Dozens of First Nations leaders from across the country gathered in front of Parliament Hill Monday with a message for the King as he arrived in the city — respect your treaty partners.
That’s largely correct, and this demonstration is mostly symbolic as well.
The treaties with indigenous peoples of Canada are administered by an arm of the federal government, but the treaty agreements themselves are technically between the indigenous peoples and the crown, hence the address to King Charles.
That does raise an interesting question though. What would happen to those treaties if Canada decided to officially become fully independent of the crown? I don’t think anything is really stopping that from happening other than there not really being a significant upside for Canada.
Also side question, is the king (and I guess the entire royal family) considered a citizen of Canada and all the other countries that apparently never really got their independence from England? That’s got to be incredibly weird for someone marrying into the royal family. “Congratulations you married a royal, here’s your new citizenship to a dozen different countries most of which you’ve probably never set foot in before”.
The treaties, as they stand, are no longer acceptable arbitration mechanisms by which the world operates politically. They were initially made in extremely bad faith, taking advantage of people who had never bargained with Europeans before.
This is a contentious and complicated issue and the Crown, behind which the Canadian Federal government shields itself from having to negotiate new indigenous agreements, is happy to remain a Commonwealth country for the time being. If the time came to become independent, these agreements would likely require some considerable rework to be taken seriously.
The king of England is the head of state, and automatically inherits citizenship through that position.
If Canada became fully independent from the Crown we’d have to draw up a completely new constitution as the current one is tightly tied to the Crown. Personally, I don’t trust anyone these days to create a new constitution, as an unfortunate chunk of the country seems to want to eliminate current rights as it is. For as much as some Canadians want or demand to remove the Crown from Canada, it’s really not feasible, and could potentially (probably) completely destroy the country.
That’s largely correct, and this demonstration is mostly symbolic as well.
The treaties with indigenous peoples of Canada are administered by an arm of the federal government, but the treaty agreements themselves are technically between the indigenous peoples and the crown, hence the address to King Charles.
That does raise an interesting question though. What would happen to those treaties if Canada decided to officially become fully independent of the crown? I don’t think anything is really stopping that from happening other than there not really being a significant upside for Canada.
Also side question, is the king (and I guess the entire royal family) considered a citizen of Canada and all the other countries that apparently never really got their independence from England? That’s got to be incredibly weird for someone marrying into the royal family. “Congratulations you married a royal, here’s your new citizenship to a dozen different countries most of which you’ve probably never set foot in before”.
The treaties, as they stand, are no longer acceptable arbitration mechanisms by which the world operates politically. They were initially made in extremely bad faith, taking advantage of people who had never bargained with Europeans before.
This is a contentious and complicated issue and the Crown, behind which the Canadian Federal government shields itself from having to negotiate new indigenous agreements, is happy to remain a Commonwealth country for the time being. If the time came to become independent, these agreements would likely require some considerable rework to be taken seriously.
The king of England is the head of state, and automatically inherits citizenship through that position.
If Canada became fully independent from the Crown we’d have to draw up a completely new constitution as the current one is tightly tied to the Crown. Personally, I don’t trust anyone these days to create a new constitution, as an unfortunate chunk of the country seems to want to eliminate current rights as it is. For as much as some Canadians want or demand to remove the Crown from Canada, it’s really not feasible, and could potentially (probably) completely destroy the country.
I imagine that every law that mentions the monarch of England would become redrafted to be relevant like we did with the EU laws when we left.