Kings, Queens and Jacks

Having overseas Queens at crucial parts of our history sets Canadians apart. We are unlikely to idolize homegrown politicians as Americans do Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Yesterday we noted that the US, officially a republic, is North America’s true constitutional monarchy with an elected king whose powers are delineated in a written document. More important, he is a psychological father figure many Americans look to in hard times.

Canada retains a Crown that is to all intents and purposes a front for an oligarchy headed by a Prime Minister with unlimited power and very little glory. Yet the Canadian Crown is a maternal symbol whose incumbents have shaped the country by their femininity.

For two thirds of the years since they last flirted with the republican option, Canadians have had a woman as their Head of State. In a world run almost entirely by men until recently, this is remarkable. It may explain many Canadian characteristics.

These critical years fell during the reigns of Britain’s longest reigning monarch Victoria (1837-1901), and the present Queen, Elizabeth II (1951-).

The 50 years between them encompassed four kings. Though these spanned two world wars and a depression, none had the imprint on Canada’s psyche that the two women did.

Victoria came to the throne as a teenager the year rebellions broke out in Upper and Lower Canada. To stave off the possibility of another American Revolution, Britain acted swiftly on Canadian issues. Within a decade the Canadian provinces won Responsible Government. Twenty years later they came together as the Dominion of Canada.

Victoria endorsed the choice of a new capital on the Ottawa River, the border between French and English speaking populations. In her reign Canada gained three more provinces, the Northwest Territories and the world’s longest transcontinental railway.

Through she never set foot in Canada, two of her children did: a future king and a consort of Canada’s Governor General. Cities, streets, lakes, islands, parks are named after her.

Elizabeth II has visited Canada many times. During her 58 years on the throne Canada became fully independent of Britain and her presence was a backdrop to these changes.

She has opened the Canada’s Parliament personally—something none of her predecessors did. She signed the revision of Canada’s constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Victoria’s reign overlapped with the American presidency of Lincoln and the Civil War. Elizabeth’s has seen the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Regan and Bush presidencies, the Korea, Vietnam, Gulf and Iraq wars, the landing on the moon, and the experience of terrorism.

Having had a woman named in our courts and currency, laws and legal documents, sets Canada apart from practically every other Western power. Even in Britain that has first claim on these Queens, they have to share the spotlight with a greater number of kings.

Having a female Head of State may not have been important politically. Psychologically, it reflects the need for every human to have a nurturing parent, and a public figure onto which this need can be projected. The Nurture factor has been more important in Canadian culture than the Independence one. It reflects in a social safety net detractors call the “nanny state.”

It is also a factor in our artistic consciousness. The reigns of the world’s great queens—Elizabeth I, Maria Teresa, Catherine the Great—were characterized by flourishing of the arts and cultures. These women used the arts as a national unity builder to compensate the lack of leadership on the battlefield a king was expected to provide.

With constitutional monarchs such as Victoria and Elizabeth II, the arts still played an inspirational part: the way a suitor brings flowers, not conquests, to his lady.

US culture has been largely independent of the state and politics. Presidents who supported the arts such as Kennedy, were most likely motivated by their wives!

In Canada encouragement of the arts has been a function of the Governors General, of both genders. Women’s track record here has been better than that of most men.

Finally, we cannot ignore the gender difference between Canada and the US in its impact on the First Nations of both countries. Victoria’s image of “Great White Mother” was linked by plains tribes with “White Buffalo Calf” a feminine healer in their mythology.

Crowfoot, the great Chief of the Blackfoot, described her Mounted Police as the “bird who protects her young with her feathers.” Note the feminine imagery. Sitting Bull who fled to Canada from famine and from revenge of the Long Knives (US Cavalry) after the Battle of Bighorn, willingly placed himself under the Queen’s law and protection.

Though First Nations suffered injustices in both countries, the official Canadian approach was based on protecting the land, as in the 1774 Quebec Act. The American response in the Declaration of Independence, emphasized the right of the people to develop the land.

The interplay of rights and responsibility, freedom and inter-dependence is an ongoing human one. Canada and the US have chosen to accent different aspects of this continuum.

Likewise, the development of a balance of masculine and feminine qualities is a challenge of states and countries, as well as of every human being.

Canada has been the yin to the American yang in North America. The two major queens who have served as Canada’s international Head of State played a significant part here.