Talk:List of Canadian monarchs/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Accuracy

There is little in this article that won't mislead readers: the first sentence ("Canada has been a monarchy since 1534"), the second sentence ("there have been 33 monarchs of Canada"), the third sentence ("first under the kings of France, then under the British") when combined with the second ("what came to be known as Canada was first claimed in the name of King Henry VII"). All the sources originating from the Canadian government or crown are unreliable. None of them are "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", like WP:RS demands. I agree with the points made by User:Surtsicna and User:JWULTRABLIZZARD above. Where is our article on Louisiana's monarchs? And why doesn't our article Monarchy of Ghana list earlier Portuguese, Danish, Prussian, Swedish and Dutch monarchs, not to mention the last Queen of Ghana's predecessors? And should we include the List of rulers of Asante? —Srnec (talk) 21:10, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any source used that was written by Henry VII, or any monarch, personally, for that matter. And god knows how it is you know that people at Canadian Heritage or Kevin MacLeod, Michael Jackson, or Jacques Monet--who've each written extensively on monarchy-related subject matter--don't check their facts. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:06, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

The sources are published by the Crown (and the government) and this article is about the Crown. It's kind of like the article Microsoft using primarily company materials as sources. I didn't actually say that anything from the MacLeod/Jackson/Monet source was wrong. I said it contradicted the previous sentence: it can't have been "first under the kings of France" if it was "first claimed in the name of King Henry VII [of England]". It doesn't if an author checks his sources: its about how many independent parties check his sources. That's why we value peer review. Also, I do think that the people at Canadian Heritage are mainly propagandists (not that there's anything wrong with that). They might get it right, they might get it wrong, but history is not really what they are up to. That's why they call it heritage. Srnec (talk) 03:06, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the way those first few sentences are phrased is misleading. I like having the French and British monarchs in the list, but if we keep them, the intro has to make it very clear that there is a difference between foreign monarchs controlling Canada and Canadian monarchs. I also think that government sources can be reliable, but you have to distinguish between something written carefully, like a list of MPs from the Library of Parliament, versus some promotional thing that a government intern threw on a website. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:40, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

User:Srnec makes a very succinct comparison as regards Ghana, which would equally apply for any of the other current or former Commonwealth Realms other than Canada.

JWULTRABLIZZARD (talk) 12:36, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

"The sources are published by the Crown...this article is about the Crown". Looking at the first three sentences, we have references from Colin Robertson (former diplomat and "senior research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute and distinguished senior fellow at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University"), Dr. D. Michael Jackson (published academic in English, French, and Canadian Studies), Arthur Bousfield (published historian), and Garry Toffoli (published political scientist), as well as official sources. In addition, IRPP is a refereed and peer-reviewed source ("All of the research published by the Institute is subject to rigorous internal and external peer review for its policy relevance, academic soundness and accessibility").

Thus, this unfounded assumption that none of the sources are "reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy") is clearly false.

trackratte (talk) 23:57, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The first sentence is misleading. It is an answer to the question, "Since when has Canada been a monarchy?" The answer, of course, is, "It never wasn't", because monarchy was always its form of government as opposed to an oligarchy or a republic. In this sense, the first sentence is true. But it is deliberately misleading, implying as it does that there is such a thing as a distinctly Canadian monarchy as far back as 1534, when in fact Canada was merely part of a monarchical system that covered a whole lot of the world's surface (for a part of that time). This whole article reads like a propaganda piece. Srnec (talk) 01:56, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Any suggestions? As many many many sources say there have been 33 monarchs of Canada starting with Francis I of France. What propaganda is here - I did check the sources and thats what they say? Thus far not one source to refute the articles time line. For the above there seem to be a belief that the article should start from 1931 when a distinctly Canadian monarchy was formed. Not sure that would help our readers at all.-- Moxy (talk) 22:18, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

This article currently lists 31. Who are the missing two?

In any case, the French monarchs and British monarchs held different crowns. They were not both monarchs of Canada and both ruled over much more of North America. Srnec (talk) 23:39, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Lets list them all see if any are missing (co rulers?) and show all the different crowns (houses) that ruled Canada. The source are clear on this even pro British sites like "Monarchist League of Canada" contend the French rules over the land - Canada’s Monarchy throughout History -- Moxy (talk) 00:00, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The MLC isn't "pro-British". --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Royal Houses of Tudor & Habsburg

• King Henry VII (1497 – 1509; reign in England began 1485)
• King Henry VIII (1509 – 1547) [son of K. Henry VII]
• King Edward VI (1547 – 1553) [son of K. Henry VIII]
• Queen Mary I (1553 – 1558) [sister of K. Edward VI]

& King Philip I of Imperial House of Habsburg (1553 – 1558) {made co-sovereign with his wife, Queen Mary I}

• Queen Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603) [sister of Q. Mary I]

Royal House of Valois

• King Francois I (1534 – 1547; reign in France began 1515)
• King Henri II (1547 – 1559) [son of K. Francois I]
• King Francois II (1559 – 1560) [son of K. Henri II]
• King Charles IX (1560 – 1574) [brother of K. Francois II]
• King Henri III (1574 – 1589) [brother of K. Charles IX]

Royal Houses of Stuart & Orange

• King James I (1603 – 1625) [1st cousin, twice removed of Q. Elizabeth I; great-grandson of K. Henry VII]
• King Charles I (1625 – 1649) [son of K. James I]
• King Charles II (1649 – 1685) [son of K. Charles I]
• King James II (1685 – 1689) [brother of K. Charles II]
• King William III of Royal House of Orange (1689 – 1702) [son-in-law and nephew of K. James II; grandson of K. Charles I]

& Queen Mary II (1689 – 1694) [daughter of K. James II] {joint sovereigns}

• Queen Anne (1702 – 1714) [sister of Q. Mary II]

Royal House of Bourbon

• King Henri IV (1589 – 1610) [2nd cousin of K. Henri III]
• King Louis XIII (1610 – 1643) [son of K. Henri IV]
• King Louis XIV (1643 – 1715) [son of K. Louis XIII]
• King Louis XV (1715 – 1763; reign in France ended 1774) [great-grandson of K. Louis XIV]

Royal House of Brunswick or Hanover

• King George I (1714 – 1727) [2nd cousin of Q. Anne; great-grandson of K. James I]
• King George II (1727 – 1760) [son of K. George I]
• King George III (1760 – 1820) [grandson of K. George II]
• King George IV (1820 – 1830; Prince Regent from 1812) [son of K. George III]
• King William IV (1830 – 1837) [brother of K. George IV]
• Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901) [niece of K. William IV; granddaughter of K. George III]

Royal House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

• King Edward VII (1901 – 1910) [son of Q. Victoria]
• King George V (1910 – 1917) [son of K. Edward VII]

{In 1917, during World War I, King George V changed the name of the Royal Family from the Royal House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the Royal House of Windsor}

Royal House of Windsor

• King George V (1917 – 1936) [son of K. Edward VII]
• King Edward VIII (1936) [son of K. George V]
• King George VI (1936 – 1952) [brother of K. Edward VIII]
• Queen Elizabeth II (1952 – ) [daughter of K. George VI]

Couldn't you have just said: the 33 includes Philip II of Spain and Mary II, not listed on the page? In any case, my point is that the first paragraph of this article makes it sounds like there is a line of Canadian monarchs going back to1534, when in fact the British and French lines are quite distinct and in neither case were their respective Canadian domains distinguished from their other North American territories. Maybe we need an article on Canada's brief period as a republic under Cromwell. Srnec (talk) 01:08, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• "[T]he history of our country has been marked by the reigns of an uninterrupted succession of monarchs, both French and British..."[1]
• "The Office of The Queen (or King) is the oldest continuous and unbroken institution in Canada, extending not only through time to Confederation but back through the centuries."[2]
• " [The monarchy's] roots lie in the establishment of New France--Quebec--by King Francis I in 1534 and the claim made to Newfoundland by England's Queen Elizabeth I in 1583..."[3]
• "Since the 16th century some 32 French and British kings and queens have reigned over Canada."[4]
• "Canada has been a monarchy for centuries - first under the kings of France in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, then under the British Crown in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and now as a kingdom in her own right."[5]

There may have been two lines before 1763, but its evident neither of those two is considered apart from the present one. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:48, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

At this point we are going to need sources to dispute all the sources in the article. -- 19:09, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Your first quotation does not support either of the two disptuted statements ("Canada has been a monarchy since 1534" and "there have been 33 sovereigns of Canada"). While I might dispute that the office of the monarch is the oldest continuous and unbroken institution in Canada—could not it be the Catholic Church?—the second quotation says nothing about 1534 or 33 sovereigns. All it says is that the Crownas an institution has existed in Canada since before 1867, a point not in dispute. Third quotation is not from a reliable source, which is a good thing, since it's baloney. The Canadian Crown has nothing in it of the old French crown and the claims made by the French which were transferred to the English in 1763 could just as well have been made and transferred by a republic as by the French monarchy. The 1583 date seems to contradict our assertion that 1497 is the important one.

