Title and Style of The Canadian Monarch - Title of The Monarch

Title of The Monarch

Further information: List of titles and honours of Queen Elizabeth II

The monarch's title is set out by the Royal Style and Titles Act, passed by the Canadian parliament in 1953, a year following the accession of Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, to the throne as Queen Elizabeth II, and granted Royal Assent the day before her coronation. It was later amended in 1985 and sets out the sovereign's title as, in English:

“

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.

”

And in French:

“

Elizabeth Deux, par la grâce de Dieu Reine du Royaume-Uni, du Canada et de ses autres royaumes et territoires, Chef du Commonwealth, Défenseur de la Foi.

”

The title was composed to distinctly mention Canada so as to highlight the monarch's shared status, being both Queen of Canada and, separately, Queen of the United Kingdom, as well as of then six other Commonwealth realms (today 14); with emphasis showing the distinct title Queen of Canada as embedded in the longer formal title: Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. When composed in 1953, this format was consistent with the monarch's titles in all her other realms; after 40 years of Elizabeth's reign, however, only Canada and Grenada retained this title, all others, aside from the UK, having dropped the reference to the United Kingdom. The sovereign will allude to herself as Queen of Canada when in or acting abroad on behalf of that country. For example, Elizabeth II said in 1973: "...it is as Queen of Canada that I am here, Queen of Canada and of all Canadians, not just of one or two ancestral strains." Since the title was adopted, the federal government has promoted its use as a signifier of Canada's sovereign and independent status; Prime Minister John Diefenbaker said of the title in 1957: "The Queen of Canada is a term which we like to use because it utterly represents her role on this occasion." The title is also included in the Oath of Allegiance, which forms a part of the Oath of Citizenship, and can be found as ELIZABETH II DEI GRATIA REGINA CANADA—Latin for Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, Queen of Canada—on the obverse of various medals in the Canadian honours system.

Although the Queen's Canadian title includes the phrase Defender of the Faith/Défenseur de la Foi, neither the monarch nor any of the viceroys have an official religious role in Canada. Unlike in the United Kingdom, where the term (Fidei defensor, in Latin) signifies the sovereign's position as Supreme Governor of the Church of England and a member and defender of the security of the Church of Scotland, there have been no established churches in Canada since before its confederation in 1867. Defender of the Faith thus has a more vague meaning in the Canadian title, alluding only to the monarch's belief in a higher power. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent stated on this matter in his 1953 contribution to the debate on the Royal Style and Titles Act in the House of Commons: "The rather more delicate question arose about the retention of the words defender of the faith... In our countries there are no established churches, but in our countries there are people who have faith in the direction of human affairs by an all-wise Providence; and we felt that it was a good thing that the civil authorities would proclaim that their organization is such that it is a defence of the continued beliefs in a supreme power that orders the affairs of mere men, and that there could be no reasonable objection from anyone who believed in the Supreme Being in having the sovereign, the head of the civil authority, described as a believer in and a defender of the faith in a supreme ruler."

Also, while the sovereign holds the nominal title Head of the Commonwealth, this does not imply any political power over member states of the Commonwealth of Nations. In keeping, however, with the declaration of the prime ministers of the Commonwealth in London in 1949 of "the King as the symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth," the title will pass to the next monarch upon the demise of the Crown.