CIVITATENSIS

He’s Royal, and he’s in Alberta, but it’s not quite a royal visit. Prince Harry arrived last Wednesday and was whisked to CFB Suffield for training with the British forces there.

Welcome young prince, and godspeed in your service.

Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaà «lle Jean, C.C., C.M.M., C.O.M., C.D., Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada

Her predecessor once called herself the new Head of State. This Governor General believes that Rideau Hall is HER house and she is in command of Canada.

Michaelle Jean is hell-bent on changing not just the look but the texture and flavour of Rideau Hall as though it were her own private residence. In the process she wants to change Canadians. She is achieving that task in the name of Canada and Canadian art, though the motivation seems to fashion the Queen’s residence in her own image. Mostly, she is in the business of erecting a monument to herself.

The changes have continued, as a tour this week revealed, and are part of a deliberate effort by Ms. Jean to make the home more relevant, contemporary and a showcase for Canadian work that reflects stories about Canada. But as a result, Ms. Jean, who is an avid art lover, is highlighting paintings that draw less and less on the office's British traditions.

While the governor-general represents the Queen in this country, the increased emphasis on Canada means less on the royal family past or present. The Lemieux portrait is the only one of the Queen on display. "That's it as far as Her Majesty is concerned," said Fabienne Fusade, interpretation and exhibition planner at Rideau Hall. "We really want to create a Canadian interior. So some of the old furniture pieces, part of our history, they are very important, we don't want to get rid of them but … it is all about Canada."

The changes include a gradual shift to modernize the art that predates Ms. Jean's time in office. No longer in the residence: a more traditional portrait of the Queen, as well as images of the Queen's father, King George VI, and the Queen Mother that once graced the entrance. They are now in the Senate.

Where is the dignity of Jeanne Sauve, our fist woman governor general? Sauve showed that female governor-generals do not have to be consumed by personal preoccupations with fashion and interior decor. As usually, souls of significant depth do not concern themselves so highly with the world of appearance. Mostly, Sauve showed that a female GG does not have to be absorbed with oneself when one understand the purpose of the position.

Since Romeo Leblanc (who succeeded Mme Sauve), two consecutive Liberal prime minister have bequeathed to Rideau Hall, to the country, larger egos than our whole 10 million square kilometres of geography. Worse, these giant egos are closet republicans. Their republican souls render the last two GGs incapable of understanding the role of the Crown and Her Majesty’s position. They think of the Queen as arrogance, and arrogance is what they offer to represent her, so unschooled they are on what it means to serve, and how this Queen has lived her life.

Michaelle Jean the latest example: she is a half-breed born in Haiti. Today Haiti is the poorest and more backward country in the hemisphere, and it was no different then. She was born to privilege in a country where less black heritage usually implies better social status. There, her whiteness was emphasized, alongside a pretentious concern for the darker peasants. Now she is in Canada where more black is politically advantageous, unless one is driving a taxi in Montreal.

Jean was a separatist not all that long ago, but now she is Paul Martin’s legacy to represent our Queen. Jean is a chameleon with no recognisable publicly established image; she will change into whatever she needs to change in order to advance herself. As a separatist, she worked for the national broadcaster. As a republican, she represents the Crown in Canada. She now pretends to be concerned with the whiter Canadian peasant’s identity.

Jean thinks that by stripping Rideau Hall of British iconography and symbols she is going to make Canadians more Canadian. It presupposes that Jean knows what being Canadian means, of course, which she does not. Hers exhibits a republican attitude most typically found among Quebec dilettantes. It’s not distinctly Canadian. Being Canadian, for better or for worse, includes our historical ties to Britain as much as it does imperial France.

Being Canadian is in part being British; our very constitution is based on that premise. Not just the written one, but the one that accumulates our traditions and dispositions in our memories and actions. Jean’s project is a project that warps our collective civic memory, though there is a tradition of doing such things among Liberals since Pearson (fittingly we mostly name airports in central Canada after them). Her Canadian history probably goes that far. She ignores that a denial of our British heritage is a denial of our own selves.