The statement that "32 French and British kings and queens have reigned over Canada" is not the same as "there have been 33 sovereigns of Canada". The term "sovereign of" has different implications from "reigned over". The Canadian Encyclopedia's statement is not objectionable. I don't think royal.gov.uk is a reliable source for reasons already stated, but its statement seems to trade on ambiguity—not to mention that it is in conflict with the dates of 1497 and 1583 for the start of British monarchical rule. The ambiguity is in the word "monarchy", which could mean a type or system of government, or could mean a country with a monarch as its head of state. Canada (as this article understands it) was not such a country prior to 1867, but the French and British colonies (there were several) were always under a monarchical form of government (with the exception of Cromwell's time).

"There may have been two lines before 1763, but its evident neither of those two is considered apart from the present one." You can't consider them apart, because what is Canada now (and what was Canada in 1867) was divided between them in the 16th–18th centuries. It is silly to treat these monarchs, often at war with one another, as being a single monarchy, as this article does. Srnec (talk) 22:02, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

You asserted: "the first paragraph of this article makes it sounds like there is a line of Canadian monarchs going back to1534, when in fact the British and French lines are quite distinct..." Whether or not the British and French lines were distinct from one another, it is still regarded that there has been a continuous line of monarchs going back to a certain date. There does seem to be disagreement as to whether that date is 1497 or 1534; but, the simple way to accomodate that is to mention it, as is done in the note in the lead of Monarchy of Canada. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:10, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Of course there has been a continuous line: the British line. The event of 1534, however, was a French one, and there has not been a continuous French line of monarchs down to the present. This is not a disagreement about a date, but about whether we should be calling these British and French monarchs Canadian monarchs or "monarchs of Canada". Srnec (talk) 23:23, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok so its clear that the facts are right ...just the wording we have to work on - correct?. Lets dumb it down and be more specific - yes all can see the different ones by looking at the list and its notes but lets say it with words in the lead. I have no problem with saying "33 French and British monarchs have reigned over the area now called Canada. Beginning in....." -- Moxy (talk) 23:35, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

That wording would be a major improvement. I'd also prefer a title change. If we must say when the rule of European monarchs begins over Canada, let's be vague. "Beginning in the sixteenth century..." is probably best. Srnec (talk) 18:41, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

You obviously didn't miss my words: "There may have been two lines before 1763, but its evident neither of those two is considered apart from the present one." The sources clearly give the present line two roots: British and French. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:56, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

In what sense does the "present line" descend from both? Does Australia's monarchical line descend from the French monarchy as well? How is their "line" different from our line? Srnec (talk) 18:41, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

My answer to that is irrelevant. We go by the sources. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:44, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not believe the sources "clearly give the present line two roots". If you understand the sources, couldn't you explain what they mean? Srnec (talk) 10:59, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Spanish monarchs

I submit that "List of Canadian monarchs" is inconsistent with the list itself. This appears to be a list of all monarchs who reigned over territory that would become or are now part of Canada. If that's the case, the name of the page should be changed, and Spanish monarchs added.

Charles III and Charles IV of Spain both reigned over Louisiana (New Spain), which included part of Alberta and Saskatchewan from 1762 to 1803. Charles IV also reigned over territory on today's Vancouver Island from about 1789 to 1795. 71.21.155.56 (talk) 06:37, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Which is exactly why all the monarchs pre-1867 (none of which actually ruled over Canada save as a colony or collection of colonies) should not be included in this article.

JWULTRABLIZZARD (talk) 09:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

That would be sensible. Surtsicna (talk) 17:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

They're not in the sources, though. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:57, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

They are nevertheless in the scope of the article, as "monarchs who reigned over territories that would become Canadian or over Canada itself". Surtsicna (talk) 18:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you can make that argument. But, it doesn't refute the fact that the sources--i.e. the lists of monarchs given in other publications--don't include Spanish monarchs.

I'm not entirely against adding them here. But, I wouldn't give them much prominence; they were few and their territories within what's now Canada were small. A paragraph in the opening would suffice, as I see it. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree tt could be mentioned in context - but not in the chart as this is simply not how history looks at this. All we can do is regurgitate what the sources say and the manner they say it. We could mention things like the Nootka Crisis were the only Spanish settlement in what is now Canada had a conflict. We have to face the facts here - Spain gained control of virtually all of North and South America through the Treaty of Tordesillas but no significant Spanish settlement occur in Canada. Basically history does not consider the land "Ruled"/controlled by the Spanish crown in a significant way to shape the country. To put it bluntly historians say the Portuguese and Spanish colonizers focusing their efforts on South America with very little care or attention give to the lands of what is now Canada. If we were to mention all we would need to start with John II of Portugal and mention Paul I of Russia ....but I think all agree this would be pushing the meaning of the sources. -- Moxy (talk) 18:56, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

"Not how history looks at this" describes the entire article. Or would, if "history" had a way of looking at things. And "gained control" is precisely what Spain did not do at Tordesillas. Srnec (talk) 00:01, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Have any source that say otherwise? More smoke blowing again? -- Moxy (talk) 00:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

To be clear this article is a list of the sovereigns of Canada, not a list of sovereigns to have ever ruled over any territory which was at some point part of the present day Canada. I think we're forcing ourselves to look at Canadian history only through our present perspective. Canada was (and is) a specific entity throughout its history, with more or less specific boundaries. This line of sovereigns starts with Canada being a relatively small parcel of land in the early 1500s called 'Kanata', growing over time to Upper Canada/Lower Canada/The Province of Canada, then to the size of Ontario/Quebec/New Brunswick/Nova Scotia, to its present size. Any territory outside of Canada's contemporary boundaries was not part of Canada. For a hypothetical example, if present day New Brunswick had been controlled by the Spanish until 1962 (to be completely random), and then became part of Canada, the Spanish monarchs would not be part of the Canadian line, since Spain never ruled over Canada, only of the hypothetical country of New Brunswick until it became part of Canada, at which point any of its connections to other monarchs would be extinguished. To use another example, Newfoundland falling under the British Crown until 1949 has absolutely no relevance to the Canadian line, as it was not part of Canada until that point. This list is a list of monarchs of Canada, and Canada only. To include all monarchs of any territory throughout history that are now part of today's Canada geographically, separate British lines would overlap the Canadian ones, Spanish would overlap British and French, and perhaps others that I'm missing, such as Russian monarchical claims to what is now Canadian territory from the 1740s to 1860s. Except that these territories were not part of Canada (a named polity), so form no part of Canada's monarchical lineage. This list is not based on who had sovereignty over a given territory (geography), but on who had sovereignty over a national entity (Canada). trackratte (talk) 01:53, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Also, I do agree, once again, that the name of this article is quite misleading and should be changed. None of those listed were 'Canadian' in the commonly understood sense of the word (save perhaps a few, and debatably so). I see no reason why we shouldn't call it what it is, a "List of sovereigns of Canada". trackratte (talk) 01:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

If that is the case, then shouldn't we have sources that show that British territories were referred to as "Canada" prior to 1763? To my knowledge, "Canada" was not used officially until the division of the province of Quebec. Prior to that, it was an informal term for a region—and not one to which, as far as I know, the British laid any claim pre-1763. If what you say is correct, then we need sources to show that the British and French lists should overlap.

