The Queen and her coddled, coiffed cronies
Can you name your Lieutenant Governor? I can’t. Moreover, I don’t care. Do you? Does he/she matter anymore? These people are a complete and utter waste of space, time, and money.
People in the Maritimes have trouble paying their heating bills, and these “representatives” sit around in mansions paid for by the “common people.” Oh yes, they work – they work cocktail parties, ceremonies, and boring government functions – things for which we pay.
The recent visit by Governor General Michel Jean to see the squalor of Vancouver’s Downtown east side is a case in point: there she was, in all her stilted, privilege-dripped over-enunciation, shielded by security, talking about the little people and how being told to #@& — off by residents over the shoulders of her entourage was simply a “manifestation” of their frustration”.
I am sure that she holds the same bemused, hollow, words of distanced empathy for others less fortunate: “Isn’t that a shame they live that way?” Tsk, tsk, my, my, too bad”.
It is not her fault, she is an elitist. The system will always create a privileged class; however, their deportment, and our systemic, structural support for them is another matter.
And we have to stop it. The position of Governor General is a provocatively useless waste of resources that merely serves to further illuminate class divides.
Michel Jean’s recent visit to Vancouver’s mean streets as part of a camera opportunity was a disgraceful sham. If she was serious about either concern or empathy she would have gone there with only one or two bodyguards late at night, unreported, not drawing attention to herself in televised daylight while using homeless people as live backdrops.
People will speak to me of “tradition.” It was also traditional for women not to vote, to have slavery, to have landed gentry, to have dictatorial monarchies. It was also traditional to have duel with wheellock and flintlock pistols during disputes in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth centuries.
I, personally, would like to have duels with the Governor General and the provincial representative, the Lieutenant Governor, but I just can’t remember her name. And I don’t even know what she looks like.
I bet you don’t know either. Nor do you know what you are paying for.
And you never get an invite to the cocktail parties either, do you?
January 29th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
No one has ever given a good reason to me as to why we have a Lieutenant Governor and what their function is. Tradition is not worth millions we pour into it. We have a big enough government as it is. Interesting view.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:13 am
here here. I agree. What a useless and overly expensive position.
Every time I come to your blog I get frustrated that I can’t navigate from it back to the main News 957 website. They have to fix that! Just a simple button to allow us to go back!
January 30th, 2008 at 10:10 am
I agree with your take on the GG position and its frivolity. I wrote an e-mail to the ever-smug Paul Wells of MacLeans a few years ago when Adrienne Clarkson took that ostentatious, highly-criticized trip to Russia and elsewhere, after he defended its cultural value. He was miffed when I opined that a backpacking trip across Europe was a better way of getting cultured, for a minute fraction of the cost. I was just saying it for comparison’s sake, but he blew it out of proportion in his reply. But he is a self-proclaimed jazz aficionado, so what do you expect.
I have to disagree your opinion of Jean herself. She was raised in Haiti and worked at a women’s shelter for several years - not exactly the profile of an elitist.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Totally agree, these folks and the institution they represent needs to go. The LG by the way is Mayann Francis. What is it they they really represent besides privledge is the Queen, whose single greatest accomplishment that makes her who she is was being born the daughter of the man who became king, must have been very difficult for her to train for that feat. These people are there to remind us of our English connection and the monarchy, well Canada is a sovereign nation and needs to start acting like one and further the monarchy is really just dictatorship by another name. look at the history of her ancestors, not much too be truly proud of there. My ancestors came to this country through various routes, my scotish ones were kicked off of the land by the nobles who wanted to raise sheep, the Irish were driven out by neglect of these so called noble classes and my french ancestors were Acadians who were displaced in the name of the monarchy and crown loyalty. I say Canada for Canadians and the Monarchy and her representatives can stay in England.
January 30th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Thank you Andrew.
See, now I’m outraged and totally agree with your points.
I’ve never thought about how pointless of a position Lieutenant Governor
is. But you’ve got me thinking.
And now I’m especially insulted that her/his limo has whizzed by me on Summer Street in Halifax — and not so much as a wave or a honk. lol
January 31st, 2008 at 6:04 am
Can anyone please tell us what we are paying the Governor General and Lieutenent Governor for? Is it it to show the rest of the world that we have that much money to waste and to throw these cocktail parties and pay for these position’s that are appointed roles. It’s not like we have families in need and other important issues like road condition’s needing upgrading to slow the death toll down on our highway’s. I cant think of anything more important then using our tax dollar’s for then paying for thes useless position’s in our Goverment. Can you? Well thats my thought’s about that, It’s so frustrating the more I think about it!
