[radford-neal]

The Governor General does, and must, have real power. The King-Bing affair was controversial, but the Governor General's action was arguably justified, and negative opinions of it do not set a precedent that the Governor General can never do anything. The Governor general arguably should have taken a more active role in some recent times - when Paul Martin and Stephen Harper were trying to dodge (successfully, it turned out) votes of non-confidence, which have to be allowed in a democracy. Certainly, if the Prime Minister blatantly violates constitutional convention, such as by refusing to resign after losing the confidence of the House, it is necessary for the Governor General to dismiss them.

Since the Governor General must have real power, it follows that the Monarch must have real power regarding the appointment of the Governor General - rejecting the Prime Minister's request to dismiss or appoint a Governor General when this is clearly an attempt to fill the position with someone who will allow the Prime Minister to act non-democratically.

A dead person will not be able to fulfill this role.

[SonicScrub]

> Since the Governor General must have real power, it follows that the Monarch must have real power regarding the appointment of the Governor General - rejecting the Prime Minister's request to dismiss or appoint a Governor General when this is clearly an attempt to fill the position with someone who will allow the Prime Minister to act non-democratically.

Counter-hypothetical: what if the Monarch decided to act against the Prime Minister and appoint a Governor General to act against their mandate? Both your hypothetical and mine are incidents of "bad-behaviour" going against norms to push agendas. We would prefer were that neither were possible. However in your hypothetical at least the person exhibiting "bad-behaviour" (the Prime Minister) has some mandate given that they were democratically elected. Whereas in my hypothetical the person exhibiting "bad-behaviour" is an inherited position held by someone in lives in a far-away place and may have only set foot in the nation they are meddling in a handful of times.

In either situation we're accepting the risk of bad-faith actors manipulating the structures of power, but if we ditch the Monarch, at least the person doing so is in someway accountable to the people. Harper was successfully able to dodge a confidence vote, but in the end he was ousted from power in a democratic process. I'd argue that's the better scenario.

[radford-neal]

The difference between a bad-actor Prime Minister and a bad-actor Monarch is precisely that the latter, in today's world, clearly has no legitimacy outside of enforcing well-established norms. So a Monarch appointing their unelected friend as Governor General, contrary to the Prime Minister's wishes, would simply result in an extra-legal declaration that the country is now a republic, or possibly that the Monarch is now the next person in line of succession (ie, forced abdication, again, extra-legal). In contrast, a Prime Minister who tells the Monarch to dismiss the Governor General and appoint their friend as Governor General instead, after loosing a confidence vote and refusing to resign, will presumably have the backing of some segment of the population (unless they're just insane), and hence will be much more dangerous, if the Monarch declines to exercise their power to refuse this request.

[SonicScrub]

I do not think it is a good idea to assume that a Monarch will always be viewed as having no legitimacy outside of enforcing established norms. While that is certainly the case now, I would not want to rely on that being true forever. After which we would have to rely on benevolence (or perhaps indifference) of undemocratic executive power.

Could we not solve the problem of the PM appointing a lackey as Governor General with other form of check-and-balance that requires zero input from individuals with no connections to a democratic process? Perhaps a similar way that Supreme Court Justices are appointed (candidates recommended by the Prime Minister and approved by the federal cabinet). While not immune to abuses of power, I would like this better than a Monarch being that check-and-balance.