The reason "sovereigns of Canada" is problematic is because to have Canada within one's sovereign territory was not the same thing as to be sovereign of it in the same way that one was sovereign of the whole. Srnec (talk) 02:05, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

From the Canada article: "The name Canada comes from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".[10] In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village ofStadacona.[11] Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village, but the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona); by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this region as Canada.[11]" trackratte (talk) 03:02, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

You missed the point. If a settlement on Vancouver Island isn't in Canada because that region wasn't called Canada at the time, you need to show that the British settlements prior to 1763 were regarded as Canada at the time. What is "this region"? Does it include the area around Hudson's Bay? Nova Scotia? The Treaty of Paris seems to distinguish Canada from Cape Breton, for instance, and uses it exclusively of the French domain ceded to Britain. Srnec (talk) 04:03, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Is there any sources that disputes the facts and sources in the article like - 33 monarchs that have ruled over "what is now Canada" or the order of the monarchs that is presented? Would renaming the article help and if so to what?-- Moxy (talk) 18:30, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

• In the British Empire article, under Origins (1497–1583), it outlines that the "foundations of the British Empire were laid" with John Cabot successfully making landfall in 1497.

• In the John Cabot article it states that "Cabot is only reported to have landed once during the expedition and ...The crew only appeared to have remained on land long enough to take on fresh water and to raise the Venetian and Papal banners and claim the land for the King of England"

• In the National Post article describing the discovery of the earliest map to display Canada, it says that "French explorer Jacques Cartier’s first used the term “Canada” — generally thought to be derived from an Iroquois term for “village” — following his 1535 voyage up the St. Lawrence River to present-day Quebec City and Montreal. After Italian mapmakers used the term for their creations in the 1560s, Cartaro’s 1577 globe shows he placed the six-letter word amid mountains and two unidentified rivers on a vaguely recognizable continent far to the west of Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean" (picture depicts "Canada"). From what I gather, this first map known so far to depict "Canada" points vaguely to the Northeast of an entire continent.

• By 1689, you can see that the West coast has yet to be discovered, and that "Nova Britannia" is West of "Nova Labrador", and that "Canada" seems to be encompassing the modern day regions of Montreal, Quebec, and New Brunswick.

• By the time Spain started laying claims to the Pacific Northwest in the late 1700s, the maps of the time (such as here), show a limited knowledge of the coast (Vancouver Island not being present), and Canada being to the far East of the continent, with the West remaining unnamed.
• To sum up, the referenced lists within the article explicitly support the current list, so the onus is really on showing that Britain did not have any claim to Canada, and not the other way around. Second, it is clear that John Cabot claimed the "land for the King of England" in 1497, and that at least by 1577 the 'land' was internationally known as Canada. What is not entirely clear (as there was no understanding of the land claimed at the time), is to what extent the original 1497 claim would extend. Also, it is not confirmed if landfall was made in Newfoundland or not: "Day's letter suggests that 'most of the land was discovered after turning back', which suggests the landfall was some way to the west / south of the most easterly point of North America", and "The exact location of the landfall has long been a matter of great controversy, with different communities vying for the status of being the location of the landing" (John Cabot Wiki article). In any event, the sum of the sources point (explicitly and implicitly), that Canada's line of monarchs commenced with England's 1497 claim, carrying on through France's 1534 naming of Canada and claiming it, up to the present day of uniquely Canadian monarchs. Spain never laid claim to 'Canada', but to unnamed lands far West of Canada. Further, I imagine that France would have been well aware of John Cabot's voyages, and the fact that the lands they were claiming were one and the same as those earlier claimed by England. Subsequently, the English would have been well aware of their previous 1497 claims to the lands that were, in 1534, claimed by France and named Canada. trackratte (talk) 23:17, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Nobody ever said Spain laid claim to a land called "Canada", but you have yet to show that Britain did either, prior to 1763. You see, if the land Cabot claimed in 1497 was "Canada" by virtue of being known by that name in 1577, it is certainly true that the land claimed by Spain (either at Tordesillas or through its various explorations of the Pacific coast, or even its acquisition of Louisiana) was also known as Canada at a later date. You have no source for you assertion that "France would have been well aware ... that the lands they were claiming were one and the same as those earlier claimed by England [and] the English would have been well aware of their previous 1497 claims to the lands that were, in 1534, claimed by France and named Canada". You have not demonstrated that if we stick to contemporary definitions of Canada, the British every ruled it prior to 1763. Of course, if we don't stick to such definitions, then this page, by its own terms, ought to include some Spanish monarchs. Srnec (talk) 23:59, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Time to read a book - Derek Hayes (2006). Historical Atlas of Canada: Canada's History Illustrated with Original Maps. Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 978-1-55365-077-5. -- Moxy (talk) 00:37, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

What does the book say that you think is relevant? My relevant quote is on p. 114: "in 1763 Canada passed officially into British hands". Why are we listing earlier British monarchs as monarchs of Canada—that is, on Trackratte's terms. Or, if we reject his terms, why are we not including Spanish monarchs who laid claim to territory that later became Canadian? Srnec (talk) 01:15, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

• Perhaps think of two ink bottles (France and Britain) being slowly poured over the same map, creating an expanding Canada-coloured ink blot, with France and Britain both responsible (claiming) this expanding blot (territory), and Spain and Russia laying claim to territories outside of it. Once these territories eventually form part of Canada, any previous territorial ties are extinguished, ie regardless of territorial change, Canada as an entity remains the same. For example, if all of Western Canada were to claim independence and separate from Canada tomorrow, Canada's monarchical institutions would remain completely unaffected. By the same token, if Canada were to incorporate the Turks and Caicos tomorrow, Canada's monarchy would continue to remain completely untouched. Territorial expansion or contraction has no bearing on the Crown itself.

• Second, even the best researchers in the domain of John Cabot's voyages cannot be certain where he landed and what exactly he could have been laying claim to, as the extent and form of the land was completely unknown, so when one goes ahead and "claims this land" there is no concrete definition of what that means. The claim on Rupert's land for example, had specific limits (rivers flowing to Hudsons Bay), but still ended up incorporating one-third of modern day Canada. So, an unlimited claim as it were, can only be speculated upon, even by the academic experts. All an encyclopedia can do is consolidate explicit sources, which in this case show that England and France lay claim to the same swathes of land within the North East of the continent, that a large portion of this land came to be known as Canada, and that this entity known as Canada gradually expanded to its present state, and that Canada had this list of 33 sovereigns throughout its history. trackratte (talk) 00:27, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

• If you are not going to respond to my questions and make any effort to be self-consistent, then there is no point in having a discussion. (Your theory of history appears quite Whiggish: as if the union of the ink blots was foreseeable or inevitable.) Srnec (talk) 01:15, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

My mistake for going into analogy, as they say, no analogy is perfect, as it is always an oversimplification, which is why I suppose they're useful. They were both laying claims to the same general territory, which both lent to the formation of Canada. While fully realising there was competition between the two, the point being that Canada is territorially independent, and that the Russians and the Spanish were never involved in the matter. trackratte (talk) 01:28, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

So really at this point its just one person that does not understand and keeps asking for explanations. What can we do to make this more clear for those not familiar with the topic? -- Moxy (talk) 19:08, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In this case, I must side with Srnec; I can't see how Newfoundland was in any way named Canada by John Cabot or even by any government of the island thereafter up until 1949.

To address your point made here, trackratte: Yes, there was indeed overlap of royal lines. Hence, I, a long time ago, made the table here (admittedly, missing Spanish monarchs) in the way I did to show concurrent reigns. You deleted it. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That point that I made did not dispute that there was an overlap of French and British lines (there obviously were), but of an overlap between Canadian and British lines (reference Canadian Crown as of 1931 and Newfoundland under the British Crown until 1949), and Spanish/British/French lines. As I mention above, it is not clear whether or not John Cabot landed on Newfoundland or not (could have been Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Maine), nor whether his claim was meant to encompass the entirety of the 'new land' (being the entire continent), or a more limited claim. Also, as you can see from the above maps, no one is saying Newfoundland (Terra Nova) was named Canada, only that Canada was a distinct entity on the map which, over time and as the lands were mapped in greater definition, seemed to represent the Eastern mainland of a new continent, modern day Montreal/Quebec/New Brunswick, and eventually the rough official boundaries of the Canadas in 1791. There were competing claims to the lands known as Canada by the British and French certainly, but there were never any claims on Canada by the Spanish. trackratte (talk) 23:37, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Newfoundland

