Mary Simon named Canada’s 30th Governor General, the first Indigenous person to hold post

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This article was published 05/07/2021 (1270 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA—Inuk leader and former diplomat Mary Simon heralded her appointment Tuesday as Canada’s 30th Governor General as a historic and inspirational moment for Canada and a leap ahead on the path toward reconciliation.

Simon pledged to stay true to the apolitical and non-partisan core of the job, but also to who she is: someone with an open mind, a bridge builder between North and South who has spent her life standing up for her community at home and around the world.

And in just the first few moments after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced she’ll take the role, she showed it — offering her first words as incoming Governor General in Inuktitut, and not mincing words when she explained why she doesn’t speak French: the federal day school she attended as a child refused to teach her the language.

The physical and emotional legacy of the day school and residential school systems has loomed large over Canada in recent weeks, with the discovery in multiple locations of hundreds of previously unmarked graves belonging to children who attended the schools.

Those discoveries have again raised questions about how committed Canada is to reconciliation, with some saying in recent days that one test would be whether Trudeau chose a First Nations, Inuit or Métis person to become governor general as a replacement for Julie Payette.

In taking up her role as the first Indigenous Governor General in the 400-year history of the post, Simon said she was keenly aware that she arrives at a challenging time and that she would work to promote healing and wellness.

“To me that means stopping to fully recognize, memorialize and come to terms with the atrocities of our collective past that we are learning more about each day,” she said Tuesday, standing alongside Trudeau at the Canadian Museum of History.

“It means we must thoughtfully work hard towards the promise of a better tomorrow. I believe we can build the hopeful future in a way that is respectful of what has happened in the past.”

In choosing Simon, the Liberal government was also trying for a clean break from the past scandal surrounding the governor general’s office.

Simon’s appointment came after former governor general Julie Payette resigned in January.

An investigation of workplace conditions at Rideau Hall concluded she’d presided over a toxic environment that drove many employees out the door.

But questions about Payette’s suitability for the job began almost immediately after Trudeau announced with great fanfare that she would replace David Johnston.

Within days of the announcement, it was revealed Payette had been involved in a fatal car accident, and also that she’d once been charged with assault, both in the U.S. Charges were later dropped.

The reveal prompted immediate and persistent questions about how well she had been vetted and how she was chosen in the first place.

Trudeau’s predecessor, Stephen Harper, had set up an external committee to help fill jobs like hers but Trudeau didn’t use it in deciding that Payette, a former astronaut, was the best for the role.

In the subsequent years, criticism of Payette piled up.

She refused to live at the official resident in Ottawa, Rideau Hall, citing the need for repairs. Reports suggested she also balked at having to appear last-minute to grant Royal Assent to marquee Liberal legislation.

That she appointed her longtime confidante Assunta Di Lorenzo as her secretary, a formal position as the senior-most bureaucrat in her office, also raised eyebrows.

Last summer, explosive reports of how Payette and Di Lorenzo managed their staff at Rideau Hall — reports that came in the midst of broader debates around workplace harassment — landed with a bang and prompted weeks of renewed scrutiny.

The Liberals tried to put out the fire by hiring an outside firm to do its own review, but the conclusions of that report led to the inevitable conclusion: Payette, and Di Lorenzo, resigned in January.

In March, the Liberals reinstated the external committee to help find her replacement, and in the months since, the group — led by Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc — met at least 12 times and at one point had a long list of potential contenders.

“I think there was close to 100 different names vetted and reflected on before this group got to a small number of incredible Canadians who could serve,” Trudeau said Tuesday.

“The responsibilities of the office, the capacity to both lead and serve, an approach that is anchored in humility and thoughtfulness in everything they do, was some of the top things that we looked at. And it was obvious that Mary Simon embodied all those qualities of leadership and service.”

The group’s last meeting was in June.

The four volunteers who were part of it then signed off on the shortlist for further digging, said Natan Obed, a member of that group who currently runs the same organization helmed by Simon for many years, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

In an interview with The Star, Obed said he saw no conflict of interest in the fact he was involved in recommending his predecessor for the job.

Knowing more about candidates under consideration was seen as a benefit to the process, he said.

Obed said he also wasn’t involved in the final vetting.

“I am sure that it was exhaustive, especially considering it was something that was discussed very clearly by the government throughout this,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Privy Council Office, the senior civil servants responsible for the vetting, said a “variety of sources” of information were reviewed to determine who’d be a good fit.

“Vetting was very thorough and special emphasis was placed on ensuring that candidates had a track record of positive workplace experiences,” Pierre-Alain Bujold said in an email to the Star.

“They also ensured that candidates had a good understanding of the role of the governor general. In this regard, Ms. Simon is an exceptionally accomplished and respected individual.”

Dozens of profiles of Simon over the years speak to her accomplishments in public life, and news of her appointment was greeted by and large with delight and support across the country.

If there was one knock against her, it was the fact she isn’t fluent in French, given the nature of the job.

But in her opening remarks, Simon had addressed the issue pre-emptively, explaining how she’d been barred from learning the language as a child and continues studying it to this day.

According to her husband Whit Fraser’s book “True North Rising”, she began those studies in 2010 when her name first surfaced as a possible fit for the post.

That happened after nearly four decades as an Inuk leader, a journey that began in 1947 when she was born at a Hudson’s Bay Co. post in the Nunavik village of Kangiqsualujjuaq.

She’d go on to occupy a series of key positions during some of the biggest moments in the relationship between the Inuit and the federal government.

She helped negotiate the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement between the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec, the provincial government and Hydro-Quebec in 1975, and would later become the president of the Makivik Corp., which administers the funds under the deal.

A spokesperson for the corporation said no one there had been part of the vetting process, but in a statement, corporation president Pita Aatami said the person everyone in Nunavik knows as “Mary” brings with her a wealth of experience.

“We are extremely proud,” Aatami said.

She was actively involved in the negotiations leading to the patriation of the Constitution in 1982, and served as Canada’s first Inuk to hold an ambassador’s post, serving as the envoy for circumpolar affairs. There, she negotiated the creation of the Arctic Council, while also serving as Canada’s ambassador to Denmark.

Simon is set to be sworn in soon, though there’s no date set yet.

Her first big job viceregal task could come quickly — a chief responsibility of a governor general is to dissolve Parliament and call an election, at the request of the prime minister.

While election speculation is running rampant, Trudeau and Simon both said Tuesday they haven’t discussed the issue.

With a file from Jacques Gallant and The Canadian Press

Stephanie Levitz is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @StephanieLevitz