{"id":9248,"date":"2013-07-13T07:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T11:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=9248"},"modified":"2013-07-12T16:28:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-12T20:28:17","slug":"canada-may-have-a-royal-baby-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/07\/13\/canada-may-have-a-royal-baby-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada may have a royal baby problem"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Royal<\/a>

Royal baby memorabilia for sale in Bishop’s Stortford, England. Photo: Peter Herring<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Those who have no use for the House of Windsor should look away now! For the curious, or the fixated, read on.<\/p>\n

As anyone not living under a rock knows, “the royal baby” is due sometime in July. Betting on nearly every imaginable detail<\/a> is in full swing. \u00a0The media stake out<\/a> around the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge is expected to give birth has already begun.<\/p>\n

The National Post reports that some bored journalists have taken to interviewing each other<\/a>. As of last Wednesday, anyway “…the British are interviewing the Americans, the Japanese interviewed the Canadian, and the Canadian interviewed the Germans.”<\/p>\n

The Duchess has expressed an intent to try have a natural delivery<\/a>, which some observers hope will reduce the rate of unnecessary\u00a0Caesarian\u00a0births in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n

This child – girl or boy – will be 3rd in line for the throne. After the reign of Elizabeth II, next up is her eldest son Charles, followed by his eldest son William. Everyone else in that line after the baby is born drops down in place, as can be seen on this chart from the New York Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This particular monarchy is also the titular head of state for a total of 16 countries<\/a>, including Canada. Those nations have agreed to changing the succession rules. But some legal experts say Canada, at least, has yet to enact that change properly.<\/p>\n

The bill introduced last January<\/a> to make the change (“C-53<\/a>“) did pass. But some experts say it is insufficient to the task. At least one province has already formally stated the passage of that bill should not be considered a\u00a0precedent\u00a0to skip provincial consultation<\/a> in other issues that pertain to the constitution.<\/p>\n

Without wandering too deeply into the legal weeds, the gist of that argument goes like this: if Canada is a stand-alone, independent country (and it is) then Canada must change the rules of succession on its own, within its own legal structure. It’s not enough to say “Whatever Mother England decides is OK by us”, not without diminishing Canada’s national\u00a0sovereignty.<\/p>\n

Is this change a constitutional issue, or not?<\/p>\n

Here’s the nub of the matter, according to\u00a0this CBC article<\/a>:<\/p>\n

…section 41 (a) of Canada’s Constitution, patriated in 1982, says that an amendment in relation to the office of “the Queen, the Governor General and the Lieutenant Governor of a province” can be made only where authorized by “resolutions of the Senate and House of Commons and of the legislative assembly of each province.”<\/p>\n

So does that mean reforming the rules about who can be king or queen requires unanimous consent from Canada’s provincial capitals?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

University of Ottawa Associate Professor of Public and International Affairs Philippe Laglass\u00e9 explores the issue in laborious detail in this Ottawa Citizen\u00a0July 5th op-ed<\/a>.\u00a0by\u00a0After examinining different aspects of the arguments, in summary he says:<\/p>\n

Regardless, there would be a clear benefit if the courts tell Parliament that it must enact substantive legislation to alter the rules of succession in Canadian law: the judiciary would be signalling that Canada has a legally distinct Crown and sovereign, and that the Canadian state is wholly sovereign and independent as a result.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, court challenges have begun<\/a>. It’s hard to guess if this will be ignored, or go all the way to Canada’s Supreme Court for a ruling.<\/p>\n

The whole matter may sound like just so much hair-splitting. Also (happily!) the legal questions need not be settled before the royal baby is born!<\/p>\n

But law, legislation and constitutions are funny that way – the devil is in the details and the details do matter.<\/p>\n

Alas! The scope of this post may prove frustrating. Those who want all the baby and family news don’t care about legal nit-picking. The few legal or constitutional buffs who have made it this far probably feel the subject has not been properly outlined.<\/p>\n

Suffice it to say, changing the rules of succession can actually be fairly complicated.<\/p>\n

Apart from all that, best wishes to the parents-to-be for a healthy child – of either gender!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those who have no use for the House of Windsor should look away now! For […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[12674,880,12680,12671,12678,7,20,12670,12673,824,12672],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9248"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9769,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9248\/revisions\/9769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}