Why treat Newfoundland as a part of Canada prior to 1949? We already decided that Spanish-claimed lands that are today in Canada don't count for the purposes of listing monarchs. Srnec (talk) 00:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• This article is about Canada, not its present day constituent parts. We don't list the sovereigns of the Colony of Vancouver Island, or of British Columbia, etc. If deemed notable and supporting references could be found, then it would belong in a separate article. trackratte (talk) 01:58, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
• This article is about monarchs that have reigned over territory that is now part of Canada; that includes monarchs that reigned over Newfoundland. If we had separate articles for post-1931 Canadian monarchs versus historical monarchs, then I would agree that the Newfoundland period shouldn't be in the Canadian article. But if we're going to include monarchs who reigned over Acadia and Rupert's land, why wouldn't we also include monarchs who reigned over Newfoundland? --—Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:26, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

• If you look at an early 16th century map depicting North America, you will see an entity named "Canada" marked on it. That entity had a monarch. Newfoundland was not part of that entity, and nearly everything West of Canada was unknown/uncharted. Over time Canada grew geographically, encorporating other entities (colonies of NB, NS, VI, BC, PEI, NFLD), and territories (Ruperts Land/NWT), however geographical expansion or contraction has no bearing on the status of the Crown of Canada (ie Nfld joining confederation had zero impact on the Canadian Crown, but the Statute of Westminster 1931 did). An article listing every single monarch of every single former colony/territory before it became part of Canada is not what this list is about. Although it could be created elsewhere, it would largely be redundant. trackratte (talk) 17:02, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Trackratte: Throughout the debates on this article, people have had a number of different ways of looking at the topic. As far as I can tell, the various interpretations are as follows: (1) monarchs of the Canadian Crown (i.e., post-1931); (2) monarchs of the federation of Canada (i.e., post-1867); (3) monarchs of territory that used the name "Canada" (i.e., the Canadas, the Province of Canada, and the federation of Canada), and (4) monarchs who reigned over land that is now part of Canada. If I understand our disagreement, you are advocating for #3 whereas I am advocating for #4. I think that all four topics are encyclopedic, and a reader might be looking for any of those four topics. That raises the question: how do we organize this in a way that makes it easy for a reader to find whichever of the four topics they want? Should we split this into multiple articles? If so, what should each of those be named? Should this article be a disambiguation page to the new lists? Or, if we want to keep this as one article, how do we clearly show in the list which monarchs reigned over something called "Canada", which held the title "Queen/King of Canada", and which reigned over something that is now part of Canada? --—Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 21:22, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

I thought the result of the previous discussion was to do what the references do, which is the evolution of the Canadian crown from the French and British crowns. Otherwise Spain would be included, as Srnec pointed out, and the list would be WP:OR. 117Avenue (talk) 02:51, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

117Avenue: I don't think WP:OR is an issue here, we could easily find sources for the Newfoundland and Spanish monarchs. The question is what we want to talk about on Wikipedia. I'm starting to lean towards having two articles so that we can make everyone happy: one for post-confederation (which in turn would be divided into pre- and post-1931), and one for pre-confederation (which could include the Spanish and 20th Century Newfoundland monarchs). —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:11, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Two articles is two more than I want, so that would hardly make everybody happy. Srnec (talk) 03:13, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Arctic.gnome:I think that the dates and divisions are fairly straight forward and supported by the whole of the referenced sources. I would be against dividing the list up into separate articles simply due to the 'fuzzy' nature of Canadian constitutional studies. For example, it is accepted fact that the 1931 Statute of Westminster created a uniquely Canadian crown, however the Government of Canada in the 1950s still did not believe this to be the case. Or the debate over bill C-53, where even our most expert constitutional and legal minds disagree on its extent, application, and legality. Dividing up this list into multiple list articles according to fixed dates would be problematic, as our constitutional history is evolutionary with very few 'fixed' dates being available.

Second, I think the list's title, 'Sovereigns of Canada' is more or less self explanatory, with any Sovereigns of territory outside of Canada not being eligible for inclusion. The "Territorial Changes" boxes do a good job I think, of describing the geographic changes to Canada throughout the timeline, including the inclusion of Newfoundland. There is unfortunately no graphic representation of these changes in the timeline, but I'm sure you can imagine it going from a relatively small parcel of red, and gradually expanding to what we have today. Also, I don't understand your argument about including Newfoundland since monarch's who reigned over Acadia and Rupert's land are included, since they're not. Canada was a colony within New France just as Acadia was, so has nothing to do with the colony of Acadia and everything to do with the colony of Canada. Rupert's land was outside of Canada, but obviously shared the same monarch as both fell within the British Empire.

Finally, for your question about how we list which monarchs reigned over Canada, which reigned over territories which are currently part of Canada, and which actually held the title of Sovereign of Canada, I think that it already quite clear with the lead to the article (Elizabeth II only monarch to be so officially titled), and the territorial changes boxes describing geographic change. Also, we must keep in mind that this is a list article, essentially an annex to a larger topic, and is not supposed to provide the reader with a deep and nuanced understanding of the grander topic but is only supplementary to it. If the reader desires to delve deeper into the topic, then that's what the non-list topic articles are for, such as "Monarchy in Canada", "Constitutional history of Canada", etc in the 'See Also' section (in addition to the in-text wiki-links). trackratte (talk) 16:06, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Trackratte: If we aren't including monarchs of Acadia and Rupert's land, then I disagree that the title is clear. You want the title to mean "monarchs of places called Canada", whereas many readers will assume that the title "monarchs of Canada" means either "monarchs of the federation" or "monarchs of land that is now part of Canada".

Saying that we will include monarchs of just one of the places that joined Canada is like having List of British monarchs list all of the pre-union Kings of England but not pre-union Kings of Scotland. The history of Great Britain isn't just a continuation of the history of England, and similarly the history of the federation of Canada isn't just a continuation of the histories of Upper and Lower Canada. If this article is going to only cover monarchs that ruled over places called Canada, then I think we need another article where the Spanish and Newfoundland monarchs can be listed. But that new article would have far too much overlap with this one, which is why I suggested one article for the federation and another article for the components. After the split, if someone is interested in monarchs of places called Canada, they just have to look at the "Ontario and Quebec" section of the pre-Confederation article. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 22:00, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

1. I think we're approaching this a lot differently than I first expected. What do you mean "just one of the places that joined Canada"? In the 1500s the first inhabitants (aboriginal peoples) that the French encountered were called Canadians, and later this term came to encompass the French born in Canada, and after that both English and French born in Canada, to today where it has its present meaning. Canada started as the colony spanning the St-Lawrence river and grew from there. Ie Canada is an entity which came into existence at the beginning of the 16th century.

2. I don't see this article as sovereigns who have "ruled over places", but instead of sovereigns of a singular entity. You say "places called Canada", where I don't understand the plural. Canada as an entity is independent of geography (place). If, hypothetically, the entire country were to separate from Canada, leaving only the city of Ottawa for example, Canada as an entity would be unaffected, just as the Canadian Crown, the present sovereign, and this list, would be completely unaffected.

3. I also don't understand your desire to split the list up by one for the federation and one for the 'components'. Canada existed for hundreds of years prior to Confederation and exists, once again, as an independent idea. The colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia joined with Canada in forming a new Dominion, but this was not the formation of Canada itself. Canada in 1867 and Canada today, although starkly different geographically and having a lot more 'components', is still the same unchanged entity.

