Au revoir to Michaelle Jean

The outgoing governor general won a lot of Canadian hearts. The pundits speculate on what her legacy will be.

Governor General Michaelle Jean is stepping down this week, ending one of the most memorable tenures of any vice-regent in Canada’s history. She’ll be remembered for three things: granting Stephen Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament in 2008, her impassioned pleas for Canadians to help her birthplace Haiti after its devastating earthquake, and bravely eating raw seal heart on a trip to the Arctic.

Jean was popular, but she never won over the National Post’s Barbara Kay. Kay longs for the days of Adrienne Clarkson, who “worked harder than Michaelle Jean – literally, her calendar was much fuller – and intellectually … could run rings around” the outgoing GG. Just so there’s no confusion on who was the real trailblazer, Kay points out that Clarkson also “ate seal meat in exactly the same circumstances as Michaelle Jean did on several occasions.” Kay argues that Jean was appointed mainly because she was “hot,” which “in 2005 meant: photogenic, black and an immigrant and from Quebec.”

But Kay’s Post colleague Don Martin says Jean “was more than just a pretty face.” Her main accomplishment may be that whenever some one says ‘Prime Minister Stephane Dion’ they do so with a sarcastic grin rather than a vacant, haunted stare. Martin says had Jean denied Harper’s prorogation request she “would've crowned Stéphane Dion as prime minister at the leading edge of a recession. That would've set off a constitutional crisis in a furious country questioning the right of the monarchy to nullify a seven-week-old election result.” Instead she “did the prudent thing” and ensured stability in the midst of economic turmoil.

With Jean’s departure, Ottawa “may be embarking on an era of sleepy competence,” fears the Ottawa Citizen’s Kelly Egan. Jean’s replacement is the capable but stuffy David Johnson, and throw in dreary leading mayoral candidate Jim Watson, Dalton ‘Premier Dad’ McGuinty, and Stephen ‘Trust Me I’m a Real Human Being’ Harper, and at all levels of government the capital is “taking Dullsville and turning it down a notch or two.”