Michaelle Jean’s understanding of being Canadian is not in keeping with the whole of Canada and is not in keeping with the political traditions upon which most of this country was based. The British Monarchy has been around for a millennium; Jean is a arrived in Canada in the late 1960s. Her arrogance toward Her Majesty and things monarchical is an arrogance against all Canadians who value our political traditions and historical roots. Jean’s souls is fundamentally trudeauvian: she would minimize the great institution of the Monarchy and the Queen herself in order to aggrandize her own self.

In the typical Canadian Liberal tradition, Michaelle Jean is a woman without tradition; she is a woman without a past; she is a woman without identity in search of making one up. In the absence of all these, much of what fills her soul is a concern for power. She suffers from what most condescending liberal politicians of this age are afflicted with: the assumption that they know better than the common Canadian peasant, a desire to improve us whether we want it or not, and a will to transform us or our country as a means to leave us “a legacy” –that “legacy” is a way to erect a monument to themselves in our warped civic memory.

More Michaelle and less Elizabeth amounts to less Canada. Monarchist and republican Canadians, we are all poorer for having self-importance incarnate presently dwelling Rideau Hall. It stands to reason that the man guided by nothing other than the single-minded aspiration of becoming prime minister would be the one who chose her to be our governor general. The void of substance recognized itself.

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And now for some political gossip.

This anecdote has been circulating Ottawa for months: When Alex Himmelfarb, Paul Martin’s Clerk of the Privy Council, had finished briefing the Harper Conservative transition team on the Hill, he said his goodbyes and well wishes, grabbed his coat and his hat and headed toward the door. As he had crossed the threshold, he turned around retracing a few of his steps into the room and said something like: “Good luck with that woman. She is the most difficult person to deal with in this whole operation.” Stunned, people in the room asked “Who?” The one in Rideau Hall, he said, and off he went. A pearl of wisdom! That was the Clerk for the very liberal prime minister who chose her. One can only imagine what stories Kevin Lynch and others will have to tell.

Whoever wrote the Alberta Speech from The Throne that was delivered yesterday needs to go back to high school, at least. It is a terrible speech. In particular, the introduction reads like it was written by a grade-3 student suffering from acute ADD.

I was not expecting poetry or Nobel-bound literature; speeches like these are often peppered with platitudes but it’s not too much to hope for full and complete sentences.  It does improve somewhat past the intro, but it still is far too stiff. If the future is now, as the writer says, the present has been abandoned.

Former governor general Adrienne Clarkson is about to take on a military role as the new colonel-in-chief of the Edmonton-based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.

Considering that she was the choice of the regiment, it speaks well for Clarkson. She may not have been much good with little children, but was apparently excellent with the soldiers.

Brian Mason of the NDP is in a huff over the projected five million expense for the next residence of the Lieutenant Governor. Five million is not nothing, to be sure, but surely Albertans wouldn’t want the provincial representative of the Crown to live in a shack.

When an NDP leader clothes himself in the garb of defender of the taxpayer, there is always something suspicious. His party doesn’t quite have the record of protecting taxpayers but the opposite.

The surprise should be that the residence is only expected to last one hundred years. A residence for the Lieutenant Governor, in addition to functionality, should be built as an expression of the institution of the Crown and its place in our constitution. It should also be built to express what is good about Alberta and Albertans; it should say something about us to future generations.

Should the Alberta Legislature have been built only to last a century? In the idea that it should last a mere 10 decades, there is a lack of foresight and a lack of historical awareness; there is a lack of understanding of the role that such symbols play in the political life of a community.

Based on the silly argument of insulting taxpayers, as Mason argues, nothing great or worth keeping for generations would have ever been built in any civilisation. Erecting public buildings purposely for a few decades only is equally foolish. By that logic, if we are to be consistent, museums, theatres, city halls and court houses would be placed in mobile trailers.

