Full marks for quitting
Earlier today, “sources” rang up the usual suspects and told them that the independent inquiry into Governor General Julie Payette’s bizarre and irascible behaviour in rideau Hall had been completed. We were told the report didn’t look good. A few hours later, we were told Payette would be stepping aside.
At last, given one more chance, the woman who was supposed to usher in a new Era of Good Feelings for Canada has set a decent example for her successors in the viceregal palace. On Thursday, after news of the report appeared, the thought naturally began to sink in: why should Payette be making anyone wait for an “inquiry” into her behaviour at all?
We know she has sometimes balked at most of the easily identifiable parts of her job, including travel to ceremonies and (for heaven’s sake) giving royal assent to legislation. Hired to be a dynamic female STEM mascot (for a Liberal government, sort of), she somehow degenerated, with unseemly speed, into an immured princess from a fairy tale, evidently driven half-mad by some faerie spell.
The main job, the essence of the governor general gig, is to be above suspicion, like Caesar’s wife in the proverb. The mere whisper of abusiveness or of clownish behaviour involving public funds ought to have been enough to settle things, possibly with a convenient health excuse. (If Her Excellency offers one now, it can only provoke snide laughter.) The vicereine is, in our system of government, the passage through which national honours flow from the sovereign. The mention of “honour” in connection with this Governor General was becoming awkward.
She deserves our thanks for living up to the dignity of her office now. The whole debacle was the fault of a prime minister who didn’t do his homework in 2017, when she was appointed, and who sought a political advantage through an inappropriate avenue.
He could not fire Payette except by requesting the personal intervention of the Queen, which is always supposed to be an extreme last resort in our constitutional tradition. He could not even hint at appealing to the Queen to fire the GG until there was no other choice. He could not campaign against her in public — not even through ambiguous remarks or slighting adjectives.
What means were used in secret may not be known for decades, or at all — although I am willing to bet that if we ever see the “workplace environment” report, it will be in a vague, abbreviated version with the protective bark still on the log. The PM may deserve our gratitude, as the GG does, for helping to find an appropriate way out of the predicament with a minimum of controversy or unseemly appeals to the law. But, gosh: why was any of this manoeuvring necessary in the first place?