Louise Arbour The Right Choice For The Times
Despite what you may have heard, the appointment of Louise Arbour to the role of Governor General of Canada is a perfect political message in a time of turmoil. It is a message of accountability, of values, of ethics, of lawfulness.
Among her past roles were Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the UN Secretary General’s special representative for international migration. This is hardly a comprehensive list.
As our head of state, she is everything that Donald Trump is not. She stands against everything he is. And as neighbouring heads of state, the contrast is a signal to the rest of the world of what we believe and where we stand as a country.
Rare is it for me to disagree with Matt Gurney, who has taken the public but very narrow view that Arbour’s appointment is a missed opportunity to placate Alberta’s foreign-funded separatists by having a Governor General from the province.
Who would have been the right choice from Alberta, of equal value and impact to one of the most respected names in international justice? Former Edmonton Liberal MP Anne McLellan? Former NDP premier Rachel Notley? Former Minister and national advisor on LGTBQ2+ issues Randy Boissonnault? All would be qualified public figures from the province, but none would placate the joint Russian-American operation to break up Canada through amplifying Albertan feelings of ‘alienation’.
Perhaps the appointment of Danielle Smith would have been better — it would solve two problems at once, removing her from her destructive leadership of the province while offering an olive branch to the movement she leads with vague and unconvincing efforts at plausible deniability. We might soon find out, through her, though, that disallowance is still a technical power belonging to the Governor General, and she could just as easily refuse to assent to federal legislation.
Perhaps, then, the best approach to picking our head of state who holds technically real, if only theoretical, power, is to choose someone who has genuinely served the country, the world, and the rule of law. Where she is from within Canada is irrelevant. For this role, what matters is that she is from Canada and represents the best of what Canada has to offer.
Arbour is known internationally for indicting sitting heads of state for war crimes, and for the prosecution of sexual violence as a crime against humanity. She rose to international prominence for the indictment of sitting Serbian president Slobodan Milošević on those charges.
Arbour is known for her tenure as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, where, as CBC noted this week, she took a decidedly progressive position on issues such as marijuana, noting in a 2003 dissenting opinion:
A law that has the potential to imprison a person whose conduct causes little or no reasoned risk of harm to others offends the principles of fundamental justice.
After her tenure on the Supreme Court, one of few justices to retire from the role voluntarily before their mandatory retirement, she went off to the United Nations as the High Commissioner for Human Rights and then as the Secretary General’s special representative on mass migration.
Every aspect of her career is a poke in the eye of Donald Trump, and an obvious contrast to who Pierre Poilievre might have appointed in his idolatry of Trump.
First, opposite the world’s leading misogynist, Canada has appointed a profoundly accomplished woman to the role of head of state — our third in a row.
But her accomplishments systematically counter everything the American dictator is attempting to do.
She defends democracy. She defends human rights. She defends minority rights. She upholds the law. She prosecutes war crimes. She prosecutes sexual crimes as crimes against humanity. She defends the rights of migrants. She will now hold and demonstrate those values in the name of an actual, rather than aspiring, King.
Each and every one of these points is in direct abject contrast to Donald Trump, and is a statement to the world of where we stand relative to our neighbour.
Her appointment as the King’s representative in Canada is a statement of how Canadians see ourselves, how we want to present ourselves on the world stage, and who we want to be. It matters a whole lot more than which province she is from.
100% agree.
Totally right on! Amen!