Canada Introduces Royal Succession Bill

My op-ed in today’s Ottawa Citizen compares the Royal Succession Bills of 2013 to the 1701 Act of Settlement. On Thursday January 31, the Canadian federal government bill introduced “An Act to Assent to Alterations in the Law Touching the Succession to the Throne” in the House of Commons. The wording and background of the bill has created political controversy because it implies that Canada is simply “assenting” to British legislation rather than crafting its own succession bill for an independent Canadian Crown. The precedent set by the Act of Settlement of 1701 demonstrates the difficulty of succession reform when the monarch is the Head of State of multiple countries. Click here to read the full article in the Ottawa Citizen