Governor General’s harsh words (for a Libra)
OTTAWA• According to popular Canadian astrologer Georgia Nicols, Canada’s Governor General should have been doing what she could to “keep the peace” with loved ones Thursday and avoiding the “planetary vibe” that is urging people to engage in power struggles and disputes. However the advice, contained in Julie Payette’s Nov. 2 horoscope on Nicols’ website, might have come a day late, although Payette likely wouldn’t have listened to it anyway.
The Governor General made clear in a speech to sci- entists at an Ottawa convention Wednesday that she has a very low opinion of horoscopes, people who believe in creationism or those who don’t believe in climate change. “So many people ... still believe, want to believe that maybe taking a sugar pill will cure cancer if you will it good enough, and that your future and every single one of the people here’s personalities can be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations,” she said, to the delight of scientists and researchers at the annual Canadian Science Policy Convention.
Emmett Macfarlane, a political professor at the University of Waterloo, says nothing prevents a Governor General from stating opinions, and while there have been unwritten traditions against it, Payette’s most recent predecessors did not always hold their tongues.
But Conservative political strategist Alise Mills says Payette went way over the line with her speech, which she characterized as not only political but “mean-spirited.”
“I definitely agree science is key but I think there is a better way to do that without making fun of other people,” Mills said.
For her part, astrologer Nicols said she had “no wish to take on a woman who is as accomplished as Julie Payette,” whom she notes is a “feisty Libra with three planets in Scorpio.”
But she did suggest Payette would be better to stick to what she knows best.
“Astrology is not the stuff of horoscopes in newspapers, albeit I do write them,” wrote Nicols in an email. “It is actually a complex study based on mathematics. Not fairy dust falling from the stars.”
A 2005 Gallup poll sug- gested around one in four Canadians believed in astrology. As to creationism, Newman University in Manchester, England, this fall released a survey that showed about one in seven Canadians hold that belief.
Prime Minister Justin Tru- deau didn’t seem to have any issue with what Payette said, saying his government and Canadians understand the value of science.
“I applaud the firmness with which she stands in support of science and the truth,” he said.
But Mills said Payette wasn’t just promoting science, s he was mocking people with religious beliefs, and specifically, evangelical Christians who don’t believe evolutionary science.
Michaëlle Jean, who was the governor general from 2005 to 2010, waded into a number of political issues, including Quebec sovereignty and Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan.
More r ecently, David Johnston criticized the military for taking a “stiff- upper- lip” approach to mental illness among soldiers.