Summary

Dawson City in Canada is facing a crisis as the new mayor and councillors won’t take the required oath of allegiance to King Charles.

They refused in support of an Indigenous councillor who opposes the oath due to the Crown’s history with Indigenous people.

Without the oath, their election could be canceled, and they can’t make official decisions.

The council has asked for a different oath, but Yukon law requires the pledge. Authorities are now looking into the situation.

      • otp
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        3 days ago

        Visit the monarchy: Expensive, once-in-a-lifetime experience

        Visit God: Literally dead.

    • mack7400@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      I’m jelly of Americans, who will never have to deal with that bullshit. Nope, not at all!

      • explodicle
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        4 days ago

        Hey now, pledging allegiance to an inanimate object makes way more sense.

        • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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          4 days ago

          …By a country that largely claims to follow a belief system wherein it is explicitly and plainly laid out: “Don’t swear oaths (Matthew 5:34). Don’t make idols / worship images or objects.” (The second commandment)

          Anerican patriotism is a cult lifestyle brand.

        • Furbag@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Not just an inanimate object - an idea that that object is meant to represent! We’re about one level of abstraction away from the pledge of allegiance becoming a meaningless mantra of words with no meaning or relation to one another strung together to make a pretty song that is always sung off-key by grade school children.

          • redhorsejacket@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            I mean bag on the pledge of allegiance all you like, but using the flag as a synecdoche of the nation as a whole doesn’t seem like it is as great a leap of logic as you are making it out to be.

    • Tuxman
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      3 days ago

      Well…. If anything happens, you can always say that « God told you to do it » and you have a federally approved oath to prove you must obey

  • [email protected]A
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    5 days ago

    Québec has gotten rid of the royal oath requirement, surely Yukon can think of something.

    • BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      I am only a Canadian, and not a Canadian lawyer, but I don’t think it will be as simple for Yukon. The biggest reason I can think of is that Yukon is a territory, and not a province, and so has different constitutional standing. From the government webpage:

      There is a clear constitutional distinction between provinces and territories. While provinces exercise constitutional powers in their own right, the territories exercise delegated powers under the authority of the Parliament of Canada.

      I’m not saying it isn’t possible, just that the same legal maneuvers Quebec used may not be applicable.

      • [email protected]A
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        3 days ago

        Yea it’s likely more complicated for them.
        The whole thing is bullshit if you ask me and territories should be on equal footing with provinces.
        The royal oath should be abolished country wide.

      • enkers
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        4 days ago

        Also, doesn’t Québec have some special considerations above the rest of the provinces? I seem to recall we deigned them a ‘nation within a nation’ or some such back in the mid 00’s. I’m not sure if there were any legal ramifications to that, though.

        • BenVimes@lemmy.ca
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          They might, but I can’t say for certain. I didn’t mention it because, again, I’m not a Canadian lawyer, and the basic info on provinces vs territories was far more accessible.

          • HellsBelle
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            Quebec law is unique in Canada because Quebec is the only province in Canada to have a juridical legal system under which civil matters are regulated by French-heritage civil law. Public law, criminal law and federal law operate according to Canadian common law.

            https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_law

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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    5 days ago

    Monarchism is a anarchronism and should have been thrown out with the rest of English colonialism. I am annoyed as fuck that I had to apply to “His Majesty’s Passport Office” for my passport.

    • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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      5 days ago

      Sorry, when did we throw out colonialism? We’re still doing it just as hard as ever.

      • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        It’s not 100% over, but claiming is going just a strong as ever is a bit hard to swallow given that the UK was once the world’s largest empire.

        • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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          4 days ago

          Colonialism has changed significantly, but it has only grown in terms of net value being transferred from natural and human resources into private ownership. Governance in Canada is still based around the needs of capital with a thin veneer of humanism to give the air of credibility.

          (For clarity, I am approaching this as a resident of Canada, I imagine the perspective is different from someone in the UK who feels that they missed out on the British Empire.)

          • frazorth@feddit.uk
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            4 days ago

            Not in the slightest.

            The monarchy only has a 50% approval rating here, and that is only because Lizzy played the game of appearing nice and having a lot of PR.

            Her kids and grandkids are fucking needy arseholes that should be fired out of a cannon. Can we send them to Ukraine instead of missiles?

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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        5 days ago

        You’re not wrong. But I was talking about the era in the 1960s when Britain shrank substantially by giving up so many overseas territories.

