I like Governor-General Michaëlle Jean. What's not to like? She's gorgeous, articulate, compassionate, fashion forward and, as a Haitian-born immigrant to Quebec who speaks five languages, has embodied a thrilling step forward in defining the new Canada.
While she has always bristled at being labelled a "visible minority" (on written forms she declines to identify herself as such) it is precisely because of who she is that she has, in the almost five years of carrying out her largely ceremonial photo op duties, raised spirits everywhere.
Of course, there has also been political carping about Ms. Jean over the years: She's a separatist! She misidentified the Rockies! She mistakenly called herself the head of state! She has enabled Stephen Harper to become a pathological proroguer! But there's yet another reason that however luminous and lovely she is, Ms. Jean has made some people uneasy.
It's called emotion. She has been, hands down, the most emotionally open viceroy in history. She teared up during her swearing in and she's been crying in public ever since. And though she was selected by Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, she has mainly served while the Conservatives have been in power, an administration not known for its warm fuzzies. You might say that in contrast, she has become the Empathizer-in-Chief.
This past week, Ms. Jean was raising spirits back in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, especially in her home town of Jacmel, where she alternated between weeping in a very personal way for those who were lost (her daughter's godmother among them) and gently inspiring Haitians not to give up hope, to keep going in the recovery and rebuilding of one of the world's poorest nation states. As The Globe's Jessica Leeder reported, she was cheered "like a rock star."
That didn't stop bigots here from posting surly comments online, along the lines of "Michaëlle Jean is not a Canadian. If she loves Haiti so much she should go back to it." And even Ms. Jean's initial teary response in Canada to the earthquake was called "a disgrace" by some letter writer with a poker up his posterior.
The Governor-General has also been unusually open about the troubles in her own life. On a visit to British Columbia back in 2006, Ms. Jean, a long-time champion of battered women, confessed that her father had beaten her mother. She felt it was important to speak out so others would know they were not alone. She has also revealed that her mother has Alzheimer's, and even let a reporter accompany her on a visit to see her mother and record the fact that while she called her Mommy and stroked her hand, her mother had no idea who she was, no notion that the little girl she had brought to Canada at the age of 11 in 1968 as the family fled Haiti, who had been the subject of sidewalk racist taunts, who had gone hungry on occasion, was now the highest ranking official in her adopted country. Ms. Jean cried that day too.
The higher up you go on the political and public food chain, the more courage it takes to be open about your feelings. But it's not the kind of guts universally admired in Ottawa. And even though Ms. Jean comes across to many of those who have met her as both emotionally generous and serene, some people think it's not a regal way to conduct yourself in the highly anachronistic post of Governor-General.
Well, I think she's been good for Canada. Amid fears that she wouldn't measure up to the elegant and historically redefining reign of her immediate predecessor Adrienne Clarkson, she has carved her own route and connected with Canadians in a different, warmer way. (You won't catch me sparking an imaginary catfight between these two highly accomplished former broadcasters - I think they are both fantastic, and they each poured their souls into the job.)
Rumours are now rife that Stephen Harper is getting set to replace Ms. Jean as her term winds down (it's unofficially five years). The Calgary Herald's Don Martin reported that the Conservatives were considering appointing Mary Simon, president of the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami to the job. Man in Motion Rick Hansen's name has also been floated. He would be an inspired choice, and a signal that after two high-profile women, men have not been banished permanently from Rideau Hall. (Only dull men, I hope.) If, constitutionally, we have to hang on to the position of Governor-General a little or a long while more, Ms. Jean has at least broadened the role further and added a compassionate and open dimension to it.
Her life, she said, when she was appointed to the office at age 48, was "a lesson in learning to be free." And in an obvious reference to the famous two solitudes of French and English Canada, she said, "We must eliminate the spectre of all the solitudes."
What we didn't know back then was that she was also taking aim at the solitude of bottled up feelings. Good for her.