Victoria's Oath-of-Office-gate

Past councillors and one mayor have eschewed the monarch in the oath

Today the new Victoria Mayor and City Council were inaugurated during a ceremony at City Hall. The last time this took place was in 2018 and many might recall that then-incumbent Mayor Lisa Helps refused to swear an oath to Queen Elizabeth II. It also happened in 2014 and with councillors in 2011, 2008 and 2002. It was for this reason that many political watchers were waiting to see if anyone would follow the same path in today’s ceremony with our new members.

During the ceremony 6 of the 9 members of Council inclusive of the Mayor did not include the oath to King Charles III. This sparked some err and questions on Twitter as the ceremony ended.

Susan Simmons @MS_athlete

@CityOfVictoria Wonderful. I understand 6 of our leaders did not take the Oath of Allegiance. Can you please provide information on the requirement for this? My understanding, which may be incorrect, is this is rooted in upholding Canadian Law and it is required if you are to hold public office.

And so I did some digging.

It is important to remember that municipalities are not distinct levels of government in Canada. We have two levels of government defined in our Constitution; the federal government and provincial governments. Each have specific areas of responsibility that are again defined in our Constitution under sections 91 and 92. There are no Constitutional powers or responsibilities assigned to municipalities.

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Municipalities across Canada are creatures of the province. They are created by the province, their powers are delegated by the province (all of them rest with the province from a constitutional perspective) and any requirements of office are defined by the province through legislation and regulation.

In British Columbia, there are two pieces of legislation that serve as the basis of the bulk of creating, defining and providing regulations for municipalities in the province, these are the Local Government Act and the Community Charter. If you ever have any questions over who should be doing what or what municipalities are legally required to do and not do you should first look to these two pieces of what lawyers would call enabling legislation (specifically the Community Charter, that has a lot of this kind of information).

And what do these pieces of legislation say about oaths? Well, first of all they are the authority for the oaths, the reason why the ceremony this morning even included an oath. Nothing else compelled council to do this today, just the law from the Charter. It is not a matter of custom, or federal law or just something that happens because we are a constitutional monarchy. The oath is a requirement in the law under section 120 of the Community Charter. If defines who should take the oath and when.

There is also a regulation contained within a schedule of the Charter which provides an example of what the oath should look like. And this is important, Mayors and Council in British Columbia do not take the Canadian Oath of Allegiance (“I swear Allegiance to the King…”) like MPs, MLAs, judges, Canadian Forces members and police officers. The Charter says that they take an Oath of Office which has a specific form and purpose which is different than the Oath of Allegiance.

So what does all of this mean? It means there is no requirement in provincial law (which governs municipalities) for elected local government officials to make the Oath of Allegiance. They are required to take the Oath of Office which is clear in the law.

Where things get muddled in Victoria is that it is clear that we have our own oath written sometime in the City’s history (which is permitted as per section 120 para 2) which states that “[a] council may, by bylaw, establish the oath or solemn affirmation of office for the purposes of this section, which may be different for the office of mayor and the office of councillor.” Now, I could not find a specific City of Victoria by-law that mentions the text of the oath but it is clear that ours references the Crown and includes a statement of allegiance. I wouldn’t put it past out City that we do not have it in a by-law but it has become common practice over a long period of time.

Considering this has been something that has come up in 2018 and now again in 2022, that the majority of elected members opted to avoid the statement of allegiance, and the fact that is not even required through BC law, perhaps it is time for the city to remove the statement from the oath that is used. This would be permitted in the law and would avoid this coming up again in the future.

I would have thought that Lisa Helps would have done some research to change this herself while she was in office considering she is the one who first raised the issue but she was a woman of action, not process (as we all know).

Eric James @ejamesYYJ

@yourtowelzz @MS_athlete @CityOfVictoria It might very well be common practice. In fact, we obvious do it in Victoria because we have our own Oath (also permitted in the Act) and it includes reference to the Crown. Perhaps it is time the city adopt one without it so we avoid this issue altogether.

But I would like to know what you think…should all elected officials— even at the local government level— make the Oath of Allegiance? Should Victoria look at wording their future Oath of Office along the same lines as the provincial regulation suggests and not have any reference to the monarch? Does any of this really matter aside from some headlines every four years? Let me know in the comments!

Correction Note: a previous edition of this newsletter said that Lisa Helps started the trend in 2018 when she refused the oath. While there was national coverage of this when it happened, it was pointed out by a reader in the comments that it happened in 2014 with her and some councillors. And again in 2011, 2008 and 2002 with some councillors. We apologize for the inaccurate information.