4. I don't see the point then, of including sovereigns of outside entities to this list. Especially when this list is sourced from academic and official sources which do not include any of these extraneous sovereigns which you wish to include. trackratte (talk) 23:03, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Trackratte: I'm going to have to disagree with your claim that Canada existed for hundreds of years prior to Confederation. The reason for my plural in "places called Canada" is that "the Canadas" (Ontario and Quebec) is not the same thing as the political union which is also called Canada. A new entity was created upon confederation. For example, the same is true of the United Kingdom: yes England, Scotland, and Ireland each have a long histories, but the entity of the "United Kingdom" didn't exist until the union happened, so you can't say that the "United Kingdom" as an entity existed for thousands of years. It's the same with the European Union: yes there is tonnes of history in Europe, but the history of the "European Union" didn't start until the treaty creating the EU was signed. Canada is a bit strange because one of the members of the union was also called "Canada", but that doesn't mean that the Federation of Canada is a continuation of the Colony of Canada, it just means that one was named after the other. The union could easily have chosen one of the other proposed names, like Borealia, and then the situation would be clearer (but we would have a silly name). The terms of union were pretty clear that they were creating a federal entity, not having the smaller colonies join the bigger one. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 05:26, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

• @Arctic.gnome:To be perfectly honest, probably due to my highschool education (lacking) and the fact that we celebrate 'Canada Day' as "Canada's birthday", I spent my entire life thinking that there was no such thing as Canada prior to 1867. However, during university I began to hit a few things that gradually changed my mind the further I looked into it. Also, as this medium lacks emotional context, please construe my typing as nothing but respectful. A few things that I could pull off the top of my head:
• "The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the Queen" Justice Canada. The Act was passed by the Canadian Government, whose role, and its sovereign's, were said to "continue", not be "created" or "established".
• "The Canada Gazette has been published as the official publication of the Government of Canada since 1841" Canada Gazette The Government of Canada's official publication, which continues to this day, pre-existed Confederation, as did the Government of Canada itself. Also see Canada Gazette June 1867 vs Canada Gazette July 1867, the only difference being that one is volume 26 and the other is volume 1. Both sessions were held in the same building, lead by the same people, using the same conventions, procedures, and rules, serving the same nation and the same sovereign, under the same name. The difference being between Canada as a colonial province and Canada as a larger colonial dominion. (I can't remember where I read about them using the same procedures manual for quite some time, maybe Smith's "The Peoples House of Commons"?).

• The [history template] discusses aspects of the Canadian constitution established in the 18th century which continue to this day, and continue to form part of our constitution. If the Canada of 1867 is not the same entity as that of 1866 then its peculiar how its Government, its Constitution, and its Sovereign carried over all the same, and how our current official and academic bodies of knowledge stress the "evolution" of Canada from the 16th or 18th centuries to the present.
• If the Canada of 1866 is a different entity based on its geographic change, then the Canada of 1867 would be a completely different entity of that of 1941.
• If the Canada of 1866 is a different entity based on the passing of a Constitutional Act, then the Canada of 1867 would be a completely different entity than the Canada of 1982.
• Yes, the Constitution of 1867 probably had a much greater impact on the formation of the modern-day independent state than the Constitution Acts of 1791, 1840, or 1982 did, but that did not mean the wholesale creation of a new entity.
• Also, it was issued in the Gazette on the 8th of June 1867 that on March 29th of that year there was passed "An Act for the Union of 'Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and the Governments thereof and for purposes connected therein' ...the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick shall 'form and be One Dominion under the name of Canada and on and after that day those Provinces shall form and be One Dominion under that Name accordingly". This Act was passed by the Government of Canada prior to the existence of the Dominion of Canada. It says nothing about the creation of a new entity, but only of the joining of "Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick" into "One Dominion under the name of Canada".
• We have a whole host of academic and official sources which explicitly list the "33 sovereigns of Canada", specifically outlining each sovereign as Canada's monarch from the 1500s to the present under a progression of French, British, and Canadian Crowns. trackratte (talk) 00:29, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• @Trackratte: With respect, there are a number of problems with your analysis. Note that I'm speaking strictly from a legal point of view; there were definitely people at the time who saw Confederation as a de facto absorption of the small provinces into the big one (the NS and NB politicians who opposed union certainly saw it that way). To name a few counter-arguments: (1) The act passed on March 29 1867 was an act of the UK Parliament, not the Province of Canada Parliament. (2) All of the Constitutional documents in the template prior to 1867 were acts of the Imperial Parliament, and were thus binding on all of the colonies and continued to be binding on their union government. (3) The fact that a new entity was created in 1867 does not mean that a new entity is created every time a new colony joins or the Constitution is amended; it's similar to how the EU became a new entity when the treaty was signed, but it didn't become a new entity when Estonia joined or when the EU treaty is amended. (4) The fact that the Canada Gazette decided to continue as a federal institution rather than a provincial one doesn't mean anything other than the fact that they made that administrative decision; I could give the counter example of the Law Society of Upper Canada, which decided to represent Ontario after Confederation rather than becoming a federal entity. I could go on and give more detail in my arguments, but I think at this point it might be useful to take a step back and ask what would produce the most useful content for readers. Certainly, a lot of readers will come here looking for monarchs of the Colony of Canada and the Federation of Canada as one long line, as you suggest, and this article gives them that. However, other readers will come here wanting to see all monarchs that have reigned over what is now Canada, and this list is incomplete for that. Other readers will come here wanting to see what monarchs reigned over where they live. For readers from Nova Scotia to Alberta, they can piece that information together using the "territorial changes" box, although that is a somewhat awkward way of doing it. For readers in BC and Newfoundland, this article doesn't tell the whole story. Even if Canada-the-federation were a de jure continuation of Canada-the-colony (which I'm confident it wasn't), this list would still be lacking information that readers might be looking for. The Spanish and Newfoundland monarchs should be listed somewhere on a Canadian history list on Wikipedia, and we need some kind of chart or table column to quickly look up who was monarch when for any given region that is now part of Canada. These could either be done by splitting this list, or by adding the Spanish and Newfoundland to this list and creating an extra column to make clearer who reigned over what and when. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 03:01, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• @Arctic.gnome: 1. So are we agreed that it was a de facto continuation? Other points in that regard that I forgot to mention was that Canada's prime minister (co-head of government) in 1866 was John A Macdonald, as it was after confederation. The Governor General of Canada was Viscount Monck before and after Confederation as well (if you look at List of Governors General of Canada you'll see it starts in 1602). The Canadian Dollar remained the official currency from 1857 until present, Parliament consisted of a lower and upper chamber with Queen Victoria as Queen of the UK and GB as its head pre and post Confederation and was held at Centre Block. Its political system was one of constitutional monarchy before and after. The capital of Canada was Ottawa pre-and post Confederation, etc. Also, laws passed prior to Confederation were still in effect post-Confederation. So, if Canada kept the same name, system of government, principal political actors, sovereign, governor general, prime minister, laws, currency, official publications, capital, assembly (Centre Block), military (units, establishments, and structure), etc, then how could it possibly be a completely different and unconnected entity? The fact is it was an evolutionary change, not a wholesale creation.

2. Your reasoning that the "union could easily have chosen one of the other proposed names, like Borealia, and then the situation would be clearer" is an oversimplification. It was specifically debated, and I don't have the hansard in front of me here, but there was a reason why 'Canada' was chosen, as it was not seen as a 'from scratch' creation of a whole new entity, but of a significant step (leap?) along the journey of nation building.

3. With regards to your point about whether or not it was de jure change, I don't see any evidence it was. For something to be de jure it has to be passed into law or established through case law. Granted I haven't really looked into it, so there could quite a bit out there I'm sure. However, all I have so far is the Constitution Act, 1867 which states "Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue".

4. Laws were created by the Parliament of Canada and officially enacted by the Imperial Parliament. For example, the Constitution Act of 1982 was enacted by the Parliament of the UK as the Canadian Parliament did not have the authority to enact constitutional amendments at the time. However, no one would say that the Constitution Act, 1982 is not a Canadian Act passed by our Parliament. This holds true for all of the various constitution acts 1867-1982, including the Act of 1867 itself.

5. Your point about providing information to the proverbial reader is well taken. However, the purpose of a list page is not to "tell the whole story", but simply to list a series of things. In light of this, and to use the example that you brought up for readers from British Columbia and Newfoundland, I think those respective pages, ie Monarchy in British Columbia and Monarchy in Newfoundland and Labrador, would be much better suited to contain any such lists. This would also allow any debates with regards to specific provinces to be held there, instead of potentially having 10 different debates happening concurrently here. Finally, as I've mentioned before, the list outlined at this page is explicitly sourced, ie every monarch on this list, the order presented, the succession of crowns, and the dates, are all taken from the whole of 6+ explicit official and academic sources. Throwing Spanish sovereigns (which, quite frankly, never had anything to do with Canada, and is nowhere sourced as having such) into this list is contentious and OR. However, if you have various sources and feel that Spanish monarchs should be included at the Monarchy British Columbia page for example, then that discussion could certainly happen there. This way the integrity of this list is maintained and properly sourced (and is limited only to Canada), while the information that you wish to have displayed would be. We could certainly add the pertinent articles in the See Also section, or blue link provincial names within the Territorial Change boxes, or something to that extent. I think if we work on the 10 Monarchy in Province pages, we could quite easily come up with the fine-grained level of detail you desire, while neatly having them within their respective already existing article pages. Let me know what you think. trackratte (talk) 21:08, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

