Governor-General a serious job that needs serious hiring process

On a sunny spring morning in 2004, the great Toronto Star columnist Jim Travers and I walked up to Rideau Hall in reply to a mysterious invitation.

All we knew was that we were taking part in a breakfast of some type. We assumed it revolved around an award or a ceremony.

When we were shown to a pleasant sunroom, the table set with only three places, Travers and I looked at each other in surprise. It seems we had been invited for a private sit-down with the then-governor general, Adrienne Clarkson.

Clarkson got right down to business when she joined us. It looked like Canada was headed into a federal election, following which either Paul Martin or Stephen Harper could end up as leader of a minority government.

Both men were reasonably new leaders. Given that the governor general might have to navigate some tricky politics around that Parliament, Clarkson wanted to talk to people who knew the two men and how they might or might not get along.

It was a side of the governor general’s job not even seasoned reporters get to see that often, evidence that this is a position that’s about more than just ribbon-cutting and presenting awards. Clarkson had lots of questions about articles we had written and comments she had heard us make on a TV panel that Travers and I did together in those days.

As it turned out, this governor general didn’t ever have to referee any tricky political situations, but her successor, Michaelle Jean, did four years later during the so-called “coalition crisis” of 2008.

Harper, facing an imminent loss of confidence in the Commons and the threat of a joint Liberal-NDP government seeking to unseat him, needed time that only the governor general could grant.

A serious job needs a serious hiring process, which is what Justin Trudeau’s government should be rolling out this week when it announces how it intends to replace Julie Payette in the role of the Queen’s representative in Canada.

It has been a while since a Canadian prime minister had a chance to make two appointments to the governor general’s post. Jean Chretien was the last to do so when he chose Clarkson to succeed his first appointee, Romeo LeBlanc.

In Trudeau’s case, this is a do-over, a chance to show that the selection process matches the stakes, as he failed to do last time. The stakes are a lot higher now.

We are living right next door to a country in which millions of people still fail to recognize their recent presidential election as legitimate. If nothing else, that proves that the only thing more fragile than democracy is the citizens’ faith in it.

It doesn’t take a huge amount of imagination to see how a similar bug could infect Canada in these strange times.

Say, for instance, that Trudeau decides to dissolve Parliament before the worst of the pandemic is over, maybe even during a third wave. The opposition could argue, with considerable justification, this is no time for a campaign, and that they would continue to vote grudging confidence in the Liberal government until COVID-19 has receded.

The governor general would be asked to arbitrate. Unless that governor general is seen as legitimate and neutral, Canada would be awash in allegations of “rigged election” within one news cycle.

Some have suggested Trudeau is putting himself in a conflict of interest by appointing a governor general, which is ridiculous. But it is not ridiculous to argue he should try, as best he can, to be transparent and seek allparty support, both for the process and who gets chosen.

The revival of the viceregal selection committee, set up by Harper, would be a good start.

The prime minister doesn’t need to give the opposition parties a veto over the choice, but he also doesn’t need to give them any ammunition to argue the democratic dice are loaded.

All over Canada right now are people, famous and not-so-famous, who are hoping to make it on to some short list of candidates to become the next governor general. They may be filling their resumes with all the ways in which they meet the symbolic requirements.

A better idea would be to study up on the constitutional requirements and powers of the governor general, and the complicated politics of this time, as Clarkson was doing all those years ago.

Travers is no longer with us; he died 10 years ago next month, hard as that is to believe. But I still remember leaving Rideau Hall with him that morning.

“Well, that was serious,” he said.

So is the job, and so are the stakes in choosing the next governor general properly.