Canadian monarchism is a movement for raising awareness of Canada's constitutional monarchy among the Canadian public, and advocating for its retention, countering republican and anti-monarchical reform as being generally revisionist, idealistic, and ultimately impracticable. Generally, Canadian monarchism runs counter to anti-monarchist republicanism, but not necessarily to the classical form of republicanism itself, as most monarchists in Canada support the constitutional variety of monarchy, sometimes referred to as a crowned republic. These beliefs can be expressed either individually—generally in academic circles—or through what are known as loyal societies, which include the Monarchist League of Canada, legions, historical groups, ethnic organizations, and sometimes police and scout bodies. Though there may be overlap, this concept should not be confused with royalism, the support of a particular monarch or dynasty; Canadian monarchists may appreciate the monarchy without thinking highly of the monarch. There have also been, from time to time, suggestions in favour of a uniquely Canadian monarch, either one headed by a descendant of the present monarch and resident in Canada or one based on a First Nations royal house.
In Canada, monarchism, though it is sometimes mocked by its opponents, is driven by various factors: monarchists support the perceived practicality of popular power being ultimately placed in the hands of a non-partisan, apolitical individual, and see the Canadian monarchy as a modern link, via the Crown's shared nature, to ethnically and historically similar countries around the world. It is also celebrated by monarchists as being a significant element of Canada's national identity, stemming from the organization's 500-year deep roots in the country's tradition, as well as having a pivotal role in maintaining Canada's independence from the United States. David E. Smith asserted in 2017 that the Canadian Crown is not only the "keystone of the constitutional architecture of Canada", but also "an index both of the history of Canadian development as a federation and as an autonomous member of the Commonwealth."
Though polling has traditionally suggested little interest in removing the monarchy during the reign of Elizabeth II, more recent polls conducted in 2022 and 2023 following the accession of Charles III suggested that a majority of Canadians think there should be a referendum on the future of the monarchy and that more Canadians now favour becoming a republic than do retaining the monarchy, although a most recent poll in Canada suggested that the majority of Canadians do prefer remaining a monarchy.
National identity
Legal and cultural sovereignty Colonial era From Canada's colonial period until the end of the Second World War, monarchism was prevalent among the region's inhabitants. Even after the transfer of New France to the British in 1763, a faction of the French-speaking population was loyal to the British Crown and its institutions of government, while the Catholic Church in Quebec fostered monarchism in a different form by urging its parishioners to appreciate the absolutist monarchy system that existed in France. The majority could be lured to neither the republicanism that boiled south of the border, nor to the revolution and regicide that took place in France in 1789 and 1793 respectively.
At the same time, those who remained loyal to the British monarchy and its empire during the American Revolutionary War faced repercussions then and after the conflict. By seeking refuge in the Canadas and settling much of what is now Ontario and the Maritimes, they, who came to be known as the United Empire Loyalists, brought with them their support for the Crown and gave root to the idea that the monarchy stood for "beliefs and institutions ... considered essential in the preservation of a form of life different from, and superior to, the manners, politics, and social arrangements of the United States." Republicans were seen as being generally of American origin, having thus been taught to admire republican government as the best in the world and to ridicule monarchism, "a few individuals, who unfortunately, are led by those, whose hostility to the British constitution is such, that they would sacrifice any and every thing to pull it down, in order that they might build up a Republic on its ruins."
Predominantly, Canadians retained their loyalty to Britain's constitutional monarchy, a feeling that was only intensified by the American invasions of the Canadas in 1812. Further, the republican rebellions of 1837—with their significant minority of conservative followers who critiqued Canada's Westminster parliamentary constitutional monarchy as both too democratic and too tyrannical in comparison to their preferred American model of checks and balances—failed to inspire the majority of colonists to espouse a break with the Crown. The Orange Order played a role in maintaining this allegiance, as, after expressed fears that the order's establishment in Upper Canada would cause conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics, in 1830 the Grand Orange Lodge of British America's first Grand Master, Ogle Robert Gowan, moved to diminish the organization's religious exclusivity and instead have the order exist partly to foster appreciation of the King and constitution.
A confederated Dominion Monarchist feelings were further entrenched in many English Canadians' minds following the American Civil War, which was seen by them as "the final stage in the discredit of [American] democracy and republicanism." Thus, by the time of Canada's formation in 1867, constitutional monarchy was, after their analysis of the American republic, unanimously selected by the Fathers of Confederationled by the monarchist John A. Macdonald, and including delegates from Quebecand approved of by the three elected legislatures of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. It was noted in the early 1960s by William Lewis Morton, in his attempt to clarify both the historic and continuing significance of the Canadian monarchy, that the structuring of Canada as a kingdom was not "bait for dim-witted Tory voters", but was instead a way for Canada to assert its presence in North America and thwart American expansionism into Canadian territories; the constitutional monarchy was meant as a balance between the autocracy of the Russian Empire and the popular sovereignty of the United States that had just led to the Civil War. Instead of the constitution being based on a promise between the state and the people, it was created around a form of allegiance, wherein, as Morton put it, "there was no pressure for uniformity ... Monarchy made it possible to achieve all these things, whereas republican democracy would, it seemed, have ensured the victory of local interests and race antagonisms in British North America, a victory ending in absorption into the United States. Still, republican idealsby their wider definitiondid have influence during the setting period of after Confederation, wherein the use of laws and the institutions formed by them was moulded by popular attitudes coexistent with monarchical preference. For instance, against the intentions of those who framed the constitution, the provinces began to regard themselves as homogeneous communities, each with a right to a certain amount of self-governance founded on a co-sovereign crown, a notion that was eventually cemented in by the 1882 Judicial Committee of the Privy Council case of Maritime Bank vs. Receiver-General of New Brunswick.
Post-Quebec sovereignty movement The "almost cult status" the monarchy enjoyed in the first half of the 20th century began to waver between the 1950s and 1970s, as the British Empire evolved into the Commonwealth of Nations and a new Canadian identity emerged, multiculturalism was established as an official policy in Canada, and Quebec separatism began to blossom; the latter becoming the major impetus of political controversy around the Crown. Prime Ministers Louis St. Laurent and Lester B. Pearson both saw the Crown as a Canadian icon making the country distinct from the US; indeed, Queen Elizabeth II's royal tour of 1959 was said by the Financial Post to be a demonstration that Canada was "not just the fifty first state of the Union," and even amongst the various letters sent to newspapers denouncing the lack of fully Canadian symbols available for use, few called for abolition of the monarchy, most Canadians seeing a need for their country to have a form of government different from that of the United States.
At the same time, and into the period of Pierre Trudeau's prime ministership, however, some of the royal symbols that had previously been accepted as representative of Canada because of their British heritage became the target of iconoclasm for exactly the same reason, and the Crown was more frequently said to be at odds with multiculturalism; Canadians were, according to Arthur Bousfield and Gary Toffoli, being encouraged to "neglect, ignore, forget, reject, debase, suppress, even hate and certainly treat as foreign what their parents and grandparents, whether spiritual or blood, regarded as the basis of Canadian nationhood, autonomy and history", including the monarchy. This phenomenon was the inspiration for the founding in 1970 of the Monarchist League of Canada (MLC) as an organised way for citizens to voice their opposition to any downplaying of the Crown.
Still, at the height of the Quiet Revolution, in 1967, Vincent Massey opined that "the Monarchy is so essential to us that without it as a bastion of Canadian nationality, of Canadian purpose and of Canadian independence, we could not remain a Sovereign State", and three years later, Roland Michener said of the Canadian Crown and identity: "[The Monarchy] is our own by inheritance and choice, and contributes much to our distinctive Canadian identity and our chances of independent survival amongst the republics of North and South America", which was echoed by John Diefenbaker, who questioned: "well, having a royal family means we're not American. And isn't that enough?" In polls from the 1970s onwards, majorities continued to believe the Crown was a Canadian foil against the cultural intrusions of the United States, leading monarchists, for their part, to maintain the notion that the Crown keeps Canada culturally and legally sovereign from its largest republican neighbour, even claiming in the early 21st century to have seen a rise in support for the monarchy amongst Canadian youth for just such a reason. Those like the University of Lethbridge's Professor of Native American Studies Tony Hall, George Grant, and Eugene Forsey, theorised that the greatest threat to the Canadian Crown was not its British origins, but instead the "expansionist powers of Manifest Destiny in the United States and those who wished to move Canada closer to the American sphere and its presidential style marketplace politics", where corporate personalities amongst the sovereign populace could wield significantly more power over government than in the monarchical system where sovereignty is above popular control.
Constitutional and societal keystone Personification of Canada