Clarkson's viceregal selection process

[g_bambino]

Our former vicereine (though, in her own mind, former reine) has let it be known that she, as apparently the best Governor General in history, knows the best way of selecting the Queen's representative. The first step is approval of the Prime Minister's nomination by a parliamentary committee. This, she says, will actually help distinguish the Canadian form of government from the American one, by, er... making the Canadian form more like the American one...

Nominees for governor-general should be approved by Parliament [and] limited to a six-year term... Ms. Clarkson said the parliamentary crisis in December amply demonstrated Canadians' lack of knowledge about how their parliamentary system works and, in the wake of a historic U.S. election, their confusion over the differences between Canadian and American forms of government.¹

But wait, there's yet more! The candidate must also submit to a televised quiz on Canadiana, to demonstrate that they know enough about Canadian geography and history to serve as the viceroy.

The Queen's chief representative in Canada should be required to submit to a publicly televised Canadiana quiz before taking office, a former governor general said Friday.

"It would be very useful to know whether the future governor general knows where the Mackenzie River Delta is or a bit about the Manitoba school question or the Conscription Crisis of 1917, or could name one Quebec writer or two B.C. poets," Adrienne Clarkson told a conference on constitutional law in Toronto.²

Now, when, back in 2006, she said to Don Newman on CBC that the Governor General represents the Crown but somehow, as such, not the Queen, I suspected Mme. Clarkson had gone a bit kooky. But now, she seems to have downright fallen off her rocker. As the Montreal Gazette put it:

How alarming that someone could have held the job for six years while understanding it so poorly. The governor-general does not embody the nation. The G-G embodies the Crown. If you are among the many Canadians who see this as a pointless anachronism, we invite you to look again.

Consider last December's coalition crisis. When politicians are squabbling like over-stimulated 4-year-olds, too angry to calm down and run the country, then a higher authority is useful, even essential, to step in and order them all to take a time out... That this "higher authority" is not elected is an asset, not a handicap. The G-G's legitimacy... depends on the office being above the partisan fray... The office needs to be more distant from the partisan arena, if anything, not less.³

Quite right, IMHO.

[August1991]

Adrienne Clarkson was born in 1939 and she was so ambitious that she married to advance her career. Maybe her ambition has provoked Alzheimer's disease.

Bambino, you know me as a confirmed republican but even I agree that a Canadiana quiz is a bizarre way to choose a Head of State - almost as bizarre as the vagaries of random hook-ups (the established method of monarchies).

[bush_cheney2004]

... This, she says, will actually help distinguish the Canadian form of government from the American one, by, er... making the Canadian form more like the American one...

...here we go again. I can name that tune in two notes.

[CANADIEN]

Involving the Parliament in the selection process (by vetting potential candidates or proposing a short list) is not a bad idea.

But a quiz on Canadiana? Pleeeeeeeease. We're talking about choosing the Queen's representative, not Canadian Idol.

[Smallc]

Involving the Parliament in the selection process (by vetting potential candidates or proposing a short list) is not a bad idea.

I don't like that idea because then it makes it a partisan game again. A selection committee....like the ones that pick Order of Canada recipients maybe, bot not a parliamentary committee.

[g_bambino]

I don't like that idea because then it makes it a partisan game again. A selection committee....like the ones that pick Order of Canada recipients maybe, bot not a parliamentary committee.

Indeed. A televised confirmation hearing would simply turn into a platform for whatever MPs make up the committee to champion their particular cause. I can just imagine Pat Martin salivating at the idea of a public confrontation with viceregal candidates.

It's my understanding that a list of names used to be sent to Rideau Hall for the Queen to consider, but that stopped with Trudeau, and from then on it was one suggestion. I wouldn't mind a return to the former method; though, it might put the monarch in a position of being criticised for making an unpopular choice, as opposed to the responsibility now resting on the PM's shoulders.

I agree that a Canadiana quiz is a bizarre way to choose a Head of State - almost as bizarre as the vagaries of random hook-ups (the established method of monarchies).

Hey, even royal marriages are more regulated than a GG Idol show would be.

...here we go again. I can name that tune in two notes.

Is there a "yawn" emoticon anywhere on here...?