• @Trackratte: The 1982 Act was certainly written by Canadians and passed by the British. The acts before 1931 were more of a joint effort; the Imperial Parliament didn't fully trust colonial riff-raffs with their own constitutions back then (or constitutional courts, for that matter). As for items like the dollar, well-established institutions from the Province of Canada were transferred to the federation, but that's just good sense. All-in-all, I imagine what people thought was happening de facto at the time would depend on who you asked and whether they wanted the union, but I still understand the point of the union in law was to create a new entity, albeit one that cannibalized a number of Province of Canada institutions. I could go through the rest of your points one-by-one, but that probably wouldn't get us anywhere. This debate is really just academic; if there was an unambiguous datum showing one way or the other, one of us would have quoted it by now. This article as it is probably does cover what most readers are looking for, so most of the additional information needed could be covered by re-arranging some parts and adding some "see also" links. The first recommendations that come to mind are:
  1. Mention in the intro that the list is specific to the historical Canadas, and other monarchies can be found in the province-specific articles (and articles about Aboriginal monarchies, if we have any).
  2. Group the page by political entity, like at List of Governors General of Canada. So the first-level headings would be (1) New France & Province of Quebec, (2) the Canadas & Province of Canada, (3) federation of Canada. We could then use the existing crest-image system to differentiate French, English, British, and Canadian lines within each list.
  3. If we can find a way of doing so non-obtrusively, make it clear for each monarch's row which BNA colonies outside of the Colony of Canada they controlled. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 08:01, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

@Arctic.gnome:From Sen. Eugene Forsey's "How Canadians Govern Themselves": "When the men who framed the basis of our present written Constitution, the Fathers of Confederation, were drafting it in 1864–67...". Also, your point that continuing Canadian institutions post-Confederation is "just good sense" is in line with my point, it was "just good sense" to carry forward the constitutional process started in 1792 through 1840 to 1867 (and eventually to 1982), ie constant constitutional evolution vice starting something anew from scratch.

In any event, I like your overall intent to clarify things for readers. Although I think that the dates in the reign column make it pretty explicitly clear that we're talking about the contemporary Canada within those dates, it could certainly be helpful to somehow direct the reader to information regarding monarchies outside the Canadian scope, but nonetheless reigning over areas that Canada now encompasses. I also like the mention of aboriginal monarchies if such can be found. I'm not sure about the grouping by political entity or how exactly that would work. Would you be willing to do a shortened example list in your sandbox to demonstrate? Or in line with your last point, maybe simply adding another column with a title like "Reign over BNA Territory Outside of Canada" or something to that effect for general info? I'm leaning towards the latter, as I think that clearly outlines the information that you wish to present, while maintaining the integrity of the list and its sources. trackratte (talk) 23:11, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

List of Sovereigns of Canada

Copied here from my talk page. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs)

Arctic,

I restored a previous version of the list from that which you worked on. I apologise in advance as I realise it probably took you a bit of time. I looked over it to try and incorporate your changes while maintaining the overall framework. I incorporated one element but left the rest for now. The central reasoning is simply that 1. This is a list. Adding in depth text which can be found on the respective articles is redundant here (and if it isn't there then we should be adding the material there, not on a list), and 2. This article is specific to Canada, not to the BNA. In depth discussions about colonies and territories outside of Canada are outside of the list's scope.

Also, I think that you divided the list up in consequence to territorial and monarchical changes to the BNA. However, in line with my point above, the way the list is presently divided is to illustrate the changes in specific relation to the Crown for the Colony/Dominion of Canada. One example is "Monarchs of the BNA colonies" as outside the scope of the list, and another being that the list is not divided within 'English Crown' and 'British Crown', as this political change was largely transparent to Canada (ie. there was no change to the Crown in Right of Canada in 1707 as both the sovereign herself and the constitutional system within Canada remained unchanged).

Finally, the banners themselves as they are now (with the shields) were implemented by someone, I can't remember who, and thinking they looked quite nice, I expanded their use slightly. They also serve to break up the list once again according to the constitutional changes vis a vis the Crown that took place throughout Canada's history from simply a marked place on a map, to a colony, to a dominion, to the independent and sovereign 'kingdom' that it is today.

Please don't take my restore as malicious and I hope to hear your thoughts. trackratte (talk) 00:48, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

---

@Trackratte:

Regarding your first point: this is indeed a list page, but nothing in MOS:LIST says that subsections cannot have intros to explain the organization of the subsection. In fact, general Wikipedia policy would encourage it. If the intros were long enough to blur the line between list and article, that might be a problem, but my subsection introductions were each only a few sentences long.

As for subdivisions of the section about British monarchs, it comes back to our discussion about how we define "Canada" prior to Confederation. I'm now in a bit more agreement about your point that some institutions of the Confederation were continuations of existing institutions rather than being completely new. I think the key of these is the Governor General: I can agree that when the Governor-in-Chief was created in 1786 and the colonial Governors were demoted to Lieutenant Governors, there did exist a political entity called "Canada", which included the Canadas, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and PEI. That entity was a new creation, and immediately prior to its creation there was no political entity officially called "Canada". I think that change is notable enough to put a break in the table the same way we put a break at the point of Confederation.

The remaining issue is how we define the term "Canada" before 1786. In the 16th century, "Canada" specifically referred to the area controlled by the Stadacona Iroquois. From the early 17th century until 1763, it was the name of a Colony of New France. From 1763-1786 there was no political entity that used the name and it was only used unofficially. I see three options. (1) If we want to limit this list to the monarchs of the place called "Canada" (even in the years when the name wasn't official), we should remove British monarchs prior to 1763. (2) If we want to keep the pre-1763 British monarchs, then we are including areas that were not part of Canada and we should add the Dominion of Newfoundland monarchs and Spanish monarchs. (3) We remove the British monarchs prior to 1763 but add a new section at the bottom of the article where we list other monarchs who reigned over what is now Canada in a much more succinct way, like through a bulleted list. I personally like the third option because it gives the main list a clear purpose while also providing information about other BNA monarchs that some readers may be looking for. Even if this list is about BNA in general, there is a good chance that people who look up this article would be interested in BNA monarchs, so it would be helpful to briefly list them if we can do so without making the article too long. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 05:50, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

I added in most of the content that you had placed in as notes for now, so that in the interim, most of the information that you want presented is still there, while a wholesale change of the list's structure and scope is discussed.

An issue that I have is that this list is in chronological order, so I find any mention of Newfoundland prior to 1949 for example, placed out of context. Since this list is clearly divided by date, ex Queen Victoria with Canada 1837-1901, then we are clearly talking about the polity in relation to the territory it occupied at that time, not Canada 1949-present. So to be clear, I have no problem mentioning Newfoundland (or placing explanatory notes before 1949), but in listing or adding text explaining Newfoundland before it was even part of Canada. As it is now, we see territories added to the polity (Canada) as we scroll down the list in chronological sequence.

The sections are currently divided by Crown (French, British, Canadian), with banner breaks placed within the sections to mark constitutional changes (ie Canada as a colony, Canada as a dominion, Canada as an independent Dominion), I don't see why we would break up the list at 1786 based on a change in role of the governor general, since there was no constitutional change within Canada.

The question as to whether or not Canada existed prior to 1786 is one which is largely irrelevant, I think, since we know that "Canada" was marked on European maps in the 1500s, and since the sources behind the list state "sovereigns of Canada" or something similar, and then list the monarchs here, some using the same French/British/Canadian divisions. Just because there was no official Canadian government from 1763-1786, does not mean that an entity called Canada ceased to exist during those years.

With regards to your suggestion of removing all monarchs prior to 1763, that would not be in agreement with the sources on which this list is based. If we list all monarchs who have ever laid claim on territories which now fall within Canada, then we are essentially doing away with the chronological aspect of the list, and are no longer talking about Canadian monarchs/sovereigns of Canada, but of 'Monarchs who have laid claim on North America'.

While I do not agree that this list is about 'the BNA in general' given its name, I do agree with your point that we should give "the main list a clear purpose while also providing information about other BNA monarchs that some readers may be looking for", completely valid. Could we reword the lead to make this clear? Add a blurb at the outset explaining the article's scope and where to find further information? Or change the scope (and thus the title) completley? trackratte (talk) 01:25, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

C'est quoi "Canada"?