The Governor General [Michaelle Jean] rejects the notion that Quebec has been either mistreated or hampered by its attachment to Canada.

Conspiracy theorists have been vindicated. Diana Spencer’s death was part of an elaborate plot to kill her because she planned to marry an Arab, whose baby she allegedly carried.

A British policy inquiry has found the exact opposite, of course. But the inquiry will not stop the conspiracy theorists. There already was a judicial ruling in France in 1999 stating that the deaths were accidental.

To the conspiracy theorists, the fact that there is no evidence of a conspiracy is proof that a conspiracy is at work. The fact that the conspiracies have been dismissed will also be evidence of an official state cover up.

We are in the presence of royalty

We’re a bunch of economic simpletons, John Ralston Saul, the ever-sophisticated former vice-regal consort, says.

“If you took away our commodities, we’d be a Third-World country.”

Thank goodness he and Adrienne are around to keep us from ourselves and to add true intellectual sophistication to the whole 10 million square kilometres that make the country.

If you took away our winters, we’d be the Bahamas. We’re such simple folks, eh?

It’s is not quite the white man’s burden that Justin Trudeau carries but if you put it in the context of the negres blancs and the multiculturalists, it gets you part of the way there.

“You win the lottery, and you can do two things,” Mr. [Justin] Trudeau, 34, said. “And when you look at it, I won the birth lottery. I got to be born to Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Margaret Sinclair… You can either begin to feel guilty about it, and hide from it, or you can say, ‘Look, for some reason, I was given an undue amount of power and influence that I certainly didn’t ask for and didn’t earn.’ So then you say, ‘Well then I have to try and be worthy of it.’”

Let us all thank G-d that he was born!

Should Canada now start its own calendar on Justin’s birthday?

Please excuse me while I go lose my lunch.

There are a few notions that come to mind when one thinks about Diana Spencer. Wisdom is really not one of them for me. There are a few people I could think of in association to Diana’s name, but St. Therese de Lisieux would never be one of them.

Nonetheless, Diana believe that she was a “wise old thing”, a reincarnate soul; she believed that she was connected to St. Therese. Diana also heard voices speaking to her, and claimed to have premonitions.

It’s a pity that with all that wisdom and spiritual ability the princess could not figure that getting into a car driven by drunk man was not a prudent thing to do.

Normally, a call for less sensationalism in the newsmedia would be welcome news just about anywhere and anytime. But when the call comes from the wife of a sensationalist French-born Canadian “documentary” maker, the whole things rings as hollow as the content of many of her husband’s creations.

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean cautioned Thursday against sensationalism and gossip replacing critical news reporting, urging an audience of journalists to remember their civic responsibility.

Without narrowing in on specifics, Jean painted a bleak picture of the dangers of transforming journalism into a commodity, where sales figures and deadline pressures erode the quality of reporting.

Her documentarist does not even have the excuse of pressuring deadlines. But maybe, it’s just journalists who should show political and social responsibility.

The GG is in Alberta, and she is scheduled to make a stop at the Millarville school.

Michaelle Jean will dine with the Premier, and the premier is donating public money to honour her visit. Jean is travelling with her daughter and husband (who is perhaps tagging along while researching his future ‘documentary’ “The Truth About Alberta,” but which will not have to follow any evidence or rules of objectivity).

Don Hill may be hoping that Jean will convince Klein to make him the next Lieutenant-Governor.

La «petite reine» noire du Canada est en France. So reads a Le Figaro’s headline yesterday. Rideau Hall’s spinning machine is doing an excellent job. Reading the piece, it would seem that Michaelle Jean’s visit to France is all about Michaelle Jean. There is brief mention that she will be going to Juno Beach. One line; that is all. Nothing about why or with whom. To be fair, that might not be Jean’s fault: it’s possible that talk about soldiers and war when it’s not to criticise the United States may be officially banned in France.

