Kevin Gosine, Brock University; Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, Brock University, and Tiffany L. Gallagher, Brock University

You’ve likely walked past that non-profit youth centre or literacy program in your neighborhood countless times. You’ve probably never needed to make use of it and never given it a second thought.

But on your next stroll, take a moment to consider the work that organization does, the challenges it faces and the vast benefits it brings to your community.

In an age of proliferating social troubles and government retreat, Canadians must be aware of the critical role played by the non-profit sector.

Recent decades have seen the welfare state withdraw in favour of free-market principles. In a neoliberal era, where profitability is prioritized over social duty, all orders of government in Canada have shirked much of the responsibility for providing social services onto non-profits.

Importance of social connections

As non-profits have become saddled with more obligations, they are handcuffed by limited funding. Long-term funding arrangements between governments and non-profits have been replaced by provisional and competitive funding. While non-profits are expected to do significantly more, they are relegated to coping with far fewer resources.

This has serious implications for the long-term well-being of communities, especially those already marginalized and under-served.

Not only are non-profits now providing critical services and social supports for which the state previously took responsibility, they are also settings where vital forms of social capital are produced.

Social capital refers to networks of trust, belonging and support developed among people within a given community (bonding social capital), and between people who identify with different communities or social groups (bridging social capital). Social capital enables people to work together toward mutual well-being and goal attainment.

Social capital doesn’t just happen

Communities must find ways to create worthwhile forms of social capital. And that’s where non-profit organizations can fill a gap. However, constantly scrambling for money leaves these organizations little time, resources and capacity to provide programming that fosters social capital.

Our research on community literacy organizations illuminated the role of non-profit organizations in helping people cultivate social capital. We conducted interviews and focus groups with program leads, staff and service users at eight non-profit organizations in southern Ontario to learn how they support literacy in their communities.

We found that producing social capital enabled them to serve communities in ways that transcended their primary mandates.

It is unrealistic to expect people to build social capital on their own, devoid of enabling social infrastructure. The challenge of creating meaningful social connections is daunting. Especially as society becomes increasingly individualistic. Religion — once a stalwart source of community — continues to decline and technology is rapidly displacing face-to-face human interaction. Urban planners and community stakeholders need to provide the settings and opportunities for people to come together, connect and collaborate.

We found that non-profit community programs serve as settings where people from marginalized backgrounds can build beneficial forms of social capital. Such local initiatives provided individuals with recurrent and predictable channels to interact, share lived experiences and work together.

For example, mothers of children with disabilities participated in self-help groups where they shared their experiences, exchanged information and generally supported one another. Civic projects, such as a community garden started at one organization, brought together residents, young and old.

Non-profit programs provide people with opportunities to interact with different community members and forge meaningful interactions with people outside their social group that mitigate prejudice and foster trust and understanding.

Over the course of our research, we saw what started as bridging social capital strengthen into bonding ties between program participants, and in many cases between program users, staff and volunteers. The significance of these bonds was powerfully conveyed by one participant who took part in our study:

… what I take away from this group [is] that there are good people still left in a world that’s so scary, and people that are there to support. And whether I’m here or not, they’re always willing to help somebody else that’s in need. And… knowing that the option of … being there and the people that come together for this group–it’s really incredible to know that you have somebody.

The programs we studied connected individuals to new people, organizations, supports and resources and provided ongoing opportunities to build bridging social capital.

While the primary purpose of the non-profit organizations was to improve literacy, these programs accomplished much more. By providing a judgement-free safe space where participants had opportunities to share and collaborate, these organizations fostered social capital within communities.

The community organizations we studied had recently lost their primary funding provided by a regional anti-poverty program. Program leads and staff remained committed to supporting service users but struggled to do so given the need to devote more time and resources to addressing funding insecurities.

Benefits of social capital

When social capital is actively fostered, social trust is elevated. Research has demonstrated that the more non-profit organizations there are in a community, the lower the crime rate. Non-profit organizations help to lessen crime by enhancing levels of social capital and trust and expanding opportunities and hope.

Strengthening people’s social and organizational ties broadens their horizons and improves their well-being. Non-profits play a crucial role in fostering and sustaining such social capital.

If governments expect communities to be viable and fend for themselves amid diminishing public support, local non-profits cannot be relegated to financial precarity. By starving the non-profit sector, governments are ironically undermining the capacity of communities to live up to the neoliberal ideals of self-reliance and local resourcefulness.