Before we can decide on anything else, I think we have to reach an agreement about what we mean by "Canada". There are probably sources for any of these definitions, so the question here is really about what we want this article to be. The options that I see are:

1. The area around Quebec City that was originally called Canada.
2. The area called "Canada" on a majority of maps at the time, regardless of whether the name refers to a legal area with borders or is an unofficial term. This would be the Quebec City area in the 16th century, south Quebec and Ontario from 17th-19th century, and the Confederation afterwards.
3. Colonies and states legally called "Canada". This would include the New France colony of Canada, nothing from 1763-1791, the Canadas from 1791-1867, and the Confederation thereafter. Importantly, if were are talking about real political entities, I think we would have to limit the list to only the monarchs of those political entities and not monarchs who just laid a claim to the area.
4. Any kind of legally-recognized area with legal borders called "Canada". This would be like the above option, except it would include all of the colonies under the control of the Governor General of Canada from 1786 onwards. Like the above option, I think we would have to exclude monarchs who laid a claim but didn't have a government.
5. A legal-based option like in #3 or #4, but filling in the gaps of time where no colony used the name "Canada" by assuming that the British colony of Quebec was a continuation of the French colony of Canada until a new colony started using the name Canada.
6. Any land that would become part of modern-day Canada.
7. Only the Confederation beginning in 1867. If we chose this option, we should move the other monarchs to a new article called "List of monarchs who claimed sovereignty over the Canadian colonies" or something similar.
8. Only the Canadian Crown beginning in 1931. As above, this would require a new article to be created.

Only after we figure this out can we really make a decision on anything else. Anyone keeping an eye on this article should feel free to chime in (notably @Trackratte, Mr Serjeant Buzfuz, Miesianiacal, 117Avenue, Srnec, DrKiernan, and Gealstrix:). —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 05:05, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

Good job breaking it down so succingtly. Option 2 is the only one that fits with the 6 or so sourced lists on which this entire list is based off of. My concern then, is if we start using something other than option 2 for this list, we fall away from the referenced list and into the realm of OR. trackratte (talk) 19:38, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

For ease of reference here, I'm talking about the lists linked in footnotes 24 through 29. trackratte (talk) 19:40, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think OR is really an issue here. We need sources to claim who was monarch of where and when, but we can get that no matter what. We can define the scope of the list however we want, so long as the scope isn't arbitrary or misleading. Hypothetically, we could make a bunch of lists called "List of monarchs of places named Canada" and "List of past monarchs of territory that is now within Canada" and "List of monarchs of the Dominion of Canada". Those would all be valid topics. However, I doubt any of us think that having eight articles is a good idea, so the question should be what scope we think would be most useful to our readers. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:19, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

I still think this article is pointless. There isn't a person on it who wasn't monarch of something else as well (and appears on that list). Only one person has ever held a Canadian royal title. So rather than eight articles, how about zero? Just explain the situation at Monarchy of Canada and provide links to the appropriate lists that already exist (and are indisputably needful). Srnec (talk) 23:46, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

This article is largely duplication. The sovereign of any territory in North America was always the sovereign of the European nation whose colony it was. TFD (talk) 01:17, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

"Lines of monarchs..."

So, "117Avenue", given the present content of the article, instead of peremptorily undoing a revision which clarifies and makes better sense,[6] please explain (briefly) your problem with The lines of monarchs who reigned over some part or all of present-day Canada. Please note that "Canada" is lnked further down, which refers to:

• 'a country in North America consisting of ten provinces and three territories.'
• 'The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia...'
• 'As a consequence of various conflicts, the United Kingdom gained and lost North American territories until left, in the late 18th century, with what mostly comprises Canada today. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1, 1867, three colonies joined to form the autonomous federal Dominion of Canada.'

Is it "The lines" or "some part or all of present-day" that you see as problematic? Or perhaps a supposed need to mention Spain not included? Qexigator (talk) 08:31, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

To tie in from above, to clarify our language, "country" means geographic space/territory, "nation" means people and culture, and "state" means corporate entity. Your link to "a country in North American consisting of ten provinces and three territories" is irrelevant to this article; that is not what is being discussed here. This article is not referring to Canada as a geographic space ('country of ten provinces...') but as an entity. If Canada were to be reduced tomorrow down to zero provinces and only the city of Ottawa, for example, the entity of Canada would still continue to exist, and this article would be completely unaffected (except to add a 'territorial change' bit in the Elizabeth II entry). trackratte (talk) 19:28, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for letting us know about that, but it seems not to relate specifically to The lines of monarchs who reigned over some part or all of present-day Canada, but to your concern about the present version of the article in principle. Qexigator (talk) 20:00, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh, perhaps I'm misunderstanding the point of your proposed change. When I see "who reigned over some part or all of present-day Canada" I see that as being completely territorially based. All of the monarchs listed here reigned over the entirety of the entity of Canada, the "part or all of present-day Canada" bit doesn't make any sense to me, unless you are referring to monarchs reigning over a "part or all" of the territory currently occupied by Canada (ie the territories changes, but the entity hasn't), but like I said, the 'territory currently or ever occupied by Canada' has no relevancy to this article (besides the "territorial changes" boxes).trackratte (talk) 20:14, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

It's quite simple: the invisible entity of a state, whether constituted as a monarchy or a republic, relates to the visible territory and its inhabitants which the state entity governs. A territory of more or less defined extent is usually thought of as an essential attribute of a functioning state. The identity of a state's territory may change from time to time, by the will of its government or otherwise. A territory named on a map at any given time as '(territory) Somewhere' is not necessarily identical with the territory of a state which, at the same or another time, has the name '(state) Somewhere'. One purpose of this article is to identify the lines of monarchs who reigned over the parts of the territory in North America which are now within the territory that has been governed, from 1867, by the state entity which was then formed as a federal union and given the name 'Canada'. Qexigator (talk) 20:44, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Proposed revision of first sentence

The following is proposed in view of comments above on this page:

The line of monarchs who reigned over Canada the monarchy reigning in present-day Canada, and of an earlier monarchy that another line that reigned over part of the territory, begin approximately at the turn of the 16th century.

Would that be acceptable? Qexigator (talk) 23:34, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

My first thought when reading it: a "line of the monarchy" isn't a thing. Also, there were two earlier monarchies: French and British. The latter part's easy to fix. The former... I have nothing. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:01, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, strike monarchy and restore monarchs, as now above. Qexigator (talk) 00:31, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Mm. There's only one monarch reigning in present-day Canada, though, and lines don't reign. Perhaps: "The line of monarchs preceding the current queen of present-day Canada, each of whom reigned over parts of the territory, begins approximately at the turn of the 16th century." But, I'm left wondering: what territory is "the territory"?

I don't know if it helps, but, here's some older iterations of the opening sentence:

• This page lists those monarchs who have reigned over what is now Canada...
• Since what came to be known as Canada was first claimed in the name of King Henry VII, there have been 33 monarchs of Canada...
• The line of monarchs who reigned over territories that would become Canadian or over Canada itself begins...

--Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:51, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Second version

Then would the following be acceptable as the first sentence?

This page lists two lines of monarchs each of whom reigned over parts of present-day Canada, both lines beginning approximately at the turn of the 16th century, with one ending in 1763 and the other continued by the present Queen of Canada.

Qexigator (talk) 14:10, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

We're supposed to avoid self-references such as "this page...". How about "The line of monarchs reigning over the colony and Dominion of Canada ..."? DrKiernan (talk) 14:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the self-ref. tip, and "colony and Dominion of Canada" fits the content of the list. I will try another version. Qexigator (talk) 15:27, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Third version

...or this?

Both the line of monarchs who reigned over Canada begins the French colony, and the line who reigned over the British Dominion, of Canada begin approximately at the turn of the 16th century.

Qexigator (talk) 15:27, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Linking to a piece of terrain or to an entity

"The lines of monarchs who reigned over some part or all of present-day Canada" vs "line of monarchs who reigned over Canada".

Given the recent edit, I just wanted to clarify what I thought we had already arrived at previously. This article is not about a geographic space per se but about the entity "Canada". For example, Canada was an entity depicted on maps by the mid to late 1500s. It is this entity which this list speaks to. So the status of what is now known as Alberta in a year such as 1750, for example, is completely irrelevant to this article. The geographic space occupied by present day Alberta has no relevance until the reign of Edward VII.