The article is about Jean, her immigrant status, her race, and her rise to notoriety. It does raise controversial issues like her separatist background, but there is no mention that she is half white. The tone is rather adoring of Michaelle Jean –good for her– with phrases like: “cette jolie princesse à   l’à ¢me vagabonde” (This pretty princess with the bohemian soul).

Now, if Jean went to France to promote awareness that Canadian aboriginals fought on the French beaches to rescue and defend that cowardly and ungrateful nation, the focus of her trip has been lost. There is not a single line about them. The “Little Black Queen” has become the centre.

There is something about hyping these Governor-General-types to the point that the goal of their position is compromised. Jean should remind her staff to try to promote Canada and Canadians, even if just as a small courtesy, at the same time as they promote her. After all, the country is paying the bills.

Crossposted to thePolitic.com

Rex Murphy (subscription required) writes this morning about the delusion-like enchantment that has gripped the press regarding Michaelle Jean. It is as though she were the country’s new saviour (Quebeckers like her!!). Murphy reminds us that the viceregal job is a ceremonial position. That means that the supposedly fine speech that she gave at her installation has no repercussions on our daily lives. And those were simply words; and, similarly, whatever actions she undertakes in the office will have no effect in the unfolding of this already malaised country, solitudes or no. No circumpolar trip of Antarctica will matter much but to the public purse.

Implied in Murphy’s piece is the notion that it does not serve us well to place hope in an office that can deliver no results, no practical improvements, no solutions to what ails the country. It’s dysfunctional, in other words, to expect such things. Citizens are the agent for change in a liberal democratic arrangement. The more so, when Canadians hope for better –a fine sentiment– but continue to reward the crooked and delinquent governing party with significant support at the polls. The contradiction is not only sociological curiosa; it’s representative of the very thing that has made this country politically sick. The praising muses of the press are, in this sense, an articulation of the ailment, but it’s a song of false hope.

To expect that Michaelle Jean’s service as a Governor General will change anything in Canada’s political landscape is as deluded as the expectation that Santa’s arrival will produce similar changes at Xmas.

SRC/CBC

Ms. Jean, a well-known media personality in Quebec, became the Queen’s representative in Canada on the same day a freshly published poll suggested she is a more popular pick among Quebecers than among other Canadians. The poll, conducted for CTV, said 71 per cent of Quebecers think Ms. Jean is a good choice to succeed Adrienne Clarkson. The figure was only 38 per cent in the rest of Canada.

Michaelle Jean claims that her office will “give a voice to all Canadians.” So far the touchy-feely dribble of her first speech as Governor General does not seem to speak to me, or for me –and I am Canadian. I found the G&M’s idealised picture of the girl refugee who made good in Canada to be pathetic and over the top. There are plenty of us who have lived similar or worse experiences coming to this country, and yet consistently refuse to embrace the myth-building propaganda of being so special because of it. If people who’ve suffered the pain of violence and tyranny are so deserving, why have we done nothing about the victims of Air India?

In addition, Jean’s speech seemed out of touch with Canadian reality. Her dismissal of the “two solitudes” as the political reality of Canada is probably correct, but wrong to evoke a time reborn for a single nation in harmony. There are more solitudes in this country today than two, but Jean chooses to be oblivious to that.

The “voice of all” rhetoric clearly reflects that Jean’s CBC background is a permanent feature of her character. She’s a company gal! The “voice of all” is a widely used dogma to justify the CBC, always insinuating itself as a necessity for the very existence of an imagined community, Canada. Given that Jean is all like Mother Corp, I am not expecting her to be too willing to give a voice to Albertans. Make belief and reality don’t always mix very well.