Kevin Gosine, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Brock University; Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, Professor, Department of Educational Studies; Director, Teacher Education, Brock University, and Tiffany L. Gallagher, Professor, Department of Educational Studies and Director, Brock Learning Lab, Brock University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Jeffrey B. Meyers, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

The coronation of King Charles was a cringe-inducing display of white European hereditary privilege and ostentation that angered many, both in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

That anger, or in some cases simple apathy or collective eye-rolling, should not be ignored because the monarchy and the Crown are not merely symbols, they’re a massive expense.

The cost of the coronation to the British taxpayer has been estimated at £100 million (almost $170 million in Canadian dollars) — extremely costly in a post-Brexit period of economic uncertainty and decline for the U.K..

Some of the vast private wealth and land holdings of the Royal Family are also connected directly to England’s role in colonization and the slave trade.

Despite all this, the monarch remains the head of state for many Commonwealth countries, including Canada.

The U.S. style of republicanism

While the American experiment in republicanism isn’t looking especially good at the moment amid the shambles left by Donald Trump’s presidency, the country’s founders were correct in recognizing that democratic legitimacy and monarchical power cannot be easily reconciled.

In fact, their biggest mistake and that of subsequent generations may simply have been to permit the presidency to retain elements of absolute or unfettered power in the form of executive privilege.

From George W. Bush’s disastrous war on terror to the Trump administration’s outright repudiation of democratic norms, recent presidents have not hesitated to behave like kings.

In Canada, we can benefit from both the lessons of the United States and the U.K. to avoid idealizing a republic with a powerful president and at the same time acknowledging that a traditional monarchy, even a purely symbolic or constitutional monarchy, is no alternative.

As I have argued before, each Commonwealth nation would have different legislative and constitutional processes to follow to sever ties with the British monarchy. Canada’s in particular would be complex and difficult, but not necessarily impossible.

It would require unanimous consent of all provincial legislatures and the federal Parliament. In practice, this would probably not be possible without referendums in each province. Because of this, some leading constitutional lawyers in Canada regard the question as a non-starter.

But if Canadians aren’t careful, they may one day find that events in the U.K. make the decision for us.

Here’s how.

Different political systems

Suppose current British demographic trends and polling data pan out and a decade or two from now a younger, more diverse British population loses patience with the monarchy.

Like Canada, the U.K. has a constitution and the monarchy is essential to it. But unlike Canada, the U.K.’s constitution is largely unwritten. Changing the British Constitution can at least theoretically be done by an ordinary act of Parliament and without the complexity of co-ordinating 10 sovereign legislatures.

Another difference? The U.K. is a unitary and not a federal state. This means British parliament, unlike Canada’s, can unilaterally amend its constitution to address the status of the monarchy if it wishes.

Similarly in the U.K., any conventions around public consultation would also be arguably less complex and more straightforward than in Canada because of the British system of government. This could lead to a bizarre situation in which the British monarch ceases to be the British head of state but remains the Canadian one.

To my knowledge, this would be a completely uncharted territory and a constitutional crisis of the highest magnitude.

Rather than continuing to sit nervously on the sidelines observing America’s presidential system lurch from crisis to crisis, or celebrating the coronation of Britain’s new king as our own, Canada should learn from the errors of both the republican model and monarchical model and do something different.

Looking ahead

We might start by recognizing forms of political association, governance and policymaking that are less European and owe more to Indigenous models.

Mary Simon, Canada’s governor general and the King’s representative in Canada — as well as first Indigenous person to occupy that colonial office — is correct when she says many Indigenous people look to the treaty relationship with the Crown, which predates Confederation itself, as part of their strategy of decolonization.

But it’s tough to reconcile a European hereditary monarchy with a Canada in which Indigenous people are attempting to take control over their own destiny.

Similarly, for many Canadians who immigrated to Canada from parts of the former British Empire in the Caribbean, Africa and India, finding the old colonial monarchy waiting for them here is no sign of dynamism.

It will be up to the current generation of Canadians to decide if now is the time to begin taking this question more seriously or whether to leave it to the United Kingdom to decide for us.

Jeffrey B. Meyers, Instructor, Legal Studies and Criminology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The crowning is perhaps the most famous part of British coronations. Yet easily overlooked – and equally important – is the coronation oath, which has been a fundamental component of the ceremony since medieval times.

It is of such significance that the remainder of the rite cannot proceed unless it has been sworn. Why? The oath is the essential counterpart to the recognition and acclamation.

The recognition is the moment at the beginning of the ceremony when the monarch is presented to the people for approval. The acclamation is the moment in which the people accept the new monarch.

