Did You Know Justin Trudeau Swore an Oath To Queen Elizabeth?

Did you think Canada was a free, sovereign nation?

Wrong!

I’m not making this up folks, you can watch it for yourself.

When a Canadian Prime Minister is sworn into office, they don’t take an oath to their Constitution or even to the people of Canada….nope, they take an oath to Queen Elizabeth!

Mind blown?

Watch it for yourself:

Here’s more on the story, from NowToronto:

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The ABCs on the Oath of Allegiance: a declaration of loyalty to the monarch

What it says “I, … do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. So help me God.”

Canadians who have publicly rejected the oath Victoria’s new mayor, Lisa Helps, who faced an onslaught of angry emails. She admits to not being a “big fan” of the monarchy but explained, “I work closely with local First Nations, and I think to honour that work and the process of decolonization, I couldn’t in good faith take this voluntary oath.” More than half the city’s nine-member council followed Helps’ lead in refusing to take the oath. Councillor Ben Isitt stated on his website. “As a Canadian and British citizen, I think democracy works best when it flows from the bottom up, firmly rooted in a mandate from the people with unwavering respect for human rights.”

What the experts say “There are some people who don’t believe in monarchy and think that it’s anachronistic that, in this day and age, we still swear an allegiance to a rich old lady in another country.” Dennis M. Pilon, associate professor of political science at York University, who notes that we didn’t have Canadian citizenship until the 1950s and God Save the Queen was our national anthem until the 1960s.

Is the oath merely symbolic? Gary Levy, a fellow in Canadian Parliamentary Democracy at Ottawa’s Carleton University, offers that even if the oath were modified from declaring loyalty to the monarchy to Canada and it’s people, it would ultimately mean the same thing. “The crown is the symbol of Canada,” he says. “Sovereignty is with the crown and it’s a concept that forms the basis of our whole system of government.”

In the early 1990s Toronto lawyer and activist Charles Roach argued in Federal Court that the Canadian Oath of Citizenship violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms by forcing new citizens to swear an allegiance to the monarch. His case was struck down on four separate times. The Federal Court ruled that allegiance to the Queen was “a solemn intention to adhere to the symbolic keystone of the Canadian Constitution, thus pledging an acceptance of the whole of our Constitution and national life.” However, the judge in the case also found that “It may be argued that it strikes at the very heart of democracy to curtail collective opposition and incentive for change by demanding loyalty to a particular political theory.”