Thoughts? Not that it is terribly exciting, but it is a new face. And it will be nice to see a young child living at the Hall.
Will it help the federalist cause at all in Quebec or simply stop the spread of seperatism? It will certainly piss off the seperatists. An immigrant from Quebec? I’d expect the racism among that group to become more pronounced.
She takes a nice picture that’s for sure.
You’re not allowed to have those feelings for the Governor General!!!
My impression is that she’s quite popular in Quebec. I became a big fan of hers just from watching her anchor the news on Radio-Canada; she is very poised and professional but not emotionally removed and she connects with people she’s talking with. She’s perfectly bilingual (okay, she speaks five languages!), articulate, intelligent, and compassionate. I never would have expected her name to come up for this job, but now that she’s been chosen it feels like the perfect choice. After she stopped being a newsanchor she had a French newsmagazine on Radio-Canada TV as well as the English ones on CBC. I think she’s great.
That’s two in a row. Is this a coincidence, or a trend? I wonder if the Governor Generalship has become slated to be a post for female TV personalities (?). Previously it was supposed to represent a posting of the highest level of statesmanship. What is it becoming now?
djm
Not having a Governor General in the U.S., would you please explain to us Americans exactly what a Governor General is/does?
Susan
djm, I know what you’re thinking. The Jesse Ventura/Schwarzenegger tendency. But tell me, who in Canada would you say exemplifies the highest level of statesmanship today? Come to think of it, who anywhere in the world…
I think our present GG has done a very good job and if you have to go outside the ranks of retired politicians to whom the PM owes a favour to find someone to do such a job, that’s fine with me.
Susan, the GG is the queen’s representative in Canada. Lieutenant if you like. Does all the stuff that the queen would do if she were here.
She can even theoretically sack the government, cf. the extraordinary crisis in Australia in 1975 (?) when the GG scandalously dismissed Gough Whitlam’s labour government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_constitutional_crisis_of_1975
She’s / He’s the Queen in Canada. More or less. Other than that, I guess they fly around to all sorts of places and spend tax money.
Yeah, I’m not so sure myself. Simon?
The Governor General is the Queen’s representative in Canada at the federal level. At the provincial level we have lieutenant governors. He/she formally opens and closes sessions of parliament, gets called in to sign off on some laws, but nowadays mostly acts as a goodwill ambasador.
djm
No, the representative of the queen. As far as I know she just signs off on things on the queen’s behalf and gives out an award.
The US rolls two the job of being head of state and the job of being head of the government into one office, the presidency.
However, many other systems–including all parliamentary systems–divide these tasks up. In some places (Ireland and Israel) there’s an elected president with largely ceremonial powers who presides over a government headed by a prime minister who has most real power. Typically the head of state is the office charge with one primary responsibility–to guard against tyranny. They have the power to sign (or refuse to sign) all laws, and to dismiss the government upon extraordinary cause. Apart from these rarely used but crucial costitutional responsibilities, the head of state mostly does “goodwill” type things–reading to kindergarten classes about pet goats, etc, opening large sporting events, handing out awards, and going to funerals.
In westminster-type governments, the queen does these things. Here and in australia, it’s an appointed task.
The chief advantage is that it avoids the confusion that exists in US politics over the fact that the president has to be both the symbolic “good father” AND good at governing. Often presidents–Bush is a prime example–get picked because the voters think they’ll be good at the former, not the latter. It’s also why president’s personal lives get scrutinized to such a degree, because they’re daddy. It’s why half the electorate got so mad a Clinton. In parliamentary systems, the prime minister is allowed all the blowjobs he can handle.
Parliamentary systems tend to treat their PMs with a lot less automatic respect. He’s a guy who works for us and we expect he’s not much less of an idiot up there than anyone else. We’re equals. Presidents aren’t really equal because they’re head of state.
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Thanks Simon.
That’s exactly what I wanted to know.
Oh, and fiddler, I realize the GG is a “representative”. I’ve heard similar phrases being said about most anything, ie that a representative is the thing it’s representing, here. It’s a bit of humour. So, that’s why I put it the way I did. Regional dialect I guess.
Can I be PM? 
We say “she’s the queen’s represenative in Canada” as if that means something, but although ti’s true enought, I don’t think it means much. Really, the GG is the people’s representative in ottawa–the person who embodies the fact that the government works for us, not the otehr way round.
It keeps our governments humble.
Good explanation Simon.
I like the position. Not necessarily because I’m a monarchist, but because it gives the country a face without (as much) political baggage. For example, in the United States, troops overseas might be exstatic to see the president show up. Not so in Canada, he’s just a clown who has reached the highest level of… clownmanship
The governor general (she is also the commander and chief of the Canadian forces isn’t she?) can show up and the politics doesn’t really enter into it. Same with something like Remembrance Day. I think the GG usually speaks, the Prime Minister does not. Not to mention the fact that they can be much more personable than a politician. I know Adrienne got alot of flack (especially from my side) but she won me over when she danced with the soldiers on New Years eve in Afghanistan, as did Saul by going out on patrol with them (though he is still an odd one). For that they’ll always have my respect. Not to mention the fact that she was an excellent speaker and made you proud whenever she spoke at an event.
As for the new one, if nothing else she’ll certainly be a good face internationally.
Sure. I think Trudeau was the only one who ever took advantage of it, so I bet they’ve added up since then.
Well, there’s Mulroney, but he thought he had to GIVE.
I’m surprised Nancy Reagan put up with it.
He actually comes from a family with very deep connections within the Royal Montreal Regiment. I dunno if he served, but he is a notable military historian.
He wrote the obit for one its ww2 heroes, a man who’d been the youngest colonel in the army at some point and who’d done something remarkable in Italy. I knew him vaguely in Montreal as an old man, and was greatly startled to learn after his death that he had a heroic military background he didn’t talk about.