Together, these three acts establish a contractual relationship between sovereign and peoples. By public commitment to the promises and values enshrined in the oath, the monarch is forming a bond to the largely uncodified constitution (the UK’s constitution has never been assembled into a single written document).

There has been talk of a shorter service for Charles III’s coronation. But to omit these vital stages would amount to constitutional vandalism.

Before primogeniture (the law of firstborn inheritance), the British monarchy was elective. In Anglo-Saxon times, the witan (the leading nobles or council of the country) chose the new sovereign. And until at least the middle ages, a secular enthronement, preceded the coronation service.

Today’s acclamation comes from that tradition of electing a sovereign. This is when the officiant (usually the Archbishop of Canterbury), standing with the candidate in Westminster Abbey, asks whether or not the congregation recognises the candidate’s entitlement to be crowned.

Those present acclaim the person as their monarch, crying “God save the King/Queen”, representing the country. Some historians contest the acclamation’s importance on the grounds that the respondents are unrepresentative of the people and unlikely to reject the candidate: “as if there was any choice in the matter”.

Nevertheless, it is vital to what follows that they are asked at all. In Portugal, under the Avis dynasty, the acclamation assumed such supreme importance that the crowning withered away altogether. By contrast, Russian peasants were never asked for consent to recognise a new Tsar.

This piece is part of our coverage of King Charles III’s coronation. The first coronation of a British monarch since 1953 comes at a time of reckoning for the monarchy, the royal family and the Commonwealth.

For more royal analysis, revisit our coverage of Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum jubilee, and her death in September 2022._

Following the acclamation, the candidate must commit to their side of the contract – the terms set out in the coronation oath. “Coronation oath” is a slight misnomer. It is actually a series of promises in question and answer form, sealed by an oath sworn “in God’s presence”. The text of the promises has evolved, but the core has remained.

In the version lasting (with tweaks) from 1308 to 1685, the candidate promised to confirm the laws of their predecessors, to maintain peace, to administer impartial justice with mercy and to preserve and enforce the laws that parliament would pass.

The makings of a modern oath

The Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689 ushered in a major change when a revised oath became statutory. The version used for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 had three essential parts and retained the oath’s medieval core.

Firstly, would she promise: “to govern the Peoples … according to their respective laws and customs?” Secondly, would she cause: “Law and Justice, in Mercy, to be executed in all … [her] judgements?” Lastly would she: “maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel” as well as “maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law”?

Afterwards, came the oath proper. Elizabeth II swore:

The things which I have here before promised, I will perform and keep. So help me God.

As this shows, the monarch swears to uphold certain key values: law, justice and mercy (although Charles has said he sees himself as a “defender of faiths” and the service is likely to reference other denominations and religions).

That obligation speaks to the nation, but also broadcasts a global message of what the United Kingdom stands for.

The coronation oath marks the moment the monarch’s actions and words correspond to the trust placed in them by the people when they recognised and acclaimed them as their king or queen. Together, the two stages form a contract on the basis of which the service can proceed to the crowning.

There is a sense that uncrowned (and therefore unsworn) monarchs were, and are, not fully sovereign. Would Richard III have usurped the crown so easily had one of the princes in the tower been crowned? Might Lady Jane Grey (the nine-day queen) have seen off Mary Tudor if she had reigned long enough to undergo coronation? As it was, Mary I led the only successful coup d’état of the 16th century.

Writing of Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936, the late Queen Mother commented that it was fortunate that “he was never crowned”. Clearly, an abdication post-coronation would have been more problematic because the coronation oath establishes accountability.

Breach of contract can, for a sworn monarch, have terrible consequences. The charge of flouting their coronation oaths was levelled against Edward II (deposed and murdered), Richard II (ditto), Charles I (deposed and executed) and James II (deposed and exiled). Those kings could not be trusted because they had broken their sacred word.

The oath is at once a conduit for tradition, a constitutional pillar, a source of legitimacy and authority and a marker of national values. The coronation oath binds monarch to peoples and to the governmental system of the state, but it also communicates some of the principles – law, justice and mercy – upon which that governance rests.

Oaths are still an important part of employment in the British armed services, police force, parliament, privy council and law courts. Each of those oaths mentions allegiance, service or loyalty to the sovereign. How incongruous it would be if the person at the summit of the constitutional pyramid had no oath to swear themselves.

David Crankshaw, Lecturer in the History of Early Modern Christianity, King's College London and George Gross, Visiting Research Fellow, King's College London

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.