To be or not to be Royal...that is the question.

[Scott]

Neill, Gino, get off your high horses and realize that everyone is entitled to their opinion.

I happen to think that we should just call the Navy something like Armand, that will piss everyone off and thus will cause little argument.

To your corners for a while.

 

[Michael OLeary]

This would be a perfect initiative for the Navy's Centennial. 

If the time and energy expended on this thread had been put into drafting a service paper suggesting it for the Centennial, and then asking for advice in staffing and submission - the "initiative" might already be in motion.

Just some food for thought.

 

[Scott]

OK, you've all had some time to reflect, I am going to re-open this. It should be noted though that it will disappear again at the first sign of trouble.

Enjoy.

 

[Gino]

If the time and energy expended on this thread had been put into drafting a service paper suggesting it for the Centennial, and then asking for advice in staffing and submission - the "initiative" might already be in motion.

Just some food for thought.

It has been brought up at the Centennial Working Group.  I'm told by reliable sources that members turned white as sheets and started making dashes for the exits.  Not auspicious.  As suggested earlier, getting some key politicians on side would probably be the most effective route.

 

[warrickdll]

To understand why we think Royal is a good thing in Canada you have to understand that there is such a thing as a Queen of Canada.  The Queen of the UK is not the same thing -- they're two separate offices.  While the same individual holds both jobs (and fourteen or so others), Canada is constitutionally separate from the UK.

If that makes sense to you, or you feel that it should not be contested, then I will not try to convince anyone otherwise in this thread.

Having a Queen doesn't make us a colony, and there's nothing British about being Royal Canadian any more than there is about being Royal Norwegian.

Check out the Norwegian Monarch's site http://www.kongehuset.no/default.asp?lang=eng for how the Norwegians handled the problem in 1905 when becoming independent.

The Swedish navy's website (http://www.marinen.mil.se/) seems to indicate that the Swedes do not now refer to their navy as "Royal", but just "Navy" (in Swedish though), but their ships use HMS as a prefix. The Royal Norwegian Navy uses KNM (Norwegian abbreviation for Royal Norwegian Navy) as the ship's prefix. There is a prefix list at wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_prefix) and there are similar ones at other free sites.

Some "Royal" navies (e.g. the moarchies of the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway), when writing in English, use the convention R(nation)N and H(nation)MS. Compare that to the former colonial navies HM(nation)S. Perhaps it should have been the CRN (Canadian Royal Navy) or the RN of C. If someone is advocating for RCN then maybe they should advocate for HCMS vice HMCS.

Nor is it a language issue -- the Queen speaks French as well as English, and the Crown's institutions are bilingual.

I'm going to guess that the Queen would have been taught French regardless of Canada's official languages.


Back to "Royal":

It has been brought up at the Centennial Working Group.  I'm told by reliable sources that members turned white as sheets and started making dashes for the exits.  Not auspicious.  As suggested earlier, getting some key politicians on side would probably be the most effective route.

Maybe you can skip all that and just go to the Canadian Heritage website and convince them (http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/progs/cpsc-ccsp/fr-rf/criter_e.cfm) .

Criteria for Prefix "Royal"
Criteria applied by the Department of Canadian Heritage in studying requests and preparing the advice to the Governor General:

An association or organization has to be

1. of pre-eminence in its field;
2. in a secure financial position;
3. established for 25 years (approx);
4. devoted to artistic, scientific and charitable objects;
5. a non-profit organization under the Income Tax Act; and
6. its services being provided on at least a regional basis.


Requests should be sent to:

Office of the Governor General
1 Sussex Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A1

 

[Gino]

My final words on the subject (in this thread) and let me preface it all with IMHO:

Some people obviously felt I came on too strong in this thread and in going back over my posts I feel perhaps they have a point.  If any of my retorts have been "ad hominem", then I apologize.  That being said, I don't believe my detractors have been without blame, either.

WRT to the lengthy post about this all being opinion.  Of course it is, and as we all know, opinions are like arseholes; everyone's got one, and they all think theirs is pretty good.  When it comes to opinions, most people tend to rationalize their already firmly held beliefs with a set of gathered facts, whether they're willing to admit it or not.

I have spent over 25 years in the service of the Queen, Canada and the Navy.  I know most people in the CF don't really think much about their oath of allegiance and its implications, but I take in quite seriously and literally.  So you will perhaps forgive me if I tend to react a little strongly when the monarchy is criticized.  I also feel the same about the customs and traditions of the Naval Service.  I think that the onus is on any who wish to change them to prove that there is a real and demonstrable value in doing so.  I suppose you could say the same thing about a change back to RCN, but most people I talk to today seem to agree that Unification was a huge mistake.  I know we can't put the genie back in the bottle, and we'll never return to the same service we had before (and in some ways this is a good thing), but perhaps we can keep trying to alleviate some of the most severe damage to service pride and identity that occurred.

 

[Old_navy_062]

My final words on the subject (in this thread) and let me preface it all with IMHO:

Some people obviously felt I came on too strong in this thread and in going back over my posts I feel perhaps they have a point.  If any of my retorts have been "ad hominem", then I apologize.  That being said, I don't believe my detractors have been without blame, either.

WRT to the lengthy post about this all being opinion.  Of course it is, and as we all know, opinions are like arseholes; everyone's got one, and they all think theirs is pretty good.  When it comes to opinions, most people tend to rationalize their already firmly held beliefs with a set of gathered facts, whether they're willing to admit it or not.

I have spent over 25 years in the service of the Queen, Canada and the Navy.  I know most people in the CF don't really think much about their oath of allegiance and its implications, but I take in quite seriously and literally.  So you will perhaps forgive me if I tend to react a little strongly when the monarchy is criticized.  I also feel the same about the customs and traditions of the Naval Service.  I think that the onus is on any who wish to change them to prove that there is a real and demonstrable value in doing so.  I suppose you could say the same thing about a change back to RCN, but most people I talk to today seem to agree that Unification was a huge mistake.  I know we can't put the genie back in the bottle, and we'll never return to the same service we had before (and in some ways this is a good thing), but perhaps we can keep trying to alleviate some of the most severe damage to service pride and identity that occurred.

Well said Gino. I don't think that "ROYAL" should offend anyone that has sworn their oath of allegiance.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Here we go again.... :

 

[Kat Stevens]

Stick a fork in it, I think it's done...

 

[Michael OLeary]

http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/39670/post-348808.html#msg348808

I think we're done here for now.  If you have something truly significant to add that isn't already here in the past nine pages, please contact a Mod.