Mary Simon is now commander-in-chief and she can run red lights if she wants to
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On Monday, Mary Simon was officially sworn in as the 30th Governor General of Canada. Her installation ends the longest-ever period in Canadian history where we’ve operated without technically having anyone in charge. And, as indicated by the Inuit drumming that accompanied her installation, Simon is the first Indigenous person to hold the office.
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But now that she’s moved into Rideau Hall, what will Governor General Mary Simon be doing all day? This is a question that the National Post first asked in 2017 upon the installation of Julie Payette, and an updated summary of our findings are included below.
The adjustment period for new governors general can be quite painful
Governors general never fully suspect the sheer tonnage of protocol that they’ve signed up for: When to salute, who to invite to state dinners, how to avoid accidentally offending diplomats. Did you hold the Queen’s arm to help her descend a set of stairs, as David Johnston did in July? Well, your “Queen-touching” just accidentally sparked an international incident. Richard Berthelsen has been an adviser to governors general since 1978, and he said potential recruits are never truly warned of the labyrinth they’re entering. “They’re quite surprised when they discover how constrained they are,” he told the National Post in 2017. “Nobody is born to be governor general.” Payette would turn out to feel particularly constrained by the office. Almost immediately after her appointment, she got into trouble for delivering a speech that criticized those who saw human life as a result of “divine intervention.”
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It’s virtually impossible to be fired
The only way Simon can lose her job is if Queen Elizabeth II takes the unprecedented step of “recalling” her. And if there’s anything the House of Windsor hates to do, it’s making a remotely political decision. The previous governor general, Julie Payette, took the similarly unprecedented step of resigning upon the release of a scathing workplace review. But if Payette had instead decided to hold onto the GG’s chair at all costs, there’s very little we could have done to stop her. Australian governors general, naturally, have tested the limits of royal patience more than anyone here. In the 1970s, Australian Governor General Sir John Kerr fired the prime minister of a majority government and then gave a noticeably drunk speech at a horse race. He kept his job.
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Your spouse automatically gets Canada’s highest possible civilian honour
Every governor general automatically becomes a companion of the Order of Canada, the highest level of what is already Canada’s highest civilian honour. While thousands of people have become members of the Order of Canada, only 165 people at a time can be companions. Perhaps more surprising is that the companion honour is also extended to governor generals’ spouses. Thus, Jean-Daniel Lafond, a moderately successful filmmaker and husband of Michaëlle Jean, now finds himself ranked alongside such luminaries as Nelson Mandela and A.Y. Jackson. And so the honour has just fallen on Simon’s husband Whit Fraser, a former CBC journalist and COO with Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, who now also carries the title of Viceregal consort of Canada.
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You’re the Commander-in-Chief
Although Michaëlle Jean tried to claim otherwise, the governor general is not Canada’s head of state. However, she could claim a much more impressive title: Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces. That’s right; all of Canada’s 76 CF-18s and 12 frigates are now at the sole command of Mary Simon. It means she’ll be spending a lot of time reviewing troops, and she’ll also have to be fitted for every Canadian military uniform imaginable: Army, navy and air force dress uniforms, the red tunic of the Ceremonial Guard and combat fatigues (in both desert and jungle camouflage).
People call you “Your Excellency”
On official documents, the new governor general will be identified as “Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada.” After the next election, whoever wins the most seats will ask Her Excellency to form a government. And when foreign ambassadors present their credentials, they will similarly request Her Excellency’s grace. Privately, however, governors general vary in how uptight they are about the moniker.
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Signing bills into law is actually a very small part of the gig
The most well-known duty of the governor general is as an agent of “royal assent.” With a mere stroke of their pen, they turn mere bills into law. However, the vast majority of the governor general’s signing time is expended on orders-in-council, the oft-forgotten executive orders that control the day-to-day running of Canada. “They might sign 25 bills a year, but they’re signing 3,000 to 4,000 orders-in-council,” said Berthelsen. Those orders arrive at Rideau Hall in a locked briefcase carried by a Crown employee. The governor general can then either sign them at a desk or, if they’re busy, whichever flat surface is nearby.
You can run red lights (but probably won’t)
The governor general gets around in much the same way as the prime minister: A black sedan escorted by a small coterie of RCMP. Anybody with a police escort can naturally decide to step on it and blast through red lights at their heart’s desire. But given that governors general usually just wait in traffic like everyone else, their restraint is to be admired.
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Even when you retire, you still get to bill expenses
Retired governors general get a right honourable pension, to be sure. But they also get to invoice the government for absolutely anything related to their former job, be it answering letters, reviewing speaking invitations or granting media interviews. This perk was largely ignored until Adrienne Clarkson, who ran up a $500,000 tab for administrative expenses in the five years after she left Rideau Hall. An assistant, who is paid with some of that money, explained in 2011 that it was a natural consequence of Clarkson being “Canada’s most active and involved governor general.”
Prepare to meet a lot of icky political leaders
David Johnston was taking smiling photos with Chinese president Xi Jinping on the same day that pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo died in Chinese custody. Johnston met with leaders of the Palestinian Authority just as they were threatening a third intifada against Israel. He was at the funeral of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. Whatever feelings Johnston may have about these visits, his job is to keep his mouth shut. It’s why, when CBC asked Johnston about the monstrous human rights record of Saudi Arabia, he had to clench his teeth and say “certainly the human rights issue, or issues, is a matter of concern … but like so many jurisdictions in the world, they develop in different ways at their own pace.”
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You don’t have to be friends with the prime minister
It’s a longstanding (and much dramatized) tradition for the British prime minister to hold regular tete-a-tetes with their monarch. No such precedent exists in Canada, and if Justin Trudeau really wanted to, he could technically spend the rest of his political career never directly addressing Julie Payette. However, prime ministers will usually at least schedule an explanatory phone call when they’re asking the governor general to do something particularly momentous. Justin Trudeau’s dad, for instance, felt it necessary to dial up Roland Michener in 1970 in order to explain why he was waking him up to authorize the War Measures Act. However, prime ministers and governors general might become best friends anyway. Royal historian Carolyn Harris told the National Post that Sir John A. Macdonald and Lord Dufferin were so close that Macdonald became godfather to the governor general’s son.
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There’s almost no contact with the United Kingdom
In the beginning, governors general were hired by London, reported to London and were even considered foreign diplomats by Canadian authorities. Nowadays, the position has devolved so thoroughly that the “Mother Country” is now given about as much attention as any other major foreign ally and trading partner. Still, if the governor general wants to be old-fashioned, they can decide to draft the traditional annual letter to the Queen informing her that everything in Canada is fine. Reportedly, David Johnston was particularly diligent with these. Given all the other stuff that went wrong with Julie Payette, it’s safe to assume that the “letter to Britain” part of the job was similarly neglected.
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What does the Governor General do all day? - National Post
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