Please leave the party politics out of it, or at least recognise it's not the whole story:
Quote:
Before William Rompkey retired as a Liberal senator last year, he introduced a motion in the Red Chamber to have the name of the Maritime Command restored to that of the Canadian Navy. He urged Mr. MacKay to take the step in time to mark the 100th navy’s anniversary, and his motion was seconded by Conservative Senator Hugh Segal.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/pol ... le2130125/JDK wrote:
I believe in Britain's case it's a hang over from the Army being the oldest military arm.
Mike wrote:
The Royal Navy, being the 'Senior Service', might disagree with you there James.
I could live with that. The RN pushes more bull claimed as "tradition" than most, some of which is risible. [Edit: The English and Scottish armies pre-date the (British) Royal Navy, but the 'British Army' came after the RN. However that's mainly to do with the RN needing a permanent standing force and not being regimentally based, as much as the maritime arm being 'older'. It isn't, the current name for the arm is.]
According to the same Globe article above, a better answer than mine is:
Quote:
The Canadian Army is not called the Royal Canadian Army because Canada follows British tradition, which holds that the navy and the air force are commanded by the Queen but the army is a collection of independent regiments that serve the sovereign but are not part of the Royal Canadian Forces.