Ontario Court of Appeal upholds citizenship oath to the Queen

[PrincessOfPeace]

TORONTO - It's not unconstitutional to make new citizens swear allegiance to the Queen, the Ontario Court of Appeal has ruled.

Ontario's top court has dismissed the appeal of three Toronto permanent residents who are opposed to taking a citizenship oath to a foreign, Anglican, privileged monarch chosen by virtue of birth. Michael McAteer, Simone Topey and Dror Bar-Natan argued in April that their Charter rights to freedom of expression, conscience and religion are violated if they must declare that they "will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her heirs and Successors."

More: Appeal court upholds citizenship oath to Queen | MANDEL | Ontario | News | Toron

[Macrobug]

Good!

The appeal court ruled Wednesday that they were being "too literal" in their interpretation of the Queen - they are not asked to swear allegiance to her personally, but to our constitutional monarchy.

"The purpose of the oath is not to compel expression but to obtain a commitment to our form of government from those wishing to become Canadian citizens," wrote Justice Karen Weiler on behalf of the court. "The oath is secular and is not an oath to the Queen in her personal capacity but to our form of government of which the Queen is a symbol."

[PrincessOfPeace]

"the Constitution cannot itself be unconstitutional," and one part of the Constitution can't be used to invalidate another part.

Absolutely brilliant!! I've always said Canada is the most loyal of HM's realms

When you apply to become a citizen of a country, it's not the responsibility of the country to change its style of government to suit your needs. You don't get to pick and choose which parts of a country are satisfactory to your needs, and reject the rest. If the three applicants can't accept that, there's no need for them to become citizens. They'll be the worse for it, not Canada.

More: Kelly McParland: Court ruling confirms Canadian citizenship comes with the Queen, like it or not | National Post

[cate1949]

um - not about loyalty but about the law - as it should be

It is though  rather absurd to come to a country that you know is a monarchy and then suddenly decided you do not want to agree to the form of government that country has.  And if you migrate to a country it is not astonishing that they should expect you to be loyal to that government. 

[Macrobug]

Canada's constitution is based on the concept of the Monarch of Canada being the head of state.   If you are thinking of immigrating to Canada then you will need to be loyal to the government.  And to the Monarch.  If you are not able to bring your self to do that then there are other great countries to immigrate to.  The States doesn't have a similar head of state or Constitution and maybe that is a better choice for those people that can't pledge loyalty and allegiance to Canada

[Limabeany]

Citizenship oath: Let's pledge to Canada, not to Her Majesty - The Globe and Mail

When I received my much-prized citizenship, I swore allegiance to the Queen. It was a wonderful day in my life, but I remember wondering why I was not swearing allegiance to Canada. And it occurred to me that this was the first time in my complicated relationship with the Queen that I was formally her subject.

History has its place. We must learn and understand our history, cheer it and cherish it when deserved, learn from it, accept our mistakes and correct them if we can. But we need not be held hostage by it. To stride confidently into the future, we must know where we came from, but we don't need to be constrained by the past.

As a country made up of so many different peoples – francophones, aboriginals, anglophones, Acadians, new and old immigrants from all corners of the globe – Canada has found a particularly successful narrative in absorbing difference. As Pico Iyer says, we have a "global soul." We have learned to discard rigidity in favour of gradual accommodation. The citizenship oath could be a much valued opportunity to draw us together in an oath of allegiance to Canada, its laws and its institutions.

Naysayers use the argument that if we don't like it here, we should stay away. This only serves to draw the lines between us more deeply. I like to invoke the image that new immigrants make Canada their home and in time have the right, nay, the obligation, to rearrange the metaphorical furniture in our new home as part of an engaged citizenry.

But there is middle ground. Let the royalists keep the symbols, the portraits of the Queen, and insert the word "Royal" in front of Canadian institutions such as the Air Force. Let's wave the Union Jack when a member of the Royal Family visits. Let's go wild about the Duchess of Cambridge's newest dress. But let's change the oath of allegiance, much along the lines of Australia's. This middle-ground approach can (and should) be imitated in Canada.

[Limabeany]

Stop all the outrage over challenging the oath to the Queen

he "Canada, love it or leave it" mob musters around news of some landed immigrants' legal challenge to the requirement that they swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen to obtain full citizenship.

Patriotic umbrage is expressed. People who don't like the existing rules shouldn't come here, goes the clamour.

Listen up, folks, Canada is a democracy. What distinguishes a democracy from authoritarian places like China, where you get sent to labour camps to be re-educated for complaining, is that healthy democracies welcome dissent.

