Monarchy in Canada - Federal Constitutional Role

Federal Constitutional Role

Canada's constitution is based on the Westminster parliamentary model, wherein the role of the Queen is both legal and practical, but not political. The sovereign is vested with all the powers of state, collectively known as the royal prerogative, which stems from the people, who are thus considered subjects of the Crown. However, as the monarch is a constitutional one, he or she does not rule alone, as in an absolute monarchy. Instead, the Crown is regarded as a corporation, with the monarch being the centre of a construct in which the power of the whole is shared by multiple institutions of government—the executive, legislative, and judicial—acting under the sovereign's authority, which is entrusted for exercise by the politicians (the elected and appointed parliamentarians and the ministers of the Crown generally drawn from amongst them) and the judges and justices of the peace. The monarchy has thus been described as the underlying principle of Canada's institutional unity and the monarch as a "guardian of constitutional freedoms" whose "job is to ensure that the political process remains intact and is allowed to function."

The Crown also sits at the pinnacle of the Canadian Forces, with the constitution placing the monarch in the position of commander-in-chief of the entire force, though the governor general carries out the duties attached to the position and also bears the title of Commander-in-Chief in and over Canada. Further, included in Canada's constitution are the various treaties between the Crown and Canadian First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples, who view these documents as agreements directly and only between themselves and the reigning monarch, illustrating the relationship between sovereign and aboriginals.