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Can you imagine Michaelle Jean resolving a constitutional crisis?
What if the Liberals lost a vote in the House that the opposition insisted was a confidence vote, and the government insisted was not?
What imaginable authority would Jean have to deal with that situation?
If the old practice of appointing an experienced politician, one of those senior statespeople, had been followed, it would have been a recognition of that person's standing and wisdom -- authority -- to make decisions like that. The GG would have spoken with a voice that everyone, including the Liberals, would have to listen to.
Appointing Jean makes it far less likely that any governmental crisis can be legitimately resolved by the GG. Neither the politicians nor the public would see her as having the authority (as distinct from the power) to substitute her judgment for the people's elected representatives'.
The Liberals might have had their own narrow interests in mind here, given the extreme minority government circumstances in which the appointment was made. But I'm actually willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and think that they had purer motives, at least in addition to any venal ones.
There isn't a society on earth that doesn't have some supreme authority built into its constitutional / governmental arrangements. Flags and bits of parchment don't resolve impasses; people have to, and every society has a person who is the one who makes the final decision. (George W. Bush can veto legislation, after all -- and yes, there are veto overrides, as I understand it, but a divided Congress couldn't do that.)
But essentially, no matter what a Queen or GG might say, the people are going to decide whether to accept it or not anyhow. The GG could rule that Parliament is dissolved, for instance, and if the govt didn't resign and present the writ for an election, what would happen? Would the guys in bearskin hats oust them at spearpoint?
The appointment of a pure cultural figurehead as the approximate head of state is a sign of maturity. We're gonna have to fight our own battles, and settle our own differences, without a big mummy or big daddy to do it for us.
I've been surprised that nobody seems to have noticed this aspect of the thing, given as how a constitutional crisis is not a complete impossibility in the current conjuncture.
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