Angry in the Great White North

In my only post so far on Canada's next Governor-General, Michaelle Jean, I make it clear that I think this woman is a vacuous airhead with delusions of grandeur.

David Frum (a close personal friend -- OK, that was my delusion of grandeur!) has more insightful things to say, and as always, sees the big picture:

Cast your eye down the roll of the past governors-general of the country. What you see there is a long list of people who for one reason or another stood independent of the government of the moment.

First there are the great British lords: the earls, dukes, and royal cousins of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Then come the self-made men of earned prestige: the British writer and explorer John Buchan; the Second World War field marshall Viscount Alexander; the Canadian war hero Georges Vanier.

Then, under Pierre Trudeau, comes a shift: to a series of superannuated politicians, each of them less impressive--and more desperately in need of a job--than the one before, finally hitting bottom with the LeBlanc appointment.

Always with Trudeau, isn't it. One day, I swear, Canada, or whatever country occupies this space, will see Trudeau as the worst thing that could have happened to this country short of an asteroid strike. And maybe worse than that.

But back to the topic at hand:

But now the Canadian government is exploring a new low: a governor-general of zero independent position or prestige, wholly beholden to the prime minister who bestowed this lavish patronage plum on him or her.

Most of the work of a governor-general is ceremonial. But the office does retain vague but very real powers to umpire the political game and uphold constitutional rules. And so, just as a precaution, prime ministers have step by step degraded the office, always with an eye to eliminating any possible brake on their own power. What better way to degrade the office than to choose successively more negligible people to fill it?

From Vincent Massey to Jules Leger, Canada's governors-general epitomized the ideal of nonpartisan, non-ideological public service. That ideal is dead, dead, dead. Michaelle Jean's record of service to Canada may be short, but her identification with the leftward side of the ideological spectrum is strong. To choose her as the nation's de facto head of state is to announce that conservatives and westerners do not deserve to be represented, do not really count as Canadians.

Like I said, the Liberals seem downright eager to generate support for Western separatism, which I figure just leaped up another 5 points.

It is a strange thing about the Liberal Party. They constantly insist they are the party of patriotism and the party of national unity. Yet over four decades, they have systematically destroyed one Canadian institution after another, severing the connections between Canadians and their past. Their treatment of the governor-general is all too typical: They have stripped away the office's authority, its purpose, and now its reputation for impartiality. Is there another country where the de facto head of state comes to office on such humiliating and useless terms?

To be fair, there are countries in Africa where I suspect things are worse. At least I hope so. I'd hate for Canada to be the absolute bottom of the pile.

Invite Prince Edward over from England and give him the job for a 20-year term. Or create a college of electors made up of 50 distinguished people and let them vote in conclave. Or put every name in Who's Who in Canada into a drum and pick the G-G by lottery. Pure chance could not do worse than the Chretien/Martin Liberals--and would probably do a lot better.