Utopia, you are standing in it!

Introduction

Queen Elizabeth II Opens CHOGM 2011 in Perth.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM, pronounced “Chog-m”) convened in Perth, Western Australia at the end of October. The Commonwealth Heads of Government discussed, among other issues, the Cameron government’s legislation to amend the Act of Settlement, 1700. Among other things, the Act establishes the rules that determine the succession to the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; Prime Minister Cameron wants to repeal male primogeniture through an amendment that would take into account the first-born child rather than the first-born son and repeal the penalty on marrying Catholics (or “Papists” as the current wording says!), which currently causes a royal to lose his or her place in the line of succession. However, these reforms would still maintain the established Church of England and the overall Protestant succession: the Sovereign, being the Head…

Succession in Australia

Anne Twomey, a Professor of Law at the University of Sydney, has written extensively on the Crown of Australia and other issues of government. I consider her the foremost expert on constitutionalism and Westminster parliamentarism in our sister Realm down under!

Most recently, Professor Twomey has written an op-ed to the Sydney Morning Herald which I regard as the direct Australian equivalent of the op-ed that Professor Lagassé and I just submitted to the Ottawa Citizen. In “Archaic and Sexist Law Overshadows Pending Arrival of New Royal,” Twomey explains why altering the laws of succession to the Crown of Australia also involves a constitutional amending procedure that requires the concurrence of the parliaments of the 6 Australian States and of federal Parliament of Australia:

In Australia, the issue is complicated by the federal system. It is most likely that the Federal Parliament does not…

Canada is yet another case that buries the lie that nuclear power is expensive. The only stand-alone generation source that does not generate carbon dioxide gas during the process, you’d think that the climate cult would be screaming from the rooftops to get nuclear power plants built as a matter of pressing urgency. But, not a bit of it.

No, their lack of temerity on that score reveals them to be nothing more than a delusional, human-hating cult that will never be taken seriously.

Unfortunately for Australians, plenty of their number occupy positions of power, not least those in charge of the Green/Labor Alliance, a group of lunatics who appear to be applying the same model used by Vlad Putin to deny his Ukrainian opponents of any form of power generation. In Vlad’s case, the destruction of his enemy’s power generation and distribution system makes for good wartime strategy.

In…

The Rules Governing Succession

Will and Kate are expecting their first child in 2013, which has made succession an important political issue in the United Kingdom, and in the 15 other Realms that recognize Elizabeth Windsor as Queen.

In the United Kingdom, succession to the Crown operates on a mixture of the common-law principle of male-preference primogeniture and on statute laws like The Act of Settlement. The Crowns of Canada and the other Realms have inherited both sets of rules.

In November 2011, the Prime Ministers of the 16 Commonwealth Realms agreed in principle that each country should change its succession in two ways. First, male primogeniture would be replaced with equal primogeniture, so that the first-born child rather than the first-born son takes precedence in the line of succession. Currently, younger brothers overtake older sisters. Second, the provision in the Act of Settlement that prohibits marriage to a…

Good Evidence of the Corporation Sole and the Personal Union

Government House in Victoria, British Columbia (the state residence of the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia) contains some good evidence for the fundamental constitutional arrangements of Canada and the United Kingdom, namely a Personal Union of separate Crowns, which are in turn corporations sole. The grand staircase of Government House includes the heraldry of all the members of the Royal Family who have stayed at the residence, as well as the personal heraldry of various Governors General.

The personal crest of Princess Elizabeth of 1947 differs from the official crest of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, and the Queen of Canada bears a different crest still. The Queen of the United Kingdom displays the heraldry of the Royal Standard; crucially, her predecessor Sovereigns have, and her own heirs and successors will, bear the same Royal Standard because it…

Stardate: 5693.2 (2268)
Original Air Date: November 15, 1968
Writers: Judy Burns and Chet Richards
Director: Herb Wallerstein (Ralph Senensky, uncredited)

“If we are not careful, we shall lose the Captain and become trapped ourselves…”

The Enterprise is approaching the last known position of the U.S.S. Defiant, a Federation starship which vanished without a trace approximately three weeks ago. As they enter a pocket of un-surveyed territory, Spock acknowledges a strange phenomenon –the current readings on the computer show that space is apparently breaking apart. The Enterprise has stumbled onto a highly unusual interspatial rift. Then the derelict Defiant comes into view, though ship’s sensor readings suggest the Defiant is, in truth, not actually there. The Defiant floats aimlessly in space and it now appears covered in a luminescent green material –something unusual has clearly happened. Scotty is left to helm the Enterprise while Kirk…

I thank David Watson and the editorial staff at the Ottawa Citizen for having publishing my column!

In 2011, the prime ministers of the 16 Commonwealth Realms agreed in principle that each country should change its succession in two ways. First, male primogeniture would be replaced with equal primogeniture, so that the first-born child rather than the first-born son takes precedence in the line of succession. Second, the provision in the Act of Settlement that prohibits marriage to a Catholic would be repealed. However, the statutory requirement that the Sovereign be a Protestant would remain intact.

Unless all 16 realms that recognize Elizabeth Windsor as Queen pass legislation or constitutional amendments that implement the same basic rules on succession, the Personal Union of these 16 Crowns will break sometime after William’s reign. For instance, if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have a daughter first, followed by a son…

It is sometimes hard to tell when Reserve Bank actions are concerted, when somewhat chaotic, and quite what mix applies in any particular case.

Earlier this week I wrote about MPC member Peter Harris’s “interview” – responses to an initial series of emailed questions – with Stuff’s Tom Pullar-Strecker. I assumed it was coordinated and managed by the Bank – though on reflection who could possibly have advised Harris to answer as he did – but it appears the trainwreck, which reflects poorly on both him and the institution, may have been almost all of his own doing.

And then there is the saga of Rodger Finlay, appointed last year as part of the Bank’s “transition board” and as a full Board mmbers from 1 July this year while he was – and intended to continue as – chair of the board of NZ Post, the majority owner of Kiwibank…

From the Emperor’s Desk: although this blog post is about the accession of Emperor Franz Joseph on the throne of the Austrian Empire during the revolutions of 1848, I will not be addressing the complicated relationship between Franz Joseph and the kingdom of Hungary which was also going through a revolutionary period in 1848. I will deal with the accession of Franz Joseph as king of Hungary in a separate blog post on Monday.

Franz Joseph I (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from December 2, 1848 until his death on November 21, 1916. In the early part of his reign, his realms and territories were referred to as the Austrian Empire, but were reconstituted as the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867. From May 1, 1850 to…

The Opening Salvo in the Speech from the Throne: “Standing Up to Ottawa”

On 29 November 2022, the Salma Lakhani, the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta, read a Speech from the Throne containing a pugilistic sub-section on “Standing Up to Ottawa,” with which Her Honour presumably disagrees based on her public musings three months ago that she would reserve or veto an eventual Alberta Sovereignty Act.[1]