The model of a modern governor-general

As befits a media professional, Jean has taken the Rideau Hall website into new territory. She has a blog - bloGG - and an online chat line at www.citizenvoices.gg.ca intended to be a national forum on topics including “Youth Empowerment”, “Violence against women - it’s everyone’s problem” and “New technologies and culture”. And on the companion “Rideau Hall” blog, His Excellency reveals his impression of daily life at home and on the road.

The other famous talking head who became Canadian figurehead was Jean’s immediate predecessor, Adrienne Clarkson. The daughter of William Poy, an Australian-Chinese businessman, she was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to Canada with her family in 1942. When she became an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1992, Clarkson’s official citation described her as:

… one of our best-known media personalities [who] has hosted more than three thousand five hundred television programs in one of the most respected careers in Canadian broadcasting history.

Between 1965 and 1982 Clarkson worked with CBC Television, as host, writer and producer. Her arts show, Adrienne Clarkson Presents, never got high ratings - but raked in the awards.

Clarkson was Rideau Hall’s chatelaine for six years after being sworn in by Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien in 1999.

Known for her incisiveness, charm and poise, Clarkson was viewed as the near-perfect solution to the “need to put a modern spin on a job that many Canadians view as an anachronism - and required a fast learner for a role that is clearly in transition,” according to a Chretien insider quoted in Maclean's magazine in 1999.

The insider itemised Clarkson’s attributes saying; “She is a visible minority and a woman and she did a diplomatic stint in Paris. She is held in high regard by the arts and academic communities. There is no taint of political affiliation. She carries herself with dignity.”

Clarkson was the first Canadian governor-general without a political or military background. Although controversial for her spending and constitutional positions, at the end of her term she was praised as a moderniser of the role of governor-general who lifted the public visibility of the office. She was a perfect fit, as is Michaëlle Jean, for three of the Canadian governor-general’s stated roles: representing Canadians and promoting sovereignty; celebrating excellence; and bringing Canadians together. But the constitutional responsibilities of the office include profound matters such as making sure the country always has a prime minister, for example. Quite how this modernisation relates to the fourth role, representing the Crown in Canada (as laid out in the Constitution Act, 1867), is never quite clear.

According to Don DeBats, professor of politics at Flinders University, there is a debate as to whether governor-general is a serious job - or not.

If you think it is - remembering the constitutional crisis in 1975 here, and that of Canada in 1982 - you need a serious person; if it is just a feel-good position then you go the Canadian route for a person representative of a nation's aspiration to niceness. And in the end you rather guarantee that it is not a serious position by putting a non-serious occupant there. That’s one way of solving a great constitutional problem, but perhaps not the best.

Memories of Australia’s 1975 crisis, when the figurehead took independent action, make the search for governor-general always somewhat fraught. So the question is: would Australia be wiser to stick with the tried and true formula - politician, judge, or military chief? Or has Canada hit upon the very model of a modern governor-general, one that Australia should emulate?