The floodgates have opened, and stories about the difficult first year that Her Excellency Julie Payette has been having as Governor General have been fast and furious. From concerns that she’s still living at Rideau Gate rather than Rideau Hall despite there being renovated living quarters now available, to concerns about her not telling her security detail where she’s at, the concerns on the ground that she’s breaking convention by not visiting every province in her first year, were all warm-ups for this wide-ranging piece in the National Post that compiles a lot of the things we’ve been hearing unofficially in Ottawa, about what a struggle the year has been. While some of it is growing pains, and some of it are potentially unfair comparisons to having previously appointed Governors General who were superhuman in their ability to take on a volume of work (and in the case of someone like Adrienne Clarkson, write all of her own speeches for 500+ engagements in a year), I was particularly disturbed by the fact that the Liberal Research Bureau was doing the background checks and vetting for the appointment when Trudeau should have kept the Vice-Regal Appointments Committee in operation (and the only reason anyone can think as to why he disbanded it was that it was Harper’s creation and it was simply an act of pettiness). The fact that they didn’t properly prepare her for the role is also a big red flag as to the seriousness with which they undertook the process and the decision. I hope that these are just growing pains and that they’ll sort themselves out, but given how badly this government has managed its appointment processes so far, it really leaves one questioning some of the competence of the senior ranks of this government.
If there’s a silver lining to all of this, I would say that I hope it means that it might encourage some of these charities and organisations that the GG used to be the patron of might look instead to members of the royal family. This could very well be a golden opportunity to start re-forging some links with our monarchy, and getting more royals on our shores to have a lot more face-time and remining both royals and Canadians that we have bonds that need to be strengthened, lest they atrophy. It’s also a particularly good time given the addition of Megan, Duchess of Sussex, to the family, and the fact that she spent that much time in Toronto gives her that connection already, and we should be capitalising on it (not to mention the fact that Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, has Canadian ancestors including a pre-Confederation Prime Ministers, and we should be milking that connection for all it’s worth too).
Meanwhile, here’s a look at Payette finally getting to Humbolt, Saskatchewan, six months later, and the fact that she’s been reluctant to visit other sites of tragedies, like Fredericton after the recent shootings there.
Special note: If you’re concerned about the tornado that hit this area, they were to the west of Ottawa, and across the river in Gatineau, and nowhere near the Parliamentary precinct. I wasn’t affected, and my power didn’t go out (hence why you’re getting this morning’s roundup).
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