Because Canada is a constitutional
monarchy, the monarch's representative must approve
all Bills before they can become law. This step takes place in a ceremony called Royal
Assent.
In spite of the pomp and circumstance surrounding Royal Assent, it is normally a formality.
Of course, there was a time in early British history when Kings and
Queens did have to give
their approval to Bills before they could become law, but they gave up that right very early in
the development of parliamentary democracy. By the time of Henry VII - that is, late in the
15th century - monarchs accepted that Parliament had the right to make laws, so they
approved them almost routinely. Still, monarchs and their representatives have from time to
time refused 
Bills. In 1936 Alberta's Lieutenant Governor
Bowen refused to grant Royal Assent to
three Bills passed during William
Aberhart's Social Credit government. Two of them would
have interfered in federal-government controlled financial areas, while the third, the Accurate
News and Information Act, would have placed restrictions on how media reported the news
and was thus considered by many to be unconstitutional.
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