John Robson: The Oath of True Allegiance Is About Upholding the Rule of Law, in Quebec and Everywhere

The three empty seats that would be occupied by the three Parti Quebecois elected MNAs during question period at the legislature in Quebec City on Dec. 1, 2022. The MNAs were refused entrance to the Salon Bleu because they refused to swear an oath of allegiance to the King. The Canadian Press/Jacques Boissinot

Commentary

The latest Quebec political snit over MNAs swearing allegiance to the Canadian monarch is part of a long-standing charade. It tempted me to reprint my 1996 Gravitas article scorning federal citizenship minister Lucienne Robillard’s musing about ditching the Queen from Canada’s citizenship oath “in line with the reality of Canada and the fact that we’re heading into the 21st century and also that we want to reinforce our Canadian identity.” But things have gotten sufficiently worse that I have something to add about the dangerous way anarchy in the intellect brings anarchy in the Commonwealth.

As I complained in 1996, Robillard’s babble “elevates make-believe to the leading principle of our public policy.” The “reality of Canada” and our “identity,” then and now, is that we are a monarchy. And while people who think Canada should not be a monarchy, or Quebec should not be part of whatever Canada is, have legal ways to revise our Constitution or take their ballon and go straight maîtres chez eux, it was absurd just to pretend it happened instead.

It still is. We have staggered into the 21st century, and the Quebec separatists currently seeking to pledge allegiance to the lint in their navels don’t seem keen on reinforcing anyone’s “Canadian identity.” But the fundamental issues remain: Do we live under the rule of law or not, and do we live in reality or not?

Increasingly we do not do either, because ideas have consequences. Including senior public figures declaring it legitimate to obey what the Emergencies Act ought to say, not what it does say.

Today, also, Quebec legislators swear a very British oath of allegiance to the monarch then a very French contradictory one to Rousseau’s General Will. First “I, (name of the MNA), do swear [solemnly declare] that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles the Third.” And then “I, (name of the MNA), declare under oath that I will be loyal to the people of Québec and that I will perform the duties of Member honestly and justly in conformity with the constitution of Québec.” And the sovereigntists only want to swear the latter.

The Quebec gutter press and other cheap-shot artists like to refer to the “King of England” or some such. But of course we do not and would not pledge allegiance to a foreign monarch. Charles is King of Canada. And while it would be naive to expect elected representatives to understand our system of government in the 21st century, their oath is not a promise to do whatever some toff who doesn’t squeeze his own toothpaste suggests. Rather, they swear allegiance to the locus of legitimate authority, that is, to uphold the rule of law.

This pledge of “true allegiance” embodies a vital principle of our constitutional law, inherited from Britain, that “the Crown can do no wrong.” It is easily misunderstood, especially if you escaped some ugly political tradition, as legitimizing “I was just following orders” as a defence. But actually it does the opposite.

In the Anglosphere, illegal state instructions literally do not exist. If King Charles texted “blow up a pipeline” and you did, courts would treat you as the source as well as agent of that command. “True allegiance” is to lawful orders and those alone.

Now consider that second oath. What rule of law does it bind you to accept? Since there is no such document as the “Quebec constitution,” while the “popular will” is notoriously difficult to determine and habitually brings instead a reign of terror or a man on horseback.

It eerily resembles Plekhanov’s 1903 “The safety of the revolution is the supreme law” under which Bolshevik authorities could do no wrong in the worst sense of that phrase, and did. Suppose the “people of Quebec” need you to scale the CN Tower to obstruct fossil fuels, blockade coal ports, or blow up a pipeline. Is it lawful?

In 1996 I wrote of such postmodern relativism: “Instead of reflecting Constitutional reality, the oath is to become nothing more than a therapeutic vehicle for making us feel good about ourselves.” But as I warned of such quackery, “the real pledge isn’t so much to one’s fantasy as it is to the ego that fantasizes it.” It’s a brazen promise to ignore the rule of law and vexing realities like other people’s rights.

Such a view takes us not forward to the 22nd century. (Again “I see your 21st century and I raise you one!”) It points back to French absolutism, or ahead to worse.

So, as in 1996, if a majority of Quebeckers wish lawfully to secede and create some People’s Republic of Absurdistan, we really must permit that dangerous folly. But to indulge their pre-emptive make-believe is to commit culpable idiocy ourselves.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.