Democracies have legal procedures to let people voice their objections to things as they are. And, in a democracy, anyone is free to use them without fear of punitive reactions from government, let alone baying mobs of the righteous.

Canada is a much better place because people commonly reviled as moral outcasts, social deviants, unappreciative clods, cultural ingrates and political fools have in the past challenged the accepted status quo.

McClung, was one of five women who in 1927 challenged Canadian law because it didn't define women as persons. At the time, many righteous citizens saw this as an ungrateful affront.

So before jumping on the jingoistic bandwagon of outrage over people challenging the oath to the Queen, remember that if it weren't for people questioning the way things had always been done and going to court to make their points, your country would be a nastier, more brutish place.

We'd still have a country in which women couldn't vote and were chattels of their fathers and husbands, within their legal right to give wives a sound thrashing every now and then to keep in check women's natural propensity for hysteria.

If the majority's assumptions always ruled, there'd still be a head tax on Chinese immigrants. It would be acceptable to discriminate against people for being black, Asian, aboriginal, female, gay, Jewish or disabled. Women on social assistance wouldn't be permitted to have male visitors in their homes. They wouldn't be permitted to obtain birth control. You wouldn't be permitted to read James Joyce or D.H. Lawrence. First Nations wouldn't be permitted to hire lawyers. The Nisga'a wouldn't have a treaty.

So, in Canada, it's acceptable that people question whether we should have another country's monarch as the head of state.

[Limabeany]

I want to be Canadian ? but why should I have to swear allegiance to the Queen? | Emer O?Toole | Comment is free | theguardian.com

To become a citizen of Canada, you must take the following oath: I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

I want to be a citizen of Canada. I want to contribute to Québécois and Canadian political life. But I don't want to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen.

Unsurprisingly, I'm not the only immigrant to Canada to feel this way. Michael McAteer, Simone Topey and Dror Bar-Natan have been fighting a legal battle to obtain citizenship without the oath. McAteer and Bar-Natan have political objections like mine, and Topey, a Rastafarian, has religious objections. On Wednesday, the Ontario Court of Appeal threw out their case, ruling that the oath did not violate freedom of conscience, religion or expression, and that even though Canadian-born citizens never have to swear it, it is not discriminatory to require new citizens to do so.

The court of appeal ruled that new citizens were not "literally" swearing allegiance to the Queen but "symbolically" to Canada's "form of government and the unwritten constitutional principle of democracy". I find this unconvincing. As a symbol, the Queen can be read in many ways, even within the limits of the Canadian political context (just ask First Nations communities). So if the goal is to swear allegiance to government and democracy, then why not choose a symbol that represents these things less problematically? The flag, perhaps? Or, why not offer a literal oath in lieu of a symbolic one? If the answer to this is that the Queen is an integral and indispensable part of Canada's form of government, then the oath is clearly not symbolic at all, but literal.

The lawyer for the government, Kristina Dragaitis, told the court that in terms of Canadian government, the Queen symbolised the rule of law and the right to free speech. This is ironic given that in September, when the case was thrown out of the superior court, the judge conceded that the oath infringed on the right to free expression, but ruled it did so only minimally. Justice Edward Morgan also advised against taking the oath literally, saying it symbolised allegiance to an "equality-protecting Canadian institution". I'm not sure I've ever heard a greater contradiction in terms than the suggestion that hereditary power symbolises equality.

Essentially, all these voices are arguing that, in swearing allegiance to the Queen, new Canadian citizens are not, in fact, swearing allegiance to the Queen. By this logic, could someone please explain why I need to swear allegiance to the Queen?

[Macrobug]

These are people who want to become Canadians but want to immediately change the requirements to become Canadians because they don't agree with it.  I have a problem with that.  It isn't undemocratic.  They have a choice.  If they don't want to pledge allegiance to the Canadian Constitution then they don't have to.  And Canada doesn't have to give them citizenship.  Simple.

[SophieChloe]

Perhaps they wish to live in a Country that gives them great opportunity in life - but not pledge anything to an old lady in Britain who has not been elected nor has her heir, nor his, nor his.........and so it continues.....?  What's wrong with that? 

Goodness it's just so backward IMO.

[Macrobug]

There is a wonderful country just south of here where they don't have to.  All they have to do is pledge allegiance to a flag.

Isn't it rather arrogant to tell an institution/country what they have to do/change to have the honour of your presence? 

