered the throne, but declined it).

and the grand-daddy of republics, Rome, of course ceased to be a republic and was ruled by emperors.

At many times in history and for a variety of reasons people have chosen to stop supporting a republic and chose a monarchy instead. The example of 17th century England is the one I know best -- it's very interesting, because Cromwell really was offered the Crown and turned it down. After his death, the restoration was widely supported -- and Charles II was restored with all of his father's powers, even those whose misuse had so angered the parliament 20 years earlier. Here were people who had known republicanism and nonetheless embraced monarchy -- largely because the monarchy was in those circumstances a more stable government. Even the later revolution was really the replacement of one monarch by another.
posted by jb at 10:37 PM on August 19, 2011 [1 favorite]