ABSTRACT
This chapter explores one legal chronotope that puts in question the now habitual association of cyclical and/or spiritual notions of time with non-Western forms of law, and also questions the association of white law with abstract, rational space. The re-emergence of a powerful monarchical entity in contemporary Canadian law among other things deconstructs Walter Bagehot's famous binary distinction between the efficient and the dignified dimensions of the English constitution. In Canada, as in Australia, federalism complicates ontology of sovereignty that was already, in the purely domestic English context, rather fuzzy. The Crown is not exclusively federal: Canadian provincial governments are often referred to as 'the Crown' or as 'the Queen in Right of Ontario', 'the Queen in Right of British Columbia', etc. The chapter describes the unique legal spatiotemporality as that of Aladdin's magic carpet, an image that captures one aspect of the chronotope.