January 31st, 2008 at 6:11 am
Correct on every point - what a waste of money. And we pay one like this at the federal level and one for every province. Send them packing.
January 31st, 2008 at 6:45 am
On Rememberence Day the Govenor General places a wreath on a memorial and that’s all I ever see or hear of her unless it’s about how much money she is costing Canadians.
In order to get rid of her, we’d have to start with the Monarchy and work our way down. The questions which areise are quite interesting:
1. Who will Canadians put on their money?
2. Who will the military swear allegence to?
3. What is the result of cutting the cord with Britian?
We need to get Britian to pay for all this crap.
February 1st, 2008 at 6:55 am
Well, I have to be the desenting voice in the crowd.
Several months ago people complained because a school in Ottawa had changed the words to Silver Bells to be more accomodating to other religions and beliefs…the majority of callers on talk shows totally disagreed with changing out history to accomodate others. Many argued that regardless of where we are going in the future it is always important to protect where we have been. February is “African Heritage Month”…will over time this erode also?
This situation is quite similar…dismantling Canadian heritage a little bit more, to what I believe, leaves us without a past. Although the opinions are not based on race or religion…they are based on modern ideas, people now missing the importance of our history…and the continuing membership in the Commonwealth. I know, I know…the Commonwealth is an old schoool idea that is losing much of its relevance. It has however provided Canadians with great beginnings. To this day Canada still sends athletes to the Commonwealth games…the second largest amateur competition in the world. The Commonwealth, as its economic sanctions, we instrumental in freeing Africa from apartheid. The British still extend rights in their conutry to all members of the Commonwealth, including embassy services where Canada has no representation.
Considering the amount of money wasted in this country, by every level of bureaucracy, the money spent on maintaining our heritage is a bargain!
February 1st, 2008 at 8:13 am
Mr. Krystal,
I just wanted to offer a solution to all your topics this morning.
Let’s get rid of the groundhog, we’ve got backyard chickens already. If one of those chickens comes out of it’s coup, sees it’s shadow, and trys to tell us there’s 6 more months of winter - taser the damn thing on the spot.
The taser-fried chicken can then be deliverd to any neighborhood who wants it by our by-law enforcement officers who are out chasing our up-to-no-good hosue cats all over the city anyway.
I’d have liked to call in and voice my solution, but I’ve got an important appointment this afternoon at 4pm about 20 blocks away. With the noon hour approaching it’s probably too late to get there on public transit but I might be able to hail a cab if I leave now.
February 1st, 2008 at 8:39 am
i totally agree with your views on the GG And LG. it is a useless and wasteful position that should be scrapped and that money should go towards low income housing or help feed the poor or some useful cause that is always neglected by our provincial and federal goverments. i have met the former GG on many occasions through where i used to work and although she was nice i could never figure out what the heck her actual job was. everyone that i worked with treated her like some kind of royalty which i never understood, she was just like everyone else in my opinion but with a unknown job description. we the people should rise up and get rid of these stupid and dated tradtions that have ties back to the british monarchy as we became our own country and stopped being a “colony” a long time ago. you don’t see the US still having any ties with them that way so why should we. it is time for change and we should get the queen of our currency and start our own national traditions based on our own country not someone else’s. personally i don’t care if they were loyalist’s or acadians or the french that was in the far past now and now we are CANADIANS so we should start acting like it a get our own identity away from these silly and stupid old world traditons.
February 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
I mostly agree with you Andrew that the GG position along with the provincial lieutenant governors are perhaps no longer relevant. Maybe we should have a look back at Canadian history to study how and why these positions came to be and draw conclusion based on that.I would be carefull though in calling Jean an elite. She was an abandonned child and lived with other street kids playing in sewer filled ditches in Haiti where she was born.
On a final note, I personnaly find it important we keep political links and close ties with England and the British crown as no one can predict what the future holds and in difficult times the more friends you have the better it is for you….Brits have nukes and an impressive military force…we dont.
February 1st, 2008 at 7:05 pm
The trappings of colonial system on life support. It’s costing us a lot of money to keep the figurehead-of-state alive, it’s time to make a tough decision.
Of late, it’s become a chance for our leaders to feign an open mind by nominating some interesting choices into these positions. In fact, If you are a white anglo-Saxon male you are not likely to ever be appointed the Queen’s representative unless perhaps you are a queen.
