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Originally Posted by BretttheRiderFan

Keep the monarchy

Change the rule of succesion, so that the crown goes to the first born of the monarch, not necessarily the first male born.

The UK has been trying to get the other realms to do that, but obviously not very hard. I think they want all the realms to recognize it that way when they recognize Prince Charles as King.

Originally Posted by DizzyEdge

Although that brings up a point, could those roles simply be taken up by the Courts?

They're too slow to act. You need someone who understands precedent, because unlike the US, many aspects of our constitution aren't codified, they're simply tradition and precedent that must be learned and understood by people in positions of authority.

Although given some choices of Governor General and Lieutenant Governor in the past 25 years, I'm not sure if that is entirely important. Part of the cost of those positions is in having staff to research what to do in certain scenarios if they come up, but you'd still need someone to make and execute a decision. Every government has an executive branch and chief executive.

Originally Posted by ToxiK

Or by anything else that isn't related to the British Crown. It could be a high civil servant trained for that job (in theory, it would be better because a civil servant works for the public while a Lieutenant-Governor works for the Crown).

But these days, it is considered that the Crown also works for the public. When you consider that Prince William basically can't be anything but king, in a way it is the ultimate civil service.

Originally Posted by GDS

No its not - there is no reason to assume that an equivalent is required.

When a law is passed, you need someone in a position of authority to execute that law. That is what a president or governor does.

Minnesota is not led by "Head Civil Servant Jane Smith". It is lead by "The Governor of Minnesota".

Originally Posted by GDS

A lean version of a GG that does not travel abroad would greatly reduce personnel, rcmp and dnd costs.

Yes, and Barack Obama would be cheaper if he didn't travel, too.

Originally Posted by GDS

Moreover, the link you provided lists 16 million in Program expenditures without giving any indication as to what that is and how it is broken down. Pretty half assed when that represents 85% of the GG budget - I have a hard time believing there is no waste in that.

Governors have programmes too. Mike Huckabee had his "let's all get healthy" project when he was Alabama governor. That came out of his Governor budget. Abolishing the monarchy and its viceroys won't change those kinds of things. Actually, since I can't think of any equivalents in Canada, these pet projects would likely make the executive branch more expensive.

Originally Posted by Dado

You might be able to get away without having equivalents to the LGs by making the GG or its replacement do all the duties of the LGs, but that would seem to come with increased travel costs and less time for ceremonial activities like the awarding of various honours.

It would cause problems with throne speeches as well. All the provinces have them, too, and since they're all switching to fixed election dates in the fall, their throne speeches will be falling on similar dates. October/November will be a very busy, cross country expedition for an overarching Governor General.

Also, the Crown is considered to apply to the provinces separate of the Federal Government. Technically, the Queen is also Queen of Ontario, Queen of Alberta, etc. The same viceroy can't represent 11 monarchs.

Also, the viceroy must be up-to-date on the government activity. But then, the Queen stays up to date on the activities of 16 realms while Canada only has 11 equivalents.