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Michaëlle Jean

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Michaëlle Jean
File:Mjean.jpg
Birth: 1957
Place of birth: Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Spouse: Jean-Daniel Lafond
Profession: Journalist

Michaëlle Jean [mi·ka·ɛl ʒɑ̃] (born 1957 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti) is the governor general-designate of Canada. Jean was approved by Queen Elizabeth II, on the recommendation of Prime Minister Paul Martin, to succeed Adrienne Clarkson and become the 27th Governor General of Canada. An official announcement about the appointment was made on August 4, 2005. Her installation is scheduled for September 27. As Governor General, Jean will be the expression of the crown in Canada, Canada's de facto head of state and commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces. Other major roles and responsibilities include promoting national unity, protecting and promoting Canadian culture and identity, and celebrating excellence amongst Canadians.

Biography

Jean fled Haiti with her family from dictator François Duvalier's regime in 1968. Her father, with whom she has recently reconciled, was a philosopher who was tortured under Duvalier's regime and separated from the family for 30 years. The Jean family settled at Thetford Mines, Quebec.

Besides French and English, Jean is fluent in Spanish, Italian and Haitian Creole and can read Portuguese.

As a student at the University of Montreal, Jean received a Bachelor of Arts in Italian and Hispanic languages and literature and, from 1984 until 1986, taught Italian Studies while completing a Master of Arts in comparative literature. Jean attended the universities of Florence, Perugia and the Catholic University of Milan to continue her studies in language and literature.

While attending university, Jean worked at a shelter for battered women from 1979 until 1987. She later helped establish a network of shelters for women and children across Quebec and Canada. Jean also worked in organizations that helped immigrants who came to Canada and then later worked for Employment and Immigration Canada and at the Conseil des Communautés culturelles du Québec. Jean began writing about the experiences of immigrant women. Jean also holds dual citizenship (Canadian and French) as a result of her marriage. She has one daughter, Marie-Eden, adopted from Haiti.

Career

File:Michaelle Jean and Jean-Daniel Lafond.jpg
Michaëlle Jean and Jean-Daniel Lafond

Jean went on to become an award-winning reporter, filmmaker, and broadcaster. Jean married documentary film-maker Jean-Daniel Lafond and together they made several films including the award-winning film, Haïti dans tous nos rêves (Haiti in all Our Dreams). In the film, she meets her uncle, the poet and essayist René Depestre, who went into exile in France from the Duvalier dictatorship and wrote about his dreams for Haiti, to tell him Haiti awaits his return. She has won many prizes, such as the Amnesty International journalism award. She has hosted and produced news and documentary programming for television on both the English and French services of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. She was most recently the host of CBC Newsworld's The Passionate Eye and RDI's Grands Reportages, as well as an occasional anchor of Radio-Canada's Le Téléjournal.

Appointment to the Governor Generalship

File:20050804-116.jpg
Michaëlle Jean exiting the Canadian Senate with Paul Martin to announce her appointment as Governor General on August 4, 2005.

In announcing Jean as his choice to succeed Clarkson, Prime Minister Martin said she "is a woman of talent and achievement. Her personal story is nothing short of extraordinary. And extraordinary is precisely what we seek in a Governor-General — who after all must represent all of Canada to all Canadians and to the rest of the world as well." [1]

Jean will be Canada's first black governor general, the second person without either a political or military background (after Adrienne Clarkson), the second person from a visible minority (again after Clarkson), the second person in an interracial marriage (again after Clarkson), the third woman (after Jeanne Sauvé and Clarkson), the fourth-youngest person (after Lord Lorne (33 years old in 1878), Lord Lansdowne in (38 years old in 1883) and Edward Schreyer (43 years old in 1979)), and the fourth journalist (after Schreyer, Sauvé, Roméo LeBlanc and Clarkson) to hold the position. As Lafond was born in France and their six-year-old adopted daughter, Marie-Éden, born in Haiti, the entire vice-regal family will be of non-Canadian and non-Commonwealth birth. Ms Jean holds dual citizenship; she applied to become a French citizen upon marrying her husband who also held Canadian and French citizenship. [2] It will also mark the first time in over 30 years that children have lived in Rideau Hall.

Jean, in her first remarks after her appointment, said she wanted to reach out to all Canadians, regardless of their background. Jean also made it a goal to reach out especially to Canadian youth and those who feel disadvantaged. [3] Jean also encouraged all Canadians to become involved in community affairs.

