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According to Dan Garnder of CanWest News, the Governor General's office has a secret plot to overthrow the Queen as the head of state. As he says,
What is not to be found on the website of the Queen's representative is a single picture of the Queen... The sentiment couldn't be plainer. To those who created and approved the website, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of Canada, is nothing more than a legal technicality the lawyers say ya gotta mention. So she's in the fine print, along with "Must be 18 years or older to enter. No purchase necessary. Offer void in Newfoundland."
He also cites the absence of prominent royal portraits in Rideau Hall. He blames not just Michaëlle Jean, but previous GG's including Adrienne Clarkson and Jeanne Sauve, and insinuates their staff are probably involved. The plan, apparently, is
When we have forgotten that we have a monarch, and the Queen has been rendered a constitutional dead letter, the Governor-General will cease to act as head of state in the Queen's absence.
She will simply be head of state."
Now, I'm personally all for bringing the head of state into Canada, especially since there will come a day when Elizabeth dies or abdicates, and everything will be changing then, anyways. I figure rather than spend a bunch of time minting money with Charles's bust and re-writing documents to read "His Royal Majesty," we may as well go all out and find a homegrown symbol for our head of state. Will it be the Governor General? Gardner worries this would "unbalance federalism" by making the Governor General the "superior" of provincial lieutenant governors, but since they're all symbolic anyways, does it really matter?
The problems I see are placing too much authority, symbolic or otherwise, in an office that is appointed by an elected official and that changes hands at least once a decade. The point of a head of state, in my mind, is to provide a consistent symbol for the country that exists outside the political field. The problems that arise from not having this can be seen in various forms, from the extreme of dictatorships (where a leader like Mao or Stalin is absolutely infallible) to the minor (such as the United States, where some people get upset if someone criticizes the President, seeing it as a criticism of his station as head of state, and by extension, of the USA).
But if these problems can be overcome, I would love to have the person in whom all symbolic authority is vested reside within, rather than outside of, Canada. It would be a big step towards the ultimate decolonization of the Canadian identity. So to Michaëlle Jean and the apparent abundance of co-conspirators walking the secret corridors of power throughout Ottawa in a bid to overthrow the Monarchy once and for all-- good luck in your high-class revolution. And to Mr. Gardner, who unveiled this far-reaching, multigenerational "stealth campaign"-- well, good luck. You're going to need it.
