October 14 , 2003
Kamloops Daily News



After their success in bringing down privacy commissioner
George Radwanski, the House of Commons Committee on
Spending is looking for its next target.  Their attention is
now shifted to Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.  But the
committee will soon find out that the governor general is
good value.

Spending on Clarkson's office is modest and in line with
other countries.  We spend about 59 cents a year each on
Clarkson's budget.  Australia spends 56 cents, and Ireland
92 cents. 

If it does its job, the Commons Committee will also find out
that the role of the governor general should be
strengthened, not weakened through self-serving witch hunts. 
The governor general is an important ambassador of Canada's 
arts industry.  

It wasn't always so.

Former Canadian ambassador Fred Bild explains.  "It used to
be that I had to dutifully attend visits by the Queen to
foreign countries where I served.  We were expected to pay
our respects to the Queen as Canada's head of state.  What
shocked me was that she was quite clearly traveling as the
head of state of Great Britain.  She was promoting British
projects, not Canadian.  After that realization, changes
were made in the role of the governor general in which he or
she became a quasi-head of state," Bild told CBC radio. 

Out of necessity, the governor general is evolving into
Canada's head of state on occasions when the Queen can't or
won't.

Adrienne Clarkson is doing a good job.  Ex-ambassador Bild
considers her to be the best.  Paul Wells, reporter for
Macleans Magazine, became a believer after he saw Clarkson
in action.  He used to think that the governor general and
her entourage were a lot of snobs swilling at the public
trough.  After Wells covered her trip to Germany in 2001, he
was impressed by her intellect, stamina, and the quality of
people that surrounded  her. "Foreign audiences are blown
away that something this intellectual intense can come from
Canada," said Wells.

Russian President Vladimir Putin considered Clarkson to be
an important representative of Canada.  He rolled out the
red carpet when Clarkson came to call in Moscow.  It was the
kind of reception that the president of the U.S. would get. 
Putin and Clarkson discussed federalism, aboriginal issues
and terrorism.  The meeting was "a landmark in the
development of co-operation between Russia and Canada,"
Putin said.

Unlike Australians, Canadians have an attachment to the
governor general.  Professor David E. Smith of the
University of Saskatchewan studied that attachment in his
book, The Republican Option in Canada.  He found that the
office of the governor general is connected to the people,
our cultural mosaic, and bilingualism.  The g-g's role is
connected the land - - Canada's vast landscape and our
north.  Australia has more republican sentiments because
they were badly treated by Great Britain as a penal colony. 
Canada was settled by immigrants who never looked at our
monarch as part of a colonizing power.

The popularity of the g-g has even rubbed off on the
provinces.  Provincial Lieutenants Governor have gaining 
popularity as a vital connection to common people in a way
that politicians can't.

The only Canadians not happy with the governor general are
those minority who prefer a republic, where the head of
state and the head of government are one.  However, when you
look for a good examples of  a republic, they are hard to
find.  The U.S. is a republic but few American presidents
exemplify the dignity and values that Canadians would want
in a head of state.

The Commons Committee will back off from the governor
general.  Not just because she is doing a good job, or
because the good publicity that she generates worth much
more than what she costs us.  Not just because the promotion
of our arts industry abroad create jobs at home, or because
the office of the governor general is a constitutional fact
of Canada's parliamentary monarchy.

The Commons Committee will back off because they could stir
up discord in their respective parties.  Some federal
Liberals would like the governor general to be the head of
state instead of the Queen.  Some in the Alliance party
would like Canada to be a republic like the U.S. 
Monarchists in both parties support the governor general as
representative of the Queen.  For their own sake, committee
members will let sleeping dogs lie.

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