Another reason not to get too wrapped up in geographic boundaries is, as that National Post article I linked to states, "In European minds at the time, North America still lacked clear geographical definition", so what geography the entity of Canada actually covered in the 15th and 16th centures is fuzzy, but like I said, isn't really all that relevant to the list as it doesn't matter exactly what geographic space each monarch ruled over, they ruled over Canada (granted there's a period between 1497 to when Champlain landed where the British entity of Canada was not so named, but the entity remained the same throughout the period regardless, ie what the British later called the "Canadas" in the 1500s was the same entity claimed in 1497). trackratte (talk) 03:08, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

"Some part of" could open up the article to all kinds of monarchs who claimed parts of what is today Canada. We should follow state continuity from New France to modern Canada. And in fact the King or Queen of England did not claim Newfoundland until the late 1500s. TFD (talk) 04:17, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

First sentence and the List

Is there a problem with the first sentence in the current version(08:47, 19 February])[7]? which reads: The lines of monarchs who reigned over first the French and the British colonies in the Canadas, then the British Dominion of Canada, and finally the present-day country of Canada begin approximately at the turn of the 16th century. Let us recall that

• the article topic is 'List of Canadian monarchs';
• the list itself is headed 'Sovereigns of Canada', and comprises three parts: 1_The French Crown (1534–1763), 2_The English and British Crown (1497–1931), 3_ The Canadian Crown (1931–present);
• the infobox links to History of monarchy in Canada, which begins The history of monarchy in Canada stretches from pre-colonial times through to the present day...King Henry VII in 1497...King Francis I took place in 1534. Through both these lineages, the present Canadian monarchy can trace itself back...;
• the List of those two lineages is accurately described in the first sentence, that replaces the shorter, and insufficient, earlier version, which was: 'The line of monarchs who reigned over Canada begins approximately at the turn of the 16th century.' Qexigator (talk) 16:02, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Qex, I like what you did with the first phrase, if that was you. I did (what I think were) some minor changes. Blue links to the French Colony of Canada and the British colonies of Canada I think were the most significant ones. Let me know if there was something I tweaked that you disagree with. trackratte (talk) 23:11, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Edit reversion

Qex,

Thanks for your comment in the edit history, and not tic-tacking reversions. I wasn't referring to your edits, I was referring to all of the edits which changed the focus of the article from Canada, to all of the various entities which ever occupied the same space currently occupied by Canada. As discussed seemingly ad nauseum, focusing on the current geography as opposed to Canada opens up all sorts of problems (such as Spanish monarchs as one example) which are not supported by any sources. trackratte (talk) 23:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

My revision to the first sentence (and then revised by you, and now as current version) was worded to preclude other lines such as Spanish. Qexigator (talk) 23:44, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Neutrality

I have asked for other editors to weigh in on the neutrality of this article at WP:NPOVN#Monarchy in Canada. TFD (talk) 20:15, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

under monarch of Great Britain until 1867, thence monarch of the Dominions until 1931, then as monarch of Canada

Canada viewed the BNA act as being central to its history (not counting Newfoundland which was a Colony until 1949). KGVI was His Majesty George the Sixth, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India thus (as Canada was a Dominion) he was King of the Dominion of Canada. Not "King of Great Britain and not separately King of the Dominion of Canada". Just as QV was "Empress of India" not "Queen of Great Britain and through that 'Queen of India'" And she was never "Empress of Great Britain." Kerr's position was the best of the lot as the peers agreed. [8] The royal official site states: As already referenced, The Dominion of Canada was created in 1867 with the passage of the British North America Act, 1867. The constitutional act of 1867 set out executive authority vested in the Sovereign and carried out in her name at the federal level by a Governor General and Privy Council , with legislative powers exercised by a bicameral Parliament made up of the Senate, the House of Commons and the Crown. One of the key features of the Statute of Westminster of 1931 was the separation the Crowns. As a consequence, the Crown of Canada – separate and distinct from that of the United Kingdom and the other Dominions – was defined in statute. Which appears to agree with the title before was as "King of the Dominions" and not as "King of Great Britain" with the Dominions sharing a common king and the only change being that he was now "King of Canada". 1931 did not change the position from "King of Great Britain" to "King of Canada" but rather "King of the Dominion of Canada" to "King of Canada" clearly -- as the House of Lords officially stated. The style used by KGV was still "Dominion of Canada" ("the British Dominions") just to confuse matters. The first act where "Dominion" appears to be disused is the Newfoundland Act of 1949 - which might make that a viable date to assert for the change. July 1 was "Dominion Day" until 1983 which makes that year a candidate. .

Thus the monarchy in Canada was as monarch of Great Britain (or United Kingdom - the Wikipedia entry disagrees with other sources on this) until 1867. The BNA act (which did not include all of current Canada) established the monarch as monarch of the Dominion of Canada (as one of "the Dominions") - That which was not part of the Dominion was held as the monarch "Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith" with Canada being one of the "Other Realms and Territories" as it was not yet officially a "Dominion."

The first use of "Great Britain" occurred on coins of James I ca 1604, thought the Union occurred 1707, but he was "King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland" and there is no indication that he ruled as just one of them over Canada. He granted all of British Canada in sovereignty[9] to William Alexander 1st Earl of Stirling, , it appears, who should have held onto Long Island probably. Modern lawyers holding to that charter would point out that the British Monarchy at that point lost control of then extant Canada. Kings in those days had stronger powers. In any event, it is unclear what the actual title used by James I with regard to Canada was, and even more unclear who re-established the British monarchy over that territory. In any event, by coinage we can argue "monarch of Great Britain" without trying to figure out which one of the titles was actually functioning in Canada. Victoria, however, has two distinct and different titles changing in 1867 - from "queen of Great Britain" to "Queen of the Dominion of Canada." Cromwell likely ruled Canada as "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland" and appears to have been the one who moved Nova Scotia from Alexander to some friends and was the cause of "Acadia". Interesting stuff, indeed. Title for him was likely "Lord Protector etc." and should be in the list.

Charles II used the old title of "King of England, France, Scotland and Ireland" (demoted Scotland). (disagrees with Wikipedia claim though) Not "Great Britain". James II likely kept that order.

William III and Mary II, then Anne -- no idea but "Great Britain" sounds ok enough (sources are a maze)

Then in 1801 the change in title is made to "King of the United Kingdom" with George III although the act of Union was long before!

Ending with Queen Victoria from 1837 - 67 ruling as "Queen of the United Kingdom" then in 1867 being as "Queen of the Dominion of Canada" [10] "the person who purchased it is known as Queen Victoria, the Queen of the Dominionof Canada"

Pretty messy but fascinating going through a slew of references. Collect (talk) 21:42, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

I do not think that the Statute of Westminster 1931 changed the status of Canada from dominion, in fact it was the statute that defined dominion status. Canada would gradually begin removing dominion from its name. But a Canadian post office erected in the reign of Edward VIII clearly says "Dominion Public Building" at the top[11] and the Dominion Bureau of Statistics kept the name until 1971. TFD (talk) 23:10, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Canada remained a "dominion" after 1931 - the question is how the sources say the King would have styled himself. And Newfoundland was not part of Canada at all until 1949. see added stuff above as 1949 and 1983 are viable dates to claim for end of "Dominion". Collect (talk) 23:23, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

See Style of the British sovereign#Styles of British sovereigns: in 1901 UK statute added "and the British Dominions beyond the Seas." That was changed to "and of Her other Realms and Territories" in 1953. In Canada it was changed to "Canada and Her other Realms and Territories," but "United Kingdom" remains part of the title. The 1931 statute had allowed Canada to change the title. I do not think that "dominion" status ever ended. It changed and was renamed and no longer has any great relevance. The same thing happened with the old terms of "colony", "British subject", and "British Empire". TFD (talk) 00:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't like how it is implied that the Dominion of Canada began in 1837. The Dominion of Canada began in 1867 at the start of confederation. Victoria should be copied to "Sovereigns of the Colony of Canada" because that's what they were until 1867. Victoria can also remain in the "Sovereigns of the Dominion of Canada" but the start date needs to be changed to 1867.

I divided the reign of Victoria with the "Dominion of Canada" line. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:51, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. trackratte (talk) 22:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)