    • Flax@feddit.uk
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      You’re literally British, unless you’re Canadian as well

  • dipcart@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    I really hope this is able to set a precedent. Would be great to not inflict this guy on people.

    • buttfarts@lemy.lol
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      4 days ago

      As a Canadian I say send them to the stocks until they learn fealty to the king!

      • dipcart@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        You make a compelling argument I hadn’t considered. I will, however, counter by saying we should have a Kaiser instead.

    • otp
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      3 days ago

      But we like tea.

      And harbours.

  • smokebuddy [he/him]@lemmy.today
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    4 days ago

    When I took a job at a Federal Agency I had the choice of swearing to God or the Queen. I choose the Queen, most chose God, I haven’t seen that aspect in any of the reporting so I wonder if it’s the same, but if so, incredibly based.

    • Nuke_the_whales@lemmy.world
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      When becoming a citizen I was asked to do either as well. I straight up refused and the judge wasn’t up for arguing so he just let me win.

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      It sounds like republican* atheists are not allowed to make an honest oath. If you have to swear on something that you don’t believe in, what value does that oath have?

      • Not the usa party kind, but the ones who want an elected head of state instead of a hereditary one.
  • Eiri@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    Weren’t people a bit more positive about monarchy back when Elizabeth II was alive? I feel like she had a sort of mystique that made her feel more legit for some reason.

      • As it says in that article, the hush money payments are strictly rumours. First Elisabeth supposedly did it, then Charles suddenly got a role in it too. The only source appears to be an anti-monarchy group, so not sure exactly how reliable that is (afaik the Daily Telegraph and the Sun published the accusations, and we all know how reliable they are).

        We do know for a fact Charles stripped Andrew of his remaining royal duties, fully cut the money he receives from the monarchy (no wage and no money for protection anymore) and is trying to get him out of his current home, but apparently there’s legal reasons making that difficult to do. He’s a lot harder on Andrew than Elisabeth was.

        And while he used to be quite political before he became king, he mostly stopped after he was coronated. That, as far as I know, got him more critique, because he mostly lobbied in favour of green policies against climate change.

      • palordrolap@fedia.io
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        Rumour has it that Charles is incredibly angry about the whole thing and Andrew is very much in danger of being cut off completely if he doesn’t keep his head down, so while Charles has paid people off, he has not forgiven or forgotten.

        There’s also that he wasn’t king at the time he made those payments and may have been protecting their mother rather than his brother at the time. Andrew, idiot though he is, was the Queen’s favourite.

        Had the Queen already been dead and Charles been king at the time the news broke, he might well have let Andrew suffer the consequences.

        • Maalus@lemmy.world
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          Uh huh, but then he paid hush money. But he is angry! He is furious about “the whole thing”.

          Dude, come on.

            • Maalus@lemmy.world
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              The rumor and further theorizing that had he been king during the “whole thing” he would’ve punished him somehow, makes you seem sympathetic instead of acknowledging that hush money was paid, he is still part of the “family” and isn’t in jail when he should be.

    • catloaf@lemm.ee
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      She was more relatable. She had corgis. She loved cows. She was an ambulance driver and mechanic during WWII. Nobody likes Charles.

    • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      The Queen’s face and name has been on everything for decades. There are Canadians in their 70s who never knew anything different. That’s just the way things were. It was tradition. That’s how I saw it anyways. Anyone who complained about it was just complaining about a symbolic action we’ve all been doing for generations. Nobody is actually swearing their life to the queen–it’s just a tradition. Then she died.

      Now some random old guy’s face and name is going to be on everything. If we’re going to change everything anyways, then why not change it to something different? The argument that was seen as a small complaint before now makes a lot of sense. If we’re changing the words to our oath anyways, then why not change them to words we can all agree on?

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      Well, the current edgelords were still in middle school too.

      It’s cool now to blame the son for the rumoured sins of the grandfather, so it’s empowering for people needing virtue to signal.

      • OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe@lemmy.world
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        Rumored? Nah friend, there’s enough evidence to believe the majority of the rumors. And nobody is saying Charles killed the kids or raped the villagers, they’re saying he benefits from a dynasty and wealth built on the backs of those people, and so deserves no respect or allegiance. And that’s outside of the fact that the monarchy means fuck-all to Canada at this point. In Britain, at the seat of their power? Sure, maybe. But across the pond where the culture, people, laws, food, history are different? Fuck the crown and anyone with an ordained ‘right’ to rule.

  • rabber@lemmy.ca
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    4 days ago

    Dawson city is so based. Toyed with the idea of moving there for years