Cameron: Should Canada cut ties with the monarchy and become a republic?
Professor, Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions, University of British Columbia
Our constitution rests on the principle of parliamentary supremacy. Today, this principle is threatened not by the monarchy but by the office of the prime minister. Before changing our system of government, we should try to make the current one work. I endorse John Turner’s recent call to return to the basics of our parliamentary system of government, the pillars of which have been chipped away with increasingly deleterious consequences for democracy. The omnibus budget implementation bill, for example, would be inconceivable in a system in which parliamentarians were performing their roles properly. We don’t need a republic; we need politicians who venerate our system of parliamentary democracy.