Substitute "Queen of Canada"  with "Grand Pooba"  or "Purple People Eater".  I don't care.  It is the fact that they want the requirements changed to met their satisfaction before joining the club.  The next person that comes along wants the requirements changed to meet THEIR wants and desires........A bit of a slippery slope.  Until it changes, Canada has a head of state and it is the Queen of Canada.  And if you want to be Canadian then you have to met the requirements that Canada has put forth.   

No one is twisting their arms.  They can go join the country that best fits their beliefs and philosophies.

[SophieChloe]

Well of course there is MB...and I would not want to do that either.  However, I could wave my hand at a Flag - that seems more acceptable than some unelected family here - who occasionally let you all pay for their tours (holidays).  Did your Country change for the better or worse after the very expensive visit of William and Kate?  How so?  Or did it remain exactly the same?  I'm willing to bet it cost you and yours an absolute fortune.  For what - W&K to shore up the Family.

I'd rather welcome hardworking people who will continue to support your country instead of taking from it - in the form of a Tour. 

I watched a programme on North Korea last week....I was disgusted how the students hailed their leader....then I thought hang on a moment...... :windsor1:

[Macrobug]

They want to become Canadians; to enjoy the rights and freedoms that the rest of Canadians do.  But they want to change the responsibility and regulations of Canadian citizenship to suit them.  As a Canadian I have the responsibility to uphold the Canadian constitution, to follow our laws and to recognize our government and way of life.  And as it stands our head of state is the Monarch of Canada.  We changed our constitution in 1982 to remove the last of British authority; to become our own country.  And in doing so we recognize the Monarch of Canada to be our head of state and the symbol of Canada.  Even if the Queen wasn't mentioned in the oath, they still would be recognizing her as the head of state when pledging to uphold the constitution and the laws of Canada.  As the judge said "The oath to the Queen of Canada is an oath to our form of government, as symbolized by the Queen as the apex of our Canadian parliamentary system of constitutional monarchy."  This is what Canada is.  And to become Canadian one has to acknowledge that fact.  If a person can not do that then as I said before, it would be better for them to find a place that better suits them. 

They say that it is against their rights to make them pledge an allegiance.  But how can it be against their Canadian rights if they are not Canadian?  And how can it be unconstitutional to deny someone citizenship when they, themselves, are the ones rejecting that  Constitution?  It is incredible ironic that they are using that very constitution that they don't want to pledge allegiance to to form the basis of their argument.   It is not up to a country to change the rules to suit the applicant.  As someone seeking to belong to a country you don't get to pick and choose what laws and parts you want to accept.  If you can not accept all of a country (which was chosen by the citizens in their constitution) then don't try to join.

[SophieChloe]

I find that very sad, MB - I really do.  My Country is full of people of many faiths and cultures and they also live by the laws of the land.  I will be very sad to find the day comes that they are not welcomed cause of some old lady living in BP.  However, the Conservatives would love that - Little Britain!  I often listen to speech radio and the favourite topic is usually Immigration - it's taking over the Country....blah, blah.  Takes peoples minds off those that continue to take.  I give up! x

[Macrobug]

I don't think that you are understanding my argument.  Canada welcomes all religions and cultures and they are free to practice those religions and cultures in Canada.  The very Constitution that they are rejecting ensures that.  But that is not the issue here.   In 1982 we adopted our very own constitution instead of the British one.  And Canadians chose to accept the Monarch of Canada to be our head of state.  And we acknowledged Queen Elizabeth to be that Monarch.  We could have chosen someone else.  If you remember last year when the line of succession was changed to  absolute primogeniture it was required that Canada agree.  What we were agreeing to was who would be in the line of succession to the Monarch of Canada, our head of State and the symbol of our constitution.   We could have chosen someone else.  (It would have triggered a constitutional crisis but hey...) 

These people want to change the constitution to suit themselves.  They want to reject the very thing that they apparently want to join.  A constitution that would ensure them, among other things,  the right to freedom of religion and multiculturalism. 

There is a whole of difference between the democracy of Canada and the totalitarian dictatorship of North Korea and I am rather saddened and shocked to think that you feel that they are the same. 

[PrincessOfPeace]

I agree MB. I like Canadians  :thumbsup:

"the Constitution cannot itself be unconstitutional," and one part of the Constitution can't be used to invalidate another part.

Says it all really.

[Curryong]

There won't ever come a day when people of different faiths aren't welcomed into Britain, SophieChloe.

As for the Queen, her title, Defender of the Faith, simply means in practical terms that she is head of the Church of England. I don't think the Queen is prejudiced at all against those of another religion. After all, her adult life has been devoted to the multi-nation, multi-faith Commonwealth, which she heads.

[Limabeany]

Calling herself defender of THE faith but she is for all faiths... It's like calling the UK a democracy while calling the people her subjects...

