Carney’s Tuesday announcement named retired Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour as Canada’s next governor general, a post that serves as the Crown’s representative in the country’s constitutional monarchy. Carney said King Charles III approved the appointment on his recommendation. The new governor general, Carney said, will have “very in-depth conversations” with Arbour privately on issues affecting Canada and the rest of the world.
The governor general carries constitutional duties, but Carney’s remarks also framed the role as largely ceremonial and symbolic. In naming Arbour, Carney picked a Francophone for the post, as the appointment lands amid heightened political activity in Quebec. Arbour will replace Mary Simon, Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, who is set to reach the five-year mark of her tenure in July.
In response to a question about whether she considers herself a monarchist, Arbour said in French that she “doesn’t really know what that term is supposed to mean,” while indicating her support for the current system. She said she would be “the representative of the Crown in a constitutional arrangement that has served Canada extremely well throughout our history, even more in recent decades.”
Daniel Béland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said Arbour is well known and respected in French-speaking Quebec. He also pointed to the political context in the province, saying the Parti Québécois has pledged to organize an independence referendum by 2030 if the party forms a majority government after the Oct. 5 general election in Quebec. Béland said Arbour’s appointment could help, saying “Having a francophone as Governor General might help.”
Carney described Arbour as a world-renowned legal scholar, judge, and leader in human rights and justice. He said she was appointed as a judge to the Supreme Court of Ontario, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and the Supreme Court of Canada. Carney also cited her United Nations role, saying that in 1996 she was appointed Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Carney said Arbour led efforts that resulted in what he described as the first conviction for genocide since the 1948 Genocide Convention, as well as the first indictment for war crimes of a sitting head of state. He also said she later served as a U.N. Special Representative for International Migration from 2017 to 2018.
The governor general represents Britain’s King Charles III, whose role in Canada is as head of state within a constitutional system. Canada remained under the British Crown after the United States gained independence and did not become fully independent until 1867, continuing afterward as a constitutional monarchy with a British-style parliamentary system.