Kanata
Discover Canada (PDF): Page 2
I swear (or affirm)
That I will be faithful
And bear true allegiance
To His Majesty
King Charles the Third
King of Canada
His Heirs and Successors
And that I will faithfully observe
The laws of Canada
Including the Constitution
Which recognizes and affirms
The Aboriginal and treaty rights of
First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples1
And fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.
Understanding the Oath
In Canada, we profess our loyalty to a person who represents all Canadians and not to a document such as a constitution, a banner such as a flag, or a geopolitical entity such as a country. In our constitutional monarchy, these elements are encompassed by the Sovereign (Queen or King).2 It is a remarkably simple yet powerful principle: Canada is personified by the Sovereign just as the Sovereign is personified by Canada.
1 Under the recent renewed attention to the residential school system, legislation changed Canada’s Oath of Citizenship in 2021 to include 20 words about Indigenous peoples and treaty rights. That is 154 years after the Confederation of Canada and 524 years after the beginning of European exploration and exploitation of the Indigenous peoples and lands.
2 Imperial Forces exert pressure to ensure that Settlers continue to fill their colonial role; once this process is established, though, we must ask the question of why Settlers continue to submit to a society predicated upon power and control that is so diametrically opposed to the principles that most Settlers claim so strongly to espouse and that results in their own control. Understanding and confronting this motivation on an individual level is key to dismantling the Canadian society of control and the hybrid colonial values that it protects.
That I will be faithful
And bear true allegiance
To His Majesty
King Charles the Third
King of Canada
His Heirs and Successors
And that I will faithfully observe
The laws of Canada
Including the Constitution
Which recognizes and affirms
The Aboriginal and treaty rights of
First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples1
And fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.
Understanding the Oath
In Canada, we profess our loyalty to a person who represents all Canadians and not to a document such as a constitution, a banner such as a flag, or a geopolitical entity such as a country. In our constitutional monarchy, these elements are encompassed by the Sovereign (Queen or King).2 It is a remarkably simple yet powerful principle: Canada is personified by the Sovereign just as the Sovereign is personified by Canada.
1 Under the recent renewed attention to the residential school system, legislation changed Canada’s Oath of Citizenship in 2021 to include 20 words about Indigenous peoples and treaty rights. That is 154 years after the Confederation of Canada and 524 years after the beginning of European exploration and exploitation of the Indigenous peoples and lands.
2 Imperial Forces exert pressure to ensure that Settlers continue to fill their colonial role; once this process is established, though, we must ask the question of why Settlers continue to submit to a society predicated upon power and control that is so diametrically opposed to the principles that most Settlers claim so strongly to espouse and that results in their own control. Understanding and confronting this motivation on an individual level is key to dismantling the Canadian society of control and the hybrid colonial values that it protects.