National Post (National Edition)
A TRUE CANADIAN
Johnston turned out to be the Governor General we needed
Justin Trudeau sent a powerful message by naming an engineer and scientist — and, oh yes, an astronaut — as Canada’s next Governor General last week. As a human symbol of scientific excellence, Julie Payette is the woman Canada needs. And I agree with those who are celebrating her choice for the role.
But as Payette prepares to take on her official duties, it’s worth taking a moment to celebrate the office-holder who is packing up his Rideau Hall belongings. When David Johnston was named to the role in 2010, many Canadians regarded the lawyer and academic as something of a throwback. Johnston was born on June 28, 1941 — the time when Hitler was invading Russia. He is 16 years older than the woman he replaced, Michaëlle Jean, and 22 years older than the woman who will follow.
Yet as things turned out, Johnston proved to be exactly the GG whom Canada needed — even if many Canadians might have taken his virtues for granted during much of his tenure.
Johnston is a first-rate constitutional scholar who takes our monarchist traditions seriously as a matter of both law and culture. He has had several careers, and been spectacularly successful at all of them. During the last seven years, the man has run himself ragged in his voyages to all corners of the country, as well as many trips abroad. Members of his family will admit he has aged considerably in the role. Yet he never betrayed his exhaustion, and always has seemed the model of quiet dignity.
I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to visit Johnston at Rideau Hall last year. And on an interesting day, too — Nov. 9. Not 12 hours before my arrival, Donald Trump had been elected President of the United States. Amid this overhaul of America’s political order, my prepared questions about senate reform and parliamentary prorogation suddenly seemed a tad less urgent.
Our outgoing GG might be described as an anti-Trump. While the U.S. is governed by a tempestuous bibliophobe who expresses himself with all-caps and exclamation marks, Johnston is avuncular and studious. He has written or co-written more than two dozen books — ranging in style from Cases and Materials on Corporate Finance and Securities Law to last year’s epistolary meditation on public life, The Idea of Canada: Letters to a Nation. He loves reading to his dozen grandchildren so much that his five adult daughters call him Grandpa Book. Fittingly, our meeting took place under the painted gaze of Lord Tweedsmuir, the author of The ThirtyNine Steps and the founder of the Governor General’s Literary Awards (GGLA) in 1935. Johnston idolizes the prolific novelist, and points proudly to a nearby bookshelf, containing hardbound copies of every GGLA winner for the past eight decades.
Given his long list of university presidencies and prestigious government appointments, one might assume that Johnston was born into Canada’s Brahmin class. But he’s a self-made man with humble roots in the blue-collar town of Sault Ste. Marie. Canada’s 28th Governor General began after-school work at the age of nine, to help supplement the income his father brought home from a hardware store. When Johnston eventually found his way to Harvard, it was on a hockey scholarship.
During our conversation, Johnston predictably refused to speak directly to the results of the U.S. presidential election, or to the troubling rise of anti-democratic forces in other parts of the world. As the Queen’s viceregal representative, he must stay above the political fray. But he did recite a telling quotation from Hugh MacLennan’s 1982 apocalyptic novel Voices in Time: “In the relatively rare periods in the past that we call civilized, people understood that a civilization is like a garden cultivated in a jungle.”
The jungle shows up in many guises. In Trump’s United States, its vines and undergrowth take the form of rank populism, fake news and the casual intermingling of Trump’s business interests with his role as President. It also manifests itself as pathological distrust, especially in regard to society’s political, academic and cultural elites.
“If you’re not out weeding that garden on a regular basis, the jungle takes over,” Johnston explained. “And this is how I have tried to fulfil my duties as Governor General — supporting and encouraging all the collective ways that Canadians perform those acts of cultivation.”
There is no one single, coherent form of populist ideology around the world. But there are broad trends: In Washington, Moscow, Manila, Ankara and Caracas, populist demagogues are co-opting democratic institutions for their own selfserving purposes. Johnston’s tenure as Governor General has encapsulated our Canadian resistance to this trend. Though first appointed by a Conservative prime minister, he’s used his office to champion causes that defy ideological labels: mental health, human rights, reconciliation with Indigenous communities, and equality for women.
There is an irony at play here. Throughout his tenure as prime minister, Stephen Harper’s enemies accused him of politicizing virtually every single aspect of public life. Yet the Governor General whom Mr. Harper appointed was very much dedicated to the opposite project.
Johnston has always been something of a futurist. As early as the 1960s, he already was writing scholarly articles about the need for Canadian financial institutions to computerize commercial transactions. Now 76 years old, he remains astonishingly forward-looking. Though he played hockey in the hard-nosed era before helmets and goalie face masks, his lengthy essay about the sport in The Idea of Canada is dedicated to ending on-ice fighting, and bringing more women into the game. (One of Johnston’s daughters played hockey for Harvard, then went on to captain the women’s team at Cambridge.)
I’ve always been suspicious of monarchism, because I find the idea of a hereditary head of state to be sentimental and retrograde. But recent events serve to highlight the virtues of Canada’s political traditions, which emphasize, through the institution of the GG, the primacy of constitutional integrity over partisanship. As Johnston noted during our interview, many of the healthiest societies on earth — including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, and of course Canada — are “constitutional monarchies with thriving parliamentary democracies.”
When Johnston was picked for GG back in 2010, there were some who would have preferred someone with a bit more flash — such as Wayne Gretzky, or even William Shatner. And Harper could have scored a few quick points by going this route. Instead, he picked someone more obscure. But as Kelly McParland aptly put it in this space when Johnston was named Governor General, it was apparent, even then, that the new GG had “a deep understanding of the country and its nebulous yet strongly held views of itself and its priorities.”
“It’s hard to define a Canadian, you have to know what it means.” McParland wrote. “You get the impression Mr. Johnston knows.” Turns out that impression was entirely correct.
Canada’s 150th birthday has been a time to reflect on the institutions that have kept this country strong, and the qualities of leadership required to resist the political pathologies that infect other nations. No one in Canadian public life has embodied these qualities more thoroughly than David Johnston. If our country can maintain the commitment to democratic principles and rationalism championed by Johnston, while also upholding the primacy of science over superstition embodied by Payette, our future looks very bright indeed.
JOHNSTON IS A FIRST-RATE CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLAR WHO TAKES OUR MONARCHIST TRADITIONS SERIOUSLY AS A MATTER OF BOTH LAW AND CULTURE. HE HAS HAD SEVERAL CAREERS, AND BEEN SPECTACULARLY SUCCESSFUL AT ALL OF THEM. — JONATHAN KAY