Paul Martin did say that Michaelle Jean was going to impress us. This is the first thing that has made sense about Michaelle Jean since she was designated Governor General. I’m impressed by her ability to learn as she goes. Pas mal du tout! Paul has kept a promise.

h/t: CBC Watch

There may not be all that many republicans in Canada, but the few that there are may become more vocal. Misguidedly, they protest against personalities, Michaelle Jean and a future Charles III, and against the bogey-man colonists, for example. They dislike that we do not choose. They assume that the Monarchy is not a part of the Canadian identity. How French of them.

“If something were to - heaven forbid - happen to the Queen today and Canadians woke up tomorrow, we would have King Charles III as head of state, whether Canadians like it or not.”

The Monarchy is an institution, not a person. Eventually, like it or not, HRH the Queen will one day pass, and we don’t get to choose who succeeds her; she doesn’t get to choose who succeeds her. That granted, even as the monarchist that I am, I can relate to the frustration. As an Albertan, I have had the same frustrating experience the day after every Canadian federal election for the last two decades (but that doesn’t make me want to get rid of the institution of Parliament).

Picking names out of a CBC hat to name Governors General has not elevated Canadians’ respect for the Crown. It seems to have done the opposite. Considering the strong republican sentiments among the federal Liberal brass in this country, it may not be a coincidence that Liberal prime ministers keep picking the same sort of people to represent the Crown. But, it will take a virtual miracle to overcome the hurdle of altering the formal executive in Canada: it requires the unanimity rule in our written constitution. And I like that.

G-d Save the Queen!

The CBC strike just keeps getting better and better. I wrote here about the unintended benefits of the CBC muse’s strike. Now, the ceremony to swear in Michaelle Jean, the former Radio-Canada reporter, into the Governorship General may be delayed as a result. That in itself would be most welcome news for me, especially if it were to be delayed indefinitely.

But Jean is playing politics and taking sides, just like the former CBC employee who became her predecessor. As an invitation to picket the swearing in ceremony, friends of Michaelle Jean have leaked to a Montreal newspaper that if CBC picketed the ceremony when she is to assume office, she will not cross the line.

CBC employee’s had no prior plans to picket Jean’s ceremony. “Since it is nearly two weeks away, we can’t confirm anything,” said Karen Wirsig, a union spokesman.

Jean’s statement and leak to the media are essentially a cue for the union to picket the ceremony. She likely hopes to advance her friends’ position by trying to embarrass the CBC brass. Jean has not yet assumed office, and she is already playing politics with the vice-regal position, which by tradition remains outside partisan issues.

Jean’s staff are not confirming or denying anything, which is a calculated way to feed the media’s attention and keep their eye fixed on the question.

Jean’s spokeswoman, Catherine Gagnaire, said there would be no comment from the Queen’s incoming representative.

“I can’t imagine even a politician crossing a line (but) we’ll see what happens in two weeks,” she said. “A lot can happen in two weeks.”

Not wishing to be outdone (Ottawa is a world of prima donnas), Paul Martin has made a similar invitation to the CBC union.

KC, a friend, was telling me last weekend how much he enjoyed listening to the CBC since the lockout/strike began. Great music without the chatter, he said, or something to that effect. I took that to mean that the absence of regular talking voices left more time for music. I am not and have never really been a big CBC listener, but I tuned in most of this week to see (to hear), and I am writing to report that I too have been enjoying it.

Last evening, on the drive home, for example, I (to speak from my world-centred perspective) was treated to Ravel’s Bolero. For as long as I have known the piece, I have enjoyed listening to it. It’s simple in a seemingly mono thematic way. But I have listened to it on CBC before and did not derive as much enjoyment. The difference was, much as my friend remarked, in the absence of chatter before and after.

Mostly, what I disliked about the chatter was not the chatter itself but the content and the tone. Often, I found myself being talked at. There was a certain condescending tone, which I found annoying (and perhaps that is also what KC meant). The listen-to-me-because-I-work-for-CBC-and-you-don’t kind of air that to me has become commonplace on CBC’s waves is what I objected to. And, all that condescension paid by the public purse. So, I am all for the lockout continuing for as long as it is feasible.