On September 6, 2005, Queen Elizabeth II granted an audience to Jean and her family at Balmoral Castle. Though it is standard for a new governor general to have an audience of the monarch before assuming office, this meeting was unique in that Madame Jean's young daughter was present, marking the first time in the Queen's reign that a governor general has brought her young child to an audience.

Reaction

  • Stephen Harper, the leader of the Conservative Party, and also the Leader of the Opposition, congratulated Jean on her appointment and said that her life story "serves as a great example to many Canadians. I know Mme. Jean will serve Canada in a dignified, vice-regal fashion." [4]
  • The departing Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, applauded Martin for choosing Jean by saying she is "an exciting and imaginative choice for Governor General." Clarkson said she and her husband John Ralston Saul look forward to Jean being invested with her position with "great enthusiasm." [5]
  • Gilles Duceppe, the leader of the Bloc Québécois was disappointed when Jean decided to "accept a position that is strictly honorary and within an institution that is not democratic." [6]
  • Jack Layton, the leader of the New Democratic Party, said he wished Jean and her family well and that he looks "forward to seeing a family again in Rideau Hall, which is fitting for the first Governor-General of a new century." Layton also commented about Canadian peacekeepers at this time by saying Jean "knows well the value of the peacekeeping operations that give Canadians so much pride." [7]
  • Political commentator Rex Murphy wrote an opinion piece in the national newspaper The Globe and Mail the week of Jean's appointment, criticizing the undemocratic nature of the institution as a whole, along with the appointment of five additional Canadian senators by the Prime Minister that same week.

Controversy

Soon after the announcement of Jean's appointment, Prime Minister Martin was asked if the current political climate in Ottawa caused him to appoint her. Martin denied that the appointment was a political move to gain seats in Quebec, where the Liberal Party lost 15 seats in the last election. [8] It should be noted that by the office's established tradition of alternating anglophones and francophones, Martin was almost certain to choose a francophone to succeed Clarkson. Until Jean's appointment, Jeanne Sauvé, who served from 1984 to 1990, was the last governor general to live in Quebec, and Jules Léger, who served from 1974 to 1979, was the last Governor General from Quebec.

On August 11, 2005 The Globe and Mail reported that in an forthcoming article released early by the Quebec sovereigntist publication Le Québécois author René Boulanger stated that Jean and her husband supported Quebec independence. Boulanger also stated that Jean's spouse, Jean-Daniel Lafond was friendly with former Quebec terrorists. [9]

Boulanger reported that he had often visited Jean's home and that during one of these visits, Lafond told him that Jacques Rose, a former member of the terrorist FLQ, had built a bookshelf for the couple. Rose was a member of the FLQ cell which kidnapped and murdered Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte. Boulanger admitted that his statement was intended to cause English Canada to reject Michaëlle's candidature as the next Governor General. Following release of the article, Gilles Rheaume, former president of the St-Jean Baptiste Society called on Jean to reveal how she voted in Quebec's 1995 referendum, which federalists won by a narrow majority. [10] Sovereigntist have a vested interest in causing a strong reaction in English Canada against francophone candidates which would alienate the public in Quebec. They have also been attempting to garner support amongst the francophone immigrant community, and a high profile federal appointment of this sort does not help their case.

Calls from a few members of parliament and by some of the provincial premiers for Jean and her husband to reveal their sympathies were met with a statement from the Prime Minister that the two had undergone a thorough background check by the RCMP and CSIS, standard procedure for appointment to such a high-profile position. [11] The August 17 edition of La Presse contained the information that Jean had appeared in a video documentary toasting "to independence" in a Montreal bar with several hard-line separatists. In the video she made the statement: "Independence can't be given, it must be taken."

On August 17, Jean responded to the controversy, with the following statement:

I want to tell you unequivocally that both [Lafond] and I are proud to be Canadian and that we have the greatest respect for the institutions of our country. We are fully committed to Canada. I would not have accepted this position otherwise.

She also clarified that she and her spouse "have never belonged to a political party or the separatist movement." Following Jean's statement, Martin responded "There is no doubt in my mind that her devotion to Canada is longstanding and resolute," [12] although some critics continued to argue that her response remained too vague.

Another minor controversy concerned her French citizenship. A French law forbids French citizens from holding government or military positions in other countries, but the law is rarely applied. The French embassy stated that there was "no question" of the law's being enforced in Jean's case.

References

  1. ^ Prime Minister Paul Martin's Announcement August 4, 2005
  2. ^ Stephen Harper's remarks August 4, 2005
  3. ^ Governor General Clarkson's reaction to the appointment August 4, 2005
  4. ^ NDP's Reaction August 5, 2005
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