Three women, three eras

To

earn their keep, all I ever ask of

royals or their Canadian surrogates is to make me feel honoured in their presence. I do not take a G- G’s measure from the stirring kitsch of an installation speech that plays our sentiments like harps.

This week’s events have naturally turned my attention to Queen Elizabeth and our outgoing and incoming G- Gs, Adrienne Clarkson and Michaëlle Jean, who together symbolize three generations of Canadian role modelling.

Queen Elizabeth: As a born royal, it really doesn’t matter whether you’re brilliant or dim, dumpy or slim, peppy or grim. What matters is when the bombs fall, or explode in the Tube, you immediately think of your subjects and your country, not yourself. Your duty — it’s in the royal DNA — is to stand pat and, by your words and actions, imbue your countrymen with your own innate pluck and national pride. Queen Elizabeth learned this instinct by osmosis. She has demonstrated it often and handily, which is why I would be honoured to meet her.

Adrienne Clarkson, a woman of my generation, embodies the same “right stuff.” I remember her from my years at the University of Toronto, where she was already a star, and clearly poised for a long, high trajectory of public service. Even though her PC optics were impeccable when she became G- G — Asian immigrant, woman, liberal values — Clarkson merited the job off her own bat, having paid her dues when neither gender nor race substituted for earned distinctions. When Clarkson was appointed as G- G, I knew I would ( and did) feel vicariously honoured by her presence.

As with most Canadians, Michaëlle Jean was an unknown figure to me upon her appointment. It became clear that Paul Martin had chosen her for her colour, her gender, her poignant Haitian immigration narrative, and the likelihood that she would woo hostile Quebecers back into the Liberal fold. If you look at the coat of arms she has chosen (reproduced elsewhere in today’s Post), featuring an escaped Haitian slave and female wisdom symbols, you will note that it showcases specifically black suffering, and empowering women who comfort the afflicted while advancing social justice. Colour, gender, ethnicity, victimhood. In this politically correct echo, Jean embraces the essential insult of having been chosen as a multicultural token, rather than for personal merit.

By merit, I mean not only public service to Canada (Jean has no record of any), or career highs (Jean’s are middling). I am thinking about noblesse oblige, which for a G- G means placing national solidarity before one’s own ego needs at critical or symbolic moments.

Jean’s schmaltzy installation speech in which she paid eloquent lip service to the notion of Canadian solidarity throws an ironic light on two other Michaëlle Jean speeches, one she made and shouldn’t have, one she didn’t make and should have — after which I knew, however pleasant a meeting with Jean might be, I could not ( yet) deem it an honour.

The first instance: In describing Jean, PMO advisor Hélène Scherrer proudly noted that “[Jean] decided she would speak French and she would promote Quebec no matter where she went. [ She was in] Calgary or somewhere else out West — and she gave most of her speech in French.” For a noblewoman, the first rule is to put others at ease. It was a social cruelty to infantilize captive listeners by speaking to them in a language she knew most of them didn’t understand. Jean’s instinct out West, to score a point for Quebec at the expense of Canada, was the opposite of noblesse oblige.

The second speech – the necessary one she failed to make – occurred when the kerfuffle broke out over Jean’s and her French husband, Jean-Daniel Lafond’s alleged support for radical separatism. Calls for withdrawal of her appointment were bruited about. Immediately, Montreal novelist Dany Laferriére — to his eternal, shameful discredit — threatened, “If a small group of people believe they can … force Michaëlle Jean to quit, I warn them that Haitians … will take to the streets of Montreal … to defend their battered pride.”

This was clearly Jean’s opportunity to show, rather than simply say, that she was “committed to Canada.” What she should have publicly declared was, “I am not becoming G-G as a Haitian, but as a Canadian. I came here to escape the politics of violence and instability, and categorically disassociate myself from such inflammatory, unCanadian rhetoric.” But alas, she felt no such instinct – being black and Haitian, you see, he could say these terrible things with impunity — and remained mute.

Queen Elizabeth, Adrienne Clarkson and Michaëlle Jean: each woman reflects her nation’s ideal of the model citizen. One springs from the aristocracy, one from the meritocracy, and one, appropriately enough in our state of national malaise, from the drearily predictable, politically correct mediocracy.