Finding a neutral GG is complicated

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole aimed his boat straight for the constitutional weeds on Sunday, in an appearance on CTV's Question Period. O'Toole proposed that the prime minister ought to appoint a panel to choose a successor to disgraced ex-governor general Julie Payette. It's how Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper settled on David Johnston for the role, and Johnston is perceived to have been the best governor general in quite some time.

“In a minority Parliament,” O'Toole explained, “where the prime minister is every day posturing that he might walk to the governor general, I think he's in a conflict of interest, personally.” With every day that Canadians read about the triumphs of other countries' vaccination efforts, it seems dramatically less likely that the prime minister will be walking to see whomever's in charge constitutionally. At the moment, one supposes, he would have to go to the

Supreme Court to consult with the Administrator of Canada. (This is actually a more plausible physical stroll, assuming Trudeau starts out from his office.)

But, of course, in a minority Parliament, the government may fall at any time over the objections of the prime minister, and it would be ideal for him to have a proper viceroy to visit at that moment, however it came about. O'Toole has a point: it would be in Trudeau's interest to appoint the most cringingly loyal Liberal lapdog he can find, in case some live question arises over whether our 43rd Parliament ought to be dissolved and a new one elected.

But this is a “conflict of interest” there is no real way around in our system of government. Everything in our scheme has to be done with the approval of the ministry and the person at its head: that's part of what is meant by “responsible government.” The prime minister has total responsibility for the choice of governor general he asks the Queen to make, whether or not an advisory panel is involved in some way.

Moreover, he is entitled to choose someone he personally holds in high regard, or at least someone whose reputation he can vouch for, and someone whose company he finds tolerable. There is a certain amount of face-to-face interaction between a prime minister and a governor general that can't be avoided. I'm sure Harper himself would make a perfectly good governor general, but we would not expect Trudeau to abide by his selection just because some committee had a fit and coughed up his name.

Harper's viceregal appointments committee has been described by CTV as being at “arm's length” from the prime minister. This is really a bit of a laugh; the committee itself was chosen by Harper from among his fellow gung-ho monarchists. Almost all could be described as scholars, or as very serious student-servants of the monarchy. The panel was intended to produce “non-partisan” appointments, but choosing viceroys with no known partisan identity, or even someone attached to a rival party, has been the usual practice of prime ministers for a long while.

The Harper committee was basically a means of getting informed help for a job that, if you think about it, is a bit of a hassle for a head of government. A prime minister has to keep 11 viceregal jobs filled, along with finding commissioners for the three territories. Harper's Liberal precursors had pretty much stopped using those gigs, even intermittently, as patronage currency. Harper couldn't really revert to older, greasier habits even if he wanted to, and reluctant though I am to praise the character of any politician even implicitly, I will say I feel sure he didn't want to.

But if you're not going to use viceregal positions as a reward for partisan service, your choices still have every opportunity of humiliating you. Am I right, Justin, or am I right? If Johnston had lost his temper and kicked the King of Tonga in the tuchus, or been photographed wearing Nazi regalia in Rideau Hall, do we think it would not have been held against Harper, just as Payette's florid space madness is being used (appropriately) to batter today's prime minister?

The language of “conflict of interest” is, in this particular context, out of place. The prime minister has to find a governor general who can be trusted as a neutral arbiter. He should certainly have non-PMO help. If I were in his place I would seek tacit support, though no more than that, for his final choice. If he gave O'Toole a behind-the-scenes veto, and explicitly expected him as an officer and a gentleman not to abuse it, maybe the Opposition leader would stop carrying on about the issue on television.

The new governor general could be a Liberal, although if it is one, it ought to be someone of independent standing — someone no one would suspect of putting a thumb in the scale when the time came. It's certainly safer to avoid former Liberal politicians, and not only because they tend to have very deft thumbs.

The prime minister can certainly choose someone he is friendly with, if the candidate is politically independent and can convince the public of his neutrality. (Frankly, I'm afraid it's mostly the newspapers who will be the judges of his success.) Most of the lieutenant governors in the provinces probably voted Liberal, and that's all right. It does strike me, though I hesitate to mention it, that the country is still awash with old Red Tories who no longer have a living political party to defend.

NO REAL WAY AROUND IN OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT.