Michaelle Jean badly received in Quebec

Last summer, Prime Minister Paul Martin was very proud of Michaëlle Jean’s nomination as the new governor-general of Canada. Instead of candidates like astronaut Marc Garneau or ex-Liberal cabinet minister Monique Bégin, Martin thought that Jean would be useful for the next election in Quebec and would be a sign of the renewal and openness of Canada.

Jean, a popular former Radio-Canada journalist in Quebec, is one of the youngest to hold the office of governor-general. At 48, she is also the first black woman. All those qualities should be useful in Montreal’s Liberal ridings and their large ethnic minority populations. With the recent sponsorship scandal and the Gomery report, some Liberal seats of important ministers and MPs are threatened in the Montreal area, including Pierre Pettigrew in Papineau, Liza Frulla in Jeanne-Leber, Jean Lapierre in Outremont and Denis Coderre in Bourassa (with a large Haitian community). The Liberal party cannot lose those seats, because its credibility as a national party would be in danger. But it is precisely this use of the function of governor-general for electoral purposes that was strongly criticized in Quebec. It shows that the Liberals cannot win in Quebec without using dubious means that are not available to the Bloc.

Another element that shocked political commentators is that Jean did not really have the profile of a governor-general. In fact, she only appeared as a candidate just a few days before her nomination at the suggestion of the secretary of Martin’s cabinet, Hélène Sherrer, who used to be an MP. Jean’s journalistic career was still young, she was not a political journalist as such, but more inclined to human interest stories. She has not, in fact, achieved much of anything.

This lack of experience and dignity was particularly shown at the end of October at a press gallery dinner speech, when she laughed about the cocaine use of PQ leadership candidate André Boisclair. Boisclair was furious, because he considered it interference in Quebec’s political affairs. Even her sister, Nadège, who is a PQ member, vehemently condemned her in the newspaper La Presse. Paul Martin, who was in the audience, did not appreciate the comments of his protégé. Several days after that, she was dancing in Normandy with a traditional Indian dress. Is she an actress or a governor-general? She also brings her adopted six-year-old daughter with her everywhere, including an official visit to the Queen before her installation. Where is her judgement? She is supposed to be the head of state.

Her loyalty to Canada was also seriously questioned. The problem was, in fact, more her husband, French film director Jean-Daniel Lafond, who has a consort vice-regal title. He was known as a separatist sympathizer and a good friend of violent FLQ separatists such as Pierre Vallières and Paul Rose. His documentary film La Liberté en colère is a kind of an apology for the FLQ. As far as Madam Jean is concerned, her present political views on separatism are less than clear. Furthermore, her French citizenship was a problem because the governor-general is the head of the Canadian army – that, and the fact that modern France was created in opposition to monarchy.

After the protests of many Canadians, including the Royal Canadian Legion, she was forced to renounce her French citizenship. During her installation, she refused to swear on the Bible, because she said she is an atheist. But the British monarchy is fundamentally Christian, since the Queen is the head of the Anglican Church. Again, she does not share the spirit of her function: why did she accept it?

Her program “to end the two solitudes,” which she presented to Canadians on the day of her installation, is also opposed to the political tradition of Canada that has always recognized the two founding nations. Her melting pot philosophy was badly received in Quebec.

The famous songwriter Raymond Lévesque even recently refused an award from the governor-general, because he believed she did not recognize the distinct society of Quebec in her speech. In the past, Jean Chrétien had tried to use monarchist institutions for partisan politics when he named the ultra-federalist and arrogant Jean-Louis Roux as lieutenant-governor of Quebec. The scheme failed quickly. Martin’s manipulation is doomed to failure in the near future.