Happily, the CBC has become a more or less central place in which to keep these holier-than-thou types. Sadly, that attitude is constantly promoted on air and is not-so-slowly being transplanted to the Vice-Regal institution. The I-am-Adrienne-Clarkson-and-you-are-not attitude has suddenly been replaced by the equally pretentious I-am-Michaelle-Jean-ancestor-of-slaves-and-you-are-not deal [Under the former's stay at Rideau Hall school children's questions were found unofficially offensive; the latter thinks that her appointment to the Office has advanced the cause of all humanity]. The cream of condescension rises to the top of the state’s pay scales. So far, their dispositions have done an excellent job mostly of promoting republican sentiments in Canada.

We’re cursed at both ends: If they all lose their jobs with Mother Corp, they’ll disperse and we’ll find them everywhere instead of the one place. If they keep them and return to work, they’ll be back on air and they’ll only get better at condescending to us, at our continued expense. Unless, we keep them on the picket line, indefinitely.

A token is something that represents the value of something else. Chips in a casino are tokens for money. Considering the representational aspect of the governor general’s post, it is token. Few but Adrianne Clarkson and her consort actually believe that the viceroy is the Head of State in Canada, that is to say, the Monarch. Representing Crown authority makes the GG position a kind of a substitute akin to the chip at the poker table. It’s a token.

Michaelle Jean is reported to have said that she is not a token appointment. Surely, there is a distinction to be made between the office and the person. The office may be token, but not she. That means that she has qualifications that go beyond so many others.

The Post recalls that the job requires

…a fondness for travel and photo shoots; and, [...] absolutely no prior experience….enduring the presence of foreigners, when they present their credentials at Rideau Hall. It requires that the incumbent look good in uniform when inspecting the troops, in the role of commander-in-chief of Canadian Forces. It requires the patience of Job when pinning snowflake-shaped gongs on Order of Canada recipients.

(more…)

When Adrienne Clarkson became Governor General, she also became the second CBC broadcaster in a row to occupy the vice regal office. Since then, I have been joking with friends that in order to have a clue about the next GG, one would have to look at the CBC’s present and past payrolls. Not taking into account gender and skin colour (insensitive!), I remember musing about Knowlton Nash or Peter Mansbridge. I might have even mentioned Wendy Mesley on occasion, trying to make the joke funnier.

Now that Michaà «lle Jean, yet another CBC broadcasting figure, has been named vice royalty, the joke is on me. State broadcasters are being rewarded. The comical has become political reality, and I don’t find it funny anymore (;

The net future effect: In expectation of future appointments among circles of CBC gadflies, they will become even more deferential to the natural governing party.

I am pleased to see that Adrianne Clarkson has corrected the situation with the young boy who got evicted from Rideau Hall for asking a question. To my knowledge, she never has apologised to the disappointed children at the Museum of the Regiments in Calgary.

But it is Lent, and if WK can forgive, so can I. I am now amazed that the principal at John Dryden School was already willing to hand a three-day school suspension to the young man, instead of defending the boy against the over-zealous staff member at Rideau Hall.

After all, all of the other children from the school were also evicted right along the “offending” inquisitor. Even if the question had been truly offensive, was there need to condemn the entire school party?

I am also glad that Rideau Hall has apologized to the school, clearly in recognition that the over-reaction did not only affect the one boy but all of the visiting children. Obviously, the school principal did not get it.

We should be concerned about the power of apparatchiks at both ends of this silly incident. They show themselves all too willing to hand out punishments to children because they feel an offense taking place without having much of a prudential capacity to consider things in the appropriate perspective. They are too worried about offending or being offended. It is a tyranny of feelings without much of a compass to guide them.

PS: Someone tell that kid to stop apologizing, and to stop saying that it is HER house!