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OUR WAYWARD GOVERNOR-GENERAL
MICHAËLLE JEAN

When former Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed Michaëlle Jean as Governor-General in August 2005, he was thrilled with his choice believing that she was the perfect candidate for the position.

Ms Jean was a French speaking CBC broadcaster in Quebec, a “woman of colour” and a naturalized Canadian from Haiti. She was also young, female and attractive. He reasoned that Canadians would be just as excited as he was over his choice.

Ms Jean’s appointment, however, appears also to have had a lot to do with partisan considerations by Mr. Martin who was concerned about several Liberal seats in Montreal at that time and believed that her appointment as a Quebec-based francophone, whose views epitomized that of the Liberal party, would be helpful to him.

It did not take long, however, for problems to emerge from his choice of Governor-General. First of all, there was that little separatism problem. Ms Jean had once cavorted on film with separatist supporters and raised a glass to Quebec independence. Her husband Jean-Daniel Lafond had written a book in which he compared the plight of Quebec to that of ex-colonial Caribbean nations struggling against “the transnational techno-capitalism Mafia”. M. Jean-Daniel Lafond is a former philosophy professor from France and currently a filmmaker in Quebec. He is supposed to be an “intellectual” so that what he writes can be very obscure and often does not make sense. Both Ms Jean and her husband were citizens of France, as well as Canada, but due to adverse comments at the time of her appointment, Ms. Jean gave up her French citizenship. Ms Jean established her left wing credentials by making a documentary in which she celebrated the 40-year rule of Cuban communist dictator Fidel Castro.
These revelations led to Ms Jean making a face-saving statement saying she really did believe in Canada. What an extraordinary declaration for a Governor-General to have to make public.

Unfortunately, Ms Jean appears to be a lightweight with little or no grasp of Canadian history, culture or traditions. She also appears to have an imperfect understanding of the role of Governor-General. This institution is supposed to be the symbol of the monarchy in that Ms Jean is the Queen’s representative in Canada. The position also has vital constitutional implications, as the Governor-General has the power to dismiss a government and call on the opposition to try to form a government. It is also the Governor-General’s job to encourage, advise and warn a government, but with Ms Jean’s lack of background and separatist sympathies, there is not much advice she can give to the Prime Minister.

Ms Jean’s partisan, left-based views are also evidenced in her speeches, which are mediocre left wing nostrums without substance. They amount to a re-hashing of the left wing political agenda, whether about women suffering discrimination (see Governor-General Person’s Award, REALity January/February. 2006 p. 18) or violence (Vancouver speech, March 2006).

Canadians can live with Ms Jean’s inconsequential feminist speeches, but what we cannot accept is her political meddling. She apparently believes that it is her role to publicly scold and embarrass the government when it deviates from her own left wing agenda. For example, Ms Jean:

Hosted a private dinner party at Rideau Hall in October 2006 which was attended by outspoken critics of the Afghanistan war. The pretext for the party was to supposedly honour Afghanistan’s Prime Minister Hamid Karzai. No cabinet ministers were invited. Ms Jean is a political neophyte and lacks the experience of our seasoned and astute Queen who has been observing world events for decades. Nonetheless, Ms Jean felt competent to use her position and Rideau Hall to trespass on a political issue.

On April 16, 2007, on the occasion of the celebration of the 25-year anniversary of the Charter of Rights, Ms Jean took the opportunity to claim that vulnerable groups do not have access to the “justice system”. She also declared that Canada was at a crossroads and spoke darkly about the need to “resist the temptation to deny our fellow citizens their most basic rights”. Her comments came at the same time the Conservative party was being criticized in the House of Commons for withdrawing funding from the Court Challenges Program by both the NDP and the Liberal leader Stéphane Dion. The latter stated that if elected, he would not only restore the Court Challenges Program, but would also double its budget to $11.2 million.

Even the Globe and Mail reacted unfavourably to Ms Jean’s political incursions. It stated in an editorial on April 19, 2007:

Even if it was not her intention, she created that perception, leaving herself and her office open to allegations of partisanship.

Whether or not one agrees with the Conservative government’s decision to withdraw funding from the Court Challenges Program it is a decision that the government has the right to make without getting sideswiped by the viceroy. If Ms Jean has any concerns about government policy, she should register them with the Prime Minister in the time-honoured fashion of Westminster-style government – in private, where such views belong.

When Ms Jean was appointed Governor-General, Mr. Martin stated exuberantly that with Ms Jean and her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, Canadians would have “two for the price of one”. In this regard, Mr. Lafond’s contribution to the vice regal role is to publicly display his boredom and indifference for the position. At public events he leans, with arms folded across his chest, against anything available whether a table or a wall. He remains utterly disengaged from the proceedings. However, he is not above interfering in the background when it suits his purposes, such as the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec where the Governor-General’s office was not welcomed. He gives the impression that he is there only on sufferance, indulging his “little woman” on her caprice as Governor-General. Ms Jean, for her part, however, is obviously having the time of her life loving the attention, the luxury, the clothes, and the travel. It is all about “me”. The history, purpose and the responsibilities, apart from a few scattered trendy speeches, of her high office appear to sit lightly on her shoulders. She declined to swear in the new cabinet ministers in the January 2007 cabinet shuffle, an important part of her constitutional duties, because she wanted to spend time with her husband and daughter after returning from a trip to Africa. She has been Governor-General 18 months and still has not visited all the 10 provinces or the three territories. She has also removed the paintings of the former vice-regal appointments – many of them British royalty, to a space near the washrooms and cloak rooms and replaced them with Canadian paintings – mostly from Quebec. The history of Canada, or Rideau Hall or her predecessors apparently hold little interest for her.

Her lack of a sense of proportion about being the Governor-General was apparent when Ms Jean decided in June 2006 not to attend the 80th birthday celebration of the Queen held in London, although her counterparts from Australia and the Bahamas were there. The event included a Eucharist in St. Paul’s Cathedral and a luncheon where the Queen was to give a speech. Ms Jean claimed her decision not to attend the Queen’s celebration was due to a scheduling conflict in Toronto, including attending a play about her. Ms Jean reacted emotionally to the play and was moved to tears by it.

Together Ms Jean and her husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond, make quite the vice-regal pair.

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