Title and Style of The Canadian Monarch - History

History

Following Canadian Confederation, Prime Minister of Canada John A. Macdonald, having been denied the name Kingdom of Canada for the new country, was repeatedly heard to refer to Queen Victoria as the Queen of Canada, and, similarly, in the lead up to the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier desired to have the words King of Canada included in the royal title by the time of the ceremony. This wish was not fulfilled, however, and Canada inherited the full British title when the country gained legislative independence from the United Kingdom in 1931.

Liberal Member of Parliament Eugène Marquis in 1945 tabled a motion in the House of Commons proposing that a change to the King's title be a subject of discussion at the next Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference; Marquis suggested that the title include each of the King's dominions, giving him the designation King of Canada. But, the motion did not pass and it was only in 1948 that form of address changed, when the Canadian parliament passed in 1947 its own Royal Style and Titles Act and an Order in Council was issued on 22 June the following year to remove the term Emperor of India from the sovereign's Canadian title. In 1949, it was suggested by Cabinet that the King's title be altered so that in Canada it would be George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Canada and the other nations of the British Commonwealth, King; but, again, nothing came of the proposal. At the time, Robert Gordon Robertson, then a member of the Cabinet Secretariat, opined that Canadians would not like the title King of Canada, as "most Canadians... have not thought of themselves as citizens of either a republic or a monarchy." Still, in 1950, when William Ferdinand Alphonse Turgeon was sent to Ireland as Canada's ambassador to that country, the Cabinet wished to have George VI referred to in the letters of credence as King of Canada. The King's secretaries objected strongly, claiming the monarch had only one title in law and Turgeon's letters eventually used George's full legal title, which referred to him as sovereign of Great Britain "and Ireland."

The proclamations of Elizabeth II's accession to the throne in February 1952 differed between Canada and the United Kingdom; in the latter, the new queen was referred to unconventionally as Queen Elizabeth II by the Grace of God, Queen of this Realm, and of Her other Realms and Territories, while the Canadian Privy Council adhered to the letter of the law, calling the sovereign Elizabeth the Second by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas. The discrepancies between independent countries sharing one person as sovereign prompted discussions amongst the Commonwealth prime ministers before a meeting in London, England, in December 1952; Canada's then prime minister, Louis St. Laurent, stated that it was important a new composition for the royal title be agreed upon by all realms involved, to "emphasise the fact that the Queen is Queen of Canada, regardless of her sovereignty over other Commonwealth countries." Canada's preferred format was: Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of Canada and of Her other realms and territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. However, as Australian ministers wished to have the United Kingdom mentioned in all the Queen's titles, the resolution reached was a designation that included the United Kingdom as well as, for the first time, reference to Canada and the other Commonwealth realms separately.

When the act to alter the Queen's title was in 1953 debated in the House of Commons, St. Laurent asserted on the nature of the separate and shared characteristics of the Crown: "Her Majesty is now Queen of Canada but she is the Queen of Canada because she is Queen of the United Kingdom... It is not a separate office." Parliament then unanimously passed the new Royal Style and Titles Act, which was granted Royal Assent and proclaimed by Governor General Vincent Massey on 29 May 1953, just four days before Elizabeth II was crowned. The new legislation conferred publicly and legally the concept of a unique constitutional monarchy for Canada, thereby fulfilling the vision of the Fathers of Confederation. The Royal Style and Titles Act was amended in 1985, though it did not alter the Queen's title in any way.