You Must Pledge Allegiance to Your New Master
There is an old saying (biblical I think) “you can’t serve two masters” and in the shell game called “nation states” where citizens are traded like poker chips, called “collateral damage” when killed in war and if you switch “teams” (nations) you have to pledge allegiance to your new master (head of state).
In Canada that apparently is the Queen, you know, Lizzy. A few years ago public servants had to pledge allegiance to Her (many public servants are now employees of corporate agencies) and still today all federal MP’s are required to pledge allegiance to Her or they do not get to hold the office they were elected to.
Becoming a citizen requires an oath/ pledge of allegiance to Her too:
The Citizenship Act requires applicants for citizenship to swear or affirm they will be “faithful and bear true allegiance to Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors.”
So an oath to Her “they” treat as rather important.
There have been a couple of unsuccessful challenges to the federal MP oath (could not even just add a reference to Canada or to their constituents).
There was a most recent challenge to the requirement to pledge an oath of allegiance to become a Canadian citizen…which failed.
Some folks thought it was improper and a violation of their rights to require an on oath of allegiance to some distant Monarch but the Supreme Court of Canada said effectively, “even though it violates your right to free speech (forcing you to say/agree with something you do not agree with) it is an allowable infringement under the Charter”.
Required Oath to Queen for new Canadians constitutional, court rules – Yahoo News Canada
TORONTO – Forcing would-be Canadians to take an oath to the Queen as a condition of citizenship is constitutional, even if it does violate free-speech rights, an Ontario court ruled Friday…..
PDF version of article – Required Oath to Queen for new Canadians
Hmmmm.
Does that create TWO types of citizens?
Those born in Canada do not have to pledge allegiance (unless claiming/accepting a public office in Her service) so is it a presumed allegiance or what?
“New” citizens. immigrants, are required by law to pledge allegiance to become a citizen.
So some citizens have a legally documented allegiance to Her and some don’t. Does that create s legal distinction?
In 1993 the B.C. law society had a SINGLE member complain that he thought that being required to swear an oath of allegiance to Her infringed on his rights and POOF all lawyers in B.C. (other provinces too?) no longer swear an oath of allegiance to Her if they choose not to. Of course Law Societies are a private, self regulated societies…. hmmmm.
see a post about the lawyers oath of allegiance ending: click here
In 1947-48 Canadian’s were British “subjects” but the incoming U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR Dec. 1948) kinda required a “release” from being a “subject” to a “higher” legal status of “citizen” to avoid the potentially embarrassing situation of having millions of people in subjecation when human rights hit the world stage.
So it seems, you can be sort of free but you only can live where you are permitted to by some Monarch, tyrant, dictator, bureaucracy… IF you ask with the proper FORM and pledge allegiance to the society’s head.
Each “nation state” apparently claims ownership of “their” land and the right to permit you to live on it only when they say so and IF you bow down to them.
We’ve come a long way….or have we?
The idea of the nation state being a less than ideal “state” of things can be further explored on Marc Stevens’ “The No State Project” and Gary Davis’ World Citizenship
What do you think?
we are going to see this more and more the thing is that people are use the wrong argument in court or what court to go to this is a constitution changes all the way freedom of association(Freedom of association is the individual right to come together with other individuals and collectively express, promote, pursue) case Roach v. Canada (Attorney General), 2012 ONSC 3521 (CanLII), retrieved on 2013-10-02 (http://canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2012/2012onsc3521/2012onsc3521.html?searchUrlHash=AAAAAQANQ2hhcmxlcyBSb2FjaAAAAAAB) website
The plaintiffs challenge the constitutionality of the oath that applicants for Canadian citizenship are required to swear, or affirm, pursuant to s. 24 of the Citizenship Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-29. The form of the oath, as contained in the schedule to the statute, is as follows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nfMSCwvYBrk#t=183