Viceroy tearful amid the pageantry
A girl, a goat and gospel singers at swearing-in
OTTAWA • It was a very Canadian scene on Parliament Hill yesterday. Haitian well-wishers, who had come to see their compatriot Michaëlle Jean installed as GovernorGeneral, swayed to the skirl of the bagpipes, courtesy of the Air Command Pipes and Drums.
Soldiers from the famed Vandoos Regiment tried to ignore banks of wafting smoke, from the 30th Field Artillery Regiment’s 21- gun salute. Meanwhile, conscious of the cost of fuel these days, a single CF-18 flew overhead, as Ms. Jean inspected the troops and the Prime Minister introduced her six- year-old daughter, MarieÉden, to the Vandoos regimental goat, Batisse.
Then an RCMP mounted escort pulled up, the GovernorGeneral, her filmmaker husband Jean-Daniel Lafond, and MarieÉden, climbed aboard the landau and that was it — all the vice-regal pageantry over for another seven years.
When the Governor- General arrived, she was dressed with sober understatement in a fitted black jacket, white shirt and long black skirt.
By contrast, her husband dressed up for the occasion, foregoing the T-shirt he wore at Ms. Jean’s unveiling in preference of a suit, tie and a large Order of Canada gong.
As Ms. Jean, 48, took the oath of allegiance, promising to “be faithful and bear true allegiance” to the Queen, she also made a call to end the two solitudes” between French and English Canada, and spoke of her life in this country after escaping a nation “draped in barbed wire from head to toe.”
She declared her love for Canada and vowed to promote greater unity across the country.
“ The time for the ‘ two solitudes’ that for too long described the character of this country is past,” she said.
“ The narrow notion of ‘ every person for himself’ does not belong in today’s world, which demands that we learn to see beyond our wounds, beyond your differences for the good of all. Quite the contrary; We must eliminate the spectre of all the solitudes and promote solidarity among all the citizens who make up the Canada of today.”
Roger Anthony Jean, the GovernorGeneral’s father, beamed with pride.
“I’m so proud,” he told reporters after the ceremony. “She’s so wonderful.”
The elder Jean, who fled to Quebec from Haiti almost four decades ago, also took aim at those who accused her of harbouring separatist sentiments.
“ That’s a lie,” the 66-year-old former teacher said. “She has never been a separatist. Never. Never. Never.”