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BLIZZARD: NDP MPPs should be belting out 'God Save the Queen'

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Three New Democratic MPPs say they won’t be in the legislature for the singing of God Save The Queen on the first Monday of each month when the house is sitting.

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Guy Bourgouin, Suze Morrison and Sol Mamakwa are all of indigenous heritage and say the new policy smacks of colonialism.

The trio co-penned a story in the Toronto Star that said it’s, “an archaic tribute to the British colonial period and the centuries of violence, oppression and discrimination the British Empire carried out against the nations and people it considered inferior — Indigenous Peoples in Canada a glaring example among them.”

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Let me say, I have great respect for Canada’s First Nations and sympathy for the way Indigenous people have been treated. I’ve visited many fly-in reserves and witnessed first hand their plight.

That said, history doesn’t back up their claim that the Crown is to blame.

Far from it.

The Crown, especially as personified by Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, was particularly enlightened when it came to the rights of minorities. Albert was an emancipationist, opposing the political forces of the time by crusading against slavery.

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Queen Victoria personally upheld the right of fugitive slave Thornton Blackburn to remain in Canada after his escape from Kentucky. The refusal of the Crown to return Blackburn was the landmark decision that made Canada the northern end of the Underground Railroad that slaves used to reach freedom.

Upper Canada was the first place in the world to outlaw slavery. The Crown’s representative, John Graves Simcoe, also an abolitionist, called slavery “an offence against Christianity.”

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In 1793, over the objections of — wait for it — elected MPs who owned slaves, Simcoe persuaded the legislature to pass the landmark anti-slavery law.

On Royal Tours I’ve covered, First Nations are always first in line to meet the Queen. Most chiefs I’ve met respect her, and respect what she and the institution of the Crown represent.

Invariably, they come carrying a treaty signed by one of their ancestors and one of hers. It’s not just an interesting piece of historic trivia. It’s a living, breathing document. The chiefs wanted to remind the Queen of the commitment her forebear made to them.

As a constitutional monarch, the Queen understands hereditary power. She greets hereditary chiefs respectfully, sovereign to sovereign.

During a royal tour on the east coast, a group of Mi’kmaq were demonstrating peacefully. While politicians harrumphed and hustled past, ignoring them, the Queen stopped and chatted.

The demonstrators were delighted. Extending a hand of greeting, she defused the situation.

It was the Queen who, with the support of then-Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, successfully fought British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to impose sanctions on South Africa over that country’s former racist apartheid policy.

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Calling the Crown “anachronistic,” is a bit of a head-scratcher, too.

The Crown is an intrinsic part of Canadian government. It’s the living, breathing heart of our democracy.

Fair enough, if these three legislators think this country would do better as a republic, then go ahead, change the constitution. Have a revolution. Fill your boots. Just be careful what you replace it with.

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Looking at our neighbours to the south — or to that great socialist republic in Russia — I suspect minorities are better served by the checks and balances of a constitutional monarchy.

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It’s reasonable for these three MPPs to criticize the way First Nations were treated — but get the facts right. It was their elected government of the day that made the mistakes. The Crown — and those who have represented it in this country — has been a benign force for good.

If I were one of those three legislators, I’d be belting out God Save The Queen, grateful to have an institution that’s steadfastly upheld the rights of minorities and glad to have such a gracious monarch fulfilling that role today.

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