It does technically have power, but it's like the King's power to veto UK legislation - he can do it precisely once and then he'll be stripped of the power.
It does technically have power, but it's like the King's power to veto UK legislation - he can do it precisely once and then he'll be stripped of the power.
Honestly this old chestnut comes up time and time again.
As much as many people would love the King/Queen to put the politicians in their place sadly there are two problems.
First, the monarch's role is effectively only ceremonial these days. Even "The King's speech" during opening of parliament is actually a piece of paper written by the ruling-party of the day, the King just sits there in his fancy regalia and reads it verbatim.
Second, if you are referring to veto during the royal ascent process. As per Wikipedia, the King does not have pure veto power, his options are:
- grant royal assent, thereby making the bill an act of Parliament.
- delay the bill's assent through the use of reserve powers, thereby invoking a veto.
- refuse royal assent on the advice of his or her ministers.
None of the above is a pure veto option. The nearest the King can get is delaying it.Not my area of expertise, but at a guess.
I think that is the reason the His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition exists as a formalised concept (i.e. the party that came second in the elections), i.e. in the scenario you envisage, the King would still refuse it on the advice, but that of the recognised opposition minister (Leader of The Opposition).
But in reality an early election would likely be triggered the normal way well before things reached that state of affairs.
It would afterall be quite extraordinary circumstances if both the Prime Minister and Leader of The Opposition were pushing the king to grant ascent to a piece of law but the King still felt he should to refuse !
Canadian MPs are electeds. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the Canadian Senate being referred to as an elected body—it’s irrelevant to the above.