Why Mark Carney Picked a War-Crimes Prosecutor for Rideau Hall

Last month, John Fraser published a book about Canada’s governors general. It’s a topic that seems so preposterously dull that even Fraser’s own publisher said, “Better you sell me a book on the softwood lumber industry.” But what Fraser eventually turned in—twelve “personal and undoubtedly arbitrary” portraits of the various crackpots and savants who have held the post since 1952—is a delight and, with Louise Arbour’s appointment last week, timely to boot.

Arbour is one of the country’s most famous legal minds. A former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, she served as chief prosecutor for the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, where she pursued cases against political and military leaders accused of atrocities. She was later appointed the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights. In Canada, she led major public inquiries, including a landmark review into sexual violence within the Canadian Armed Forces.

Arbour doesn’t appear in Fraser’s book; she hadn’t yet been tapped when he wrote it. But his spirited defence of Canada’s “ludicrous, weird, and utterly antediluvian” custom of letting the Crown choose its representative head of state extends to her. Fraser appreciates the way the office exists above parties, elections, and ideological churn. For him, the value of the “viceregal mantle” stems from its role as constitutional backstop: a nonpartisan authority capable of checking abuses of power. “Canadians should be down on their knees thanking Almighty God,” he writes, “for the luck of having a system that protects them from dysfunction or malfeasance.”

I called him up by Zoom to get his take on the Arbour announcement.

Are you happy with the choice?

I’m happy at the initial announcement of all appointments. But time will give the answer. When Adrienne Clarkson was first announced, most people said it was going to be an effing disaster. She’s too well known. She’s got a sharp tongue. She’s a bit grand. When Julie Payette was named, everyone thought, wow, this is going to be fantastic. She’s young and beautiful and an astronaut. She is going to be transformative. In the end, they were both the exact opposite of what the initial perceptions were. So trying to predict how Louise Arbour is going to be? I’ve learned not to be that stupid. I can say she’s an extremely nice person—warm. And she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

What is it about the governor general role that puts such pressure on personalities? People you think can’t handle it do; for others, it has an almost deranging effect.

People who get this job are not used to what happens immediately—which is they get the full panoply of security and public exposure. Politicians, especially if they work their way to prime minister—are so used to this in every degree. But a person who has excelled in a certain area is not used to having to deal with the level of security that is expected—that is insisted upon—for head of state. The other thing is, the degree in which your privacy departs. And that can be very hard. It was very hard on Julie Payette. Diplomats and politicians, and to some extent the military, are used to that kind of scrutiny. But not most members of the public. It’s a shock.

Would you put the new governor general in the category of someone who understands the pressures?

She can deal with the publicity. She must have had a lot of security when she was doing the human rights work in the judicial proceedings in Yugoslavia and also with abuses in the military. But the proof’s in the pudding, you know? You can never tell.

As you’ve just alluded, our new governor general is someone whose career has been spent prosecuting war crimes, investigating abuses of power, and very publicly criticizing the Canadian government. I don’t think that we’ve had someone quite as prosecutorial in Rideau Hall.

We’ve never had one. In terms of her understanding of our Constitution, she’s almost too good to be true.

Would you foresee any clashes?

I will say Madame Arbour is used to controversy, and she probably won’t have a problem staying out of controversy because she’s of an age. Age is really important. It’s wrong to give that job to a young person who would still have a career after it. This is an end-of-career gig where all the things you’ve done are to be honoured and seen, allowing you can go through an often very tedious ceremonial life. You’re there basically for something that hopefully will never happen, which is to decide whether, in fact, to deny a prime minister the right to dissolve Parliament because you have been informed, one way or another from your advisers, that an opposition group can put together an all-new government. That’s the remaining power of the vice regal figure. The real reason there’s a governor general.

I still can’t help but wonder if there is, for Carney’s team, a kind of a sly branding to their choice. What does it say that Arbour is someone associated with crisis management? Is there a statement in that about the world we live in?

I don’t think so. People have got this position either through happenchance or connections or prime ministerial whim. Basically, it’s a very boring job. But it’s a lot of hand shaking, ribbon cutting, being nice to people you would not cross the street to talk to. It’s not that exciting. The people who do it come to understand they are a symbol and that they have to live up to the symbol and do it dutifully, waiting for the day they might be needed in some crisis.

• Mary Simon Is Leading Indigenous Peoples to New Heights
• Carney’s Liberals Are Governing like Conservatives—Just More Politely
• Canada Should Call Trump’s Bluff on CUSMA Trade Talks

Can you say a little more about the usefulness of this kind of monarchical system? What’s the upside?

One reason I’m a supporter of the connection to the Crown is that it adds a bit of dignity to the executive—sprinkles some enhancing dust on it. That said, the governor general’s importance lies partly in the fact that the role exists at all: it ensures no prime minister holds completely unchecked power. It isn’t quite the same in a republication system; that is, where a head of state also runs the day-to-day administration of the country. I won’t take Mr. Trump as anything other than an aberration. But nevertheless, as he shows, if something goes wrong and your head of government and your head of state are one and the same, then then you’ve got a problem. The person abusing power is also the person entrusted with the constitutional order. We’re spared that. We have the gift—God forgive me for saying this—of Trump to show us what the extremes can be. I loved it when Prime Minister Chrétien said we should give Trump the Order of Canada, but we can’t because he’s a convicted criminal.

I sometimes wonder if the monarchy survives here not because Canadians genuinely support it but because no one wants to own the constitutional chaos of replacing it.

I once interviewed Stephen Harper, and he said that before he became prime minister, he was like most Canadians. He wasn’t anti-monarchy, wasn’t anti-Crown or anti–governor general. He wasn’t pro or anything. He didn’t think about it. It didn’t enter into his life—until he got the top job, and then he saw how useful it was. But far more importantly, he was terrified at all the alternatives.

Explain.

He cited the famous referendum in Australia in 1999 on whether to break ties with the Crown and become a republic. Australians are a feisty, independent people, and it was just a matter of time before they finally got their act together to have a national vote. But that’s also when people had to think hard about what they wanted for an alternative. And in the end, it was defeated: the devil known was better than any devil unknown. The states were ultimately not keen to let the prime minister of the country have the choice of who was going to be head of state. It turned out that the single most useful aspect of their constitution was a faraway sovereign represented by a local dignitary. So that was a big lesson for the rest who follow that system: New Zealand and us.

The last question is, where do you think she fits in the “pecking order” you put together for your book, specifically “those who never really figured it out and even lowered it in esteem, and who passed through it with hardly a ripple.”

I don’t want to see her as a do-nothing governor general. I don’t want to see her as someone who oversteps the boundaries. But the job more or less helps the occupant understand what the limits are. I have no doubt Arbour understands that. So I’ve got hope.