February 2nd, 2008 at 9:03 am
What I can’t get over is why we still want to have such close ties with England. After all, if they hadn’t been so dictatorial in their dealings with the Irish and the Scots, Nova Scotia and much of Canada would never have been settled. There are lots of English tradition: ban a people’s culture and language; slaughter indigenous people and plant your flag on their land; try to starve out a country’s inhabitants when a natural disaster wipes out their main crop. Personally, I don’t want to honour those “traditions” either. And these types of things were repeated all over the world; Ireland, Scotland, India, Africa, anywhere and everywhere the British Empire decided they wanted to conquer.
We have their British parliamentary system, with all of it’s flaws, but we have our own constitution and our own culture which is forever changing with immigration. It’s time to either eliminate the governor-general and the lieutenant-governors, or have the British Monarchy pay for them if they are in fact “their” representatives. I hear The House Of Windsor has a few coins to rub together, and they aren’t having any problems paying their for their heat or lights.
February 24th, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Andrew .My comment has to do with the Afghanistan war. It is amazing that the U.S, is able to shoot down an object the size of a bus hundreds of miles in outer space,but they cannot find a guy with a beard wearing a white rag around his head and wearing a long white dress and living in caves around Afghanistan.My opinion is that George W. Bush does not want to find him. This maybe a good subject to discusson on Maritime Morning.I would be interested to find out what other listenersthink about this subject. I love your program and listen to it as much as possible.Thank you.
February 26th, 2008 at 8:14 am
I am an advocate for our current constitutional monarchy.
I am very disappointed that so many people, including yourself Andrew, have such an uninformed and disrespectful view of out government. A view by the way that is NOT representative of the majority of Canadians, who support the Queen.
The Queen is a powerful symbol of or Canada and is one of the founding principles of our great nation. It gives us a distinctive political system.
The monarchy is free of the taint of partisan politics. The Queen represents every individual in our country not just the cronnies of the political day. She provides us with a continuity and sense of tradition through changes in elected leadership.
The long and tierd argument that the queen is expensive is ridiculous. The costs associated with all her infrastructure amounts to approx $1 a year per citizen.
Too much you may say?
This is a cost made puny when compared to the costs associated with a President and the resulting Republic.
The monarchy through time has patronized many of our great institutions- hospitals, schools and much more. We get a great deal in return for our investment in the monarchy.
The queen is a restraint on excessive centralization.
Without her would everything be in Ontario?
This should be an important factor for us as Atlantic Canadians as we suffer more and more from the cenralization that has been a crippling influence on us since confederation.
Through history, times when we have had strong ties to England we, as a region, have had great influence.
Traditionally when central governance dominates we are marginalized.
The Queen’s restraint on centralization is one of the huge reasons Quebec supports the monarchy. Her sovereignty ironically protects their individuality. A republic endangers the
cultural uniqueness held so dear to Quebec.
The crown prevents the rights of the minority from being trampled by the majority.
We would be smart to remember this as a region.
The criticism that the Queen is not multicultural and is a foreigner also rings hollow.
The queen herself has blood lines from every continent on earth.
A foreigner?
She is a citizen of our country as much as I am. I dare say she has done more for our communities as a citizen than most of us.
Most of the stable and prosperous countries in the world are constitutional monarchies (most notable exceptions are US and France). Many of the most unstable countries in the world are republics.
Elitist? Perhaps? But isn’t it a good kind of Elitism?
The Monarchy reminds us that we belong to a dignified social and political community.
From the monarchy should spring a sense of personal loyalty, and honorable behavior.
The monarchy helps us mark collective anniversaries and supports the bestowal of honors.
These cocktail parties and cotillions you elude to are for all of us.
Many of the celebrations at Government House are public and many private functions are given in honor ordinary folks who have had the vision to do extraordinary things.
Should we not support and honor courage, perseverance and excellence?
One major thing I do have a problem with is who and how the honor of GG and LG are given. This, in recent times, has been a frank political plum given as patronage and is not a monarchy problem but one of the machinations of partisan politics.
The LG and GG should be, by definition, free of political ties and indeed should be a leader in the community who most exemplifies the values of our nation.
The Queen was born to her job. In fact, in this way she is quite ordinary.
Should this not be an inspiration?
A person, any person, through accident of birth can become a leader.
She is just a person-not extraordinary-and yet she is extraordinary.
The queen is privileged to be sure.
But there far wealthier people in the world who do nothing in comparison.
Would you not agree that she respects and sacrifices for this privilege?
A President? A Congress? A Republic?
Is this what we want?
I don’t.
The majority of Canadians agree with me.
Sincerely,
Laura Reardon Keefe