this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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The King-Byng affair was in a different time when the Governor General was someone from the UK. So British person overruling the Canadian Prime Minister was a big part of the controversy there.
Now that the Governor General is Canadian it's kind of a nothing burger. A ceremonial position appointed by the PM. The Julie Payette situation was the only time there's been any potential for anyone outside of the country might have to do something and that would've only been if Trudeau asked the Queen to fire her. But it didn't come to that so whatever.
You're a lawyer so you're going to have a tendency to think about hypotheticals about things that aren't codified into law. But right now we're all witnessing the US that has all kinds of protections against these kinds of hypotheticals just ignore those laws. Hypothetically a US President couldn't abuse power and be completely corrupt because he'd be impeached. The laws say so. But that isn't happening.
It's obvious now that the only protection against tyranny is the will of the people. If the King abused his position, we would remove the King from power. Unless we lacked the will to do that. If the King knows he'd be removed from his position if he abuses that position he won't abuse his position since he doesn't want to be the guy that ends the monarchy. Right now, no one in the US is being prosecuted for Epstein stuff despite their laws. The brother of the King is being prosecuted.
We see a republic where there's basically an aristocracy that's above the law and we see a monarchy where the King's brother is being prosecuted. As a lawyer do you think evidence from the real world is stronger than hypotheticals?
Seems to me it doesn't really matter what you put into the laws, if the will of the population is weak, the law will be ignored. In the end you have no choice but to trust the people when these hypotheticals arise.
I see what you mean about the optics of the governor general being Canadian, but legally they’re still bound to do what the monarch says, and the monarch is not bound to do what parliament says! Like, for example, if the UK wanted to drag us into a war, some Canadians might be keen…even if it’s a minority, if the governor general were one of them, we’d either be going or have a conditional crisis on our hands.
You’re right, of course…what’s going on in the US does show the flimsiness of “western liberal democracies” in the face of fascist tactics. When push comes to shove constitutions and laws are words on paper (and Canada relies on many norms that are not even that!) and they only matter if everyone with power agrees they matter.
On paper, the US has much more robust rights in respect of their government than Canada does, but to your point, that has obviously not lead to a more society with less government overreach!
So I basically agree, I think it’s not right to say it’s all completely meaningless though. Like…there may well be things that the king could do to abuse his power for which we wouldn’t have the will to remove the king from power. I guess that’s my point; let’s do it on principal first. I don’t see any reason to leave the letter of the law in a shitty place (and it doesn’t seem you disagree that having a king is shitty) just because outright fascists would ignore it if they came to power. Little fascists may be stopped, non-fascists may find their path smoother, etc.
That said, if you’re thinking the accelerationist approach of “let adversity harden the will of the people, and we’ll build a new world in the ashes of the old” then hey, more power to ya. Sign me up for the mailing list =P
If the King overstepped, there would just be no more King.
If the King did anything in your hypotheicals, we'd just say "the King is not of sound mind" and either the King would have to abdicate, or we'd elminate the monarchy. No rational King wants to be the one to end the monarchy, and since any action by the King would result in the end of the monarchy, any action by the King would therefore is automatically considered the actions of someone not of sound mind, and therefore should be ignored. If the King didn't abdicate due to no longer being of sound mind, we'd end the monarchy.
The population having a strong will doesn't mean we're going to break out a guillotine or whatever. It just means being willing to vote, protest, call your MP, etc. It means actually caring about the institution of democracy. If it came down to the King saying one thing, and the parliament saying the opposite, which would the people consider legitimate? Maybe a lawyer could argue that the King's orders are technically legitimate, but if people care about democracy, they can just ignore the legalisms. That's how it goes in a constitutional crisis.
Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it's not lawyers that protect us from tyrants. It's just having an educated population that won't accept tyranny. Americans, are accepting of tyranny, so they're descending into tyranny. There's nothing lawyers can do to stop it, because the lawyers on the Supreme court, the lawyers in the DOJ, and the laywers in the GOP are going along with it. The law doesn't prevent tyranny it's people not willing to go along with tyranny that prevents it.
We have a King and we won't go along with the King's commands unless they come from parliament. We're aware of the King we know who he is, we know what to watch for. Americans didn't have a King, but they made their President into a Kings. Most of them don't even know it happened because they didn't know what to look out for. They know the President has power, but don't know which powers he should and shouldn't have.
We have a King and we know what power he should have: none.
I think I must not be making my point clearly.
You say “if the king oversteps” and my point about law and norms and all that is that they shape perception about whether a particular thing is overstepping. Lawyers don’t usually protect us from tyranny, lawyers usually enforce tyranny; it’s just the kind of tyranny that is commonly accepted. And that acceptance matters…because people think it does, sure.
I think you have a very idealistic understanding of what we call democracy these days…if a 60/40 split happened like I talked about earlier came up, you think there would be mass mobilization? You think Canadians have stronger political convictions than folks in the US? I dont…Canadians seem to love to not care about Canadian politics…disinterest in politics seems to be a point of pride to differentiate themselves from those annoying Americans. And it’s way worse than 60/40 there and just look at the place. It’s a mess.
You say you think the king should have no power and everyone knows it but the commander in chief of your military is a direct personal appointee who serves at their pleasure.
A crisis doesn’t occur without a context…it would be about something, and certainly something that one side thinks it can win on. I think you imagine any constitutional crisis would be immediately and unanimously handled in a democratic manner by everyone involved, no matter their interest in the underlying matter that lead to the crisis…we’d just all be on-side and do the right thing…I think that is extraordinarily naive!