[Curryong]

The UK is a democracy, headed by a constitution monarch.

The Queen is a deeply religious woman. While the title Defender of the Faith was one given to her at her Coronation, I doubt very much that Elizabeth uses it to attack Roman Catholics, Methodists, Muslims, Hindus, Presbyterians, atheists or anybody else who lives in modern Britain.
Double post auto-merged: August 17, 2014, 02:53:47 AM

That should read constitutional monarchy!

[Limabeany]

And, yet it IS her title... And, the Canadian OATH TO HER is an oath to her, no?

[Macrobug]

No.  It is an oath to the symbol of the Canadian Constitution, the Head of State.  The Monarch of Canada is an institution more than a personal individual.  It encompass our laws, rights and responsibilities as Canadians.

You are taking it literally, like the defendants. Which is what the judge said is a mistake.   

They are not doing themselves any favours.  They are rejecting the very institution that will allow them to work towards change.  Our constitution allows for discussion and lobbying for making changes to the laws of the land. 

[In All I Do]

Stop all the outrage over challenging the oath to the Queen

he "Canada, love it or leave it" mob musters around news of some landed immigrants' legal challenge to the requirement that they swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen to obtain full citizenship.

Patriotic umbrage is expressed. People who don't like the existing rules shouldn't come here, goes the clamour.

Listen up, folks, Canada is a democracy. What distinguishes a democracy from authoritarian places like China, where you get sent to labour camps to be re-educated for complaining, is that healthy democracies welcome dissent.

Democracies have legal procedures to let people voice their objections to things as they are. And, in a democracy, anyone is free to use them without fear of punitive reactions from government, let alone baying mobs of the righteous.

Canada is a much better place because people commonly reviled as moral outcasts, social deviants, unappreciative clods, cultural ingrates and political fools have in the past challenged the accepted status quo.

McClung, was one of five women who in 1927 challenged Canadian law because it didn't define women as persons. At the time, many righteous citizens saw this as an ungrateful affront.

So before jumping on the jingoistic bandwagon of outrage over people challenging the oath to the Queen, remember that if it weren't for people questioning the way things had always been done and going to court to make their points, your country would be a nastier, more brutish place.

We'd still have a country in which women couldn't vote and were chattels of their fathers and husbands, within their legal right to give wives a sound thrashing every now and then to keep in check women's natural propensity for hysteria.

If the majority's assumptions always ruled, there'd still be a head tax on Chinese immigrants. It would be acceptable to discriminate against people for being black, Asian, aboriginal, female, gay, Jewish or disabled. Women on social assistance wouldn't be permitted to have male visitors in their homes. They wouldn't be permitted to obtain birth control. You wouldn't be permitted to read James Joyce or D.H. Lawrence. First Nations wouldn't be permitted to hire lawyers. The Nisga'a wouldn't have a treaty.

So, in Canada, it's acceptable that people question whether we should have another country's monarch as the head of state.

I want to address this, and only this: "And, in a democracy, anyone is free to use them without fear of punitive reactions from government, let alone baying mobs of the righteous."

No. In a democracy, anyone is free to use legal methods of dissent without fear of punitive reaction from government, certainly. But full stop there. The "baying mobs" have every right, within that same democracy, to be as righteous or as stupid or as opinionated as they want. To claim otherwise, in an article upholding the right of the claimants to bring the law suit in the first place, is sheer nonsense.

If Bob gets to sue to change the law, Barbara gets to think anything, say anything, demonstrate about anything she feels like about Bob's lawsuit within the scope of the law. The only thing she *doesn't* get to do is stop it from going forward.

Sorry, but the editorial team of the Vancouver Sun completely messed up that particular call.

[Limabeany]

In the Guardian article, the author says:

The court of appeal ruled that new citizens were not "literally" swearing allegiance to the Queen but "symbolically" to Canada's "form of government and the unwritten constitutional principle of democracy". ...why not offer a literal oath in lieu of a symbolic one? If the answer to this is that the Queen is an integral and indispensable part of Canada's form of government, then the oath is clearly not symbolic at all, but literal.

[PrincessOfPeace]

Canada is a great democracy and Canadians have decided this is the oath they want, its part of their constitution and now two courts, a lower court and an appeals court have ruled that Canadian citizenship comes with the Queen like it or not.

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen

At least Canadians are still in charge of their own affairs and don't have to follow the dictates of the unelected commissars in Brussels like the rest of us.

[tiaras]

I cant believe immigrants think they can complain , how about showing some respect for your future home  :no: