Hanes: Louise Arbour is a formidable pick as next governor general

Louise Arbour has been a law professor, a trial judge, the first francophone appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, a war crimes prosecutor, a Supreme Court of Canada justice and a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

But in a recent interview, the Montreal-born jurist and legal scholar said she never sought out any of those top positions.

“Virtually everything I’ve done professionally, I’ve done by accident. I’ve never had a career plan,” Arbour said. “The phone rang.”

One can surmise that also holds true for her next mission. Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Tuesday that Arbour has been selected as Canada’s new governor general.

She’s a formidable choice for a country facing threats to our sovereignty from the United States while dealing with not one but two separatist movements within. Although the role of the King’s representative in Canada is largely ceremonial, carrying out the duties of head of state on the monarch’s behalf, the governor general is charged with upholding the Constitution, serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and representing Canada on the world stage.

At a time when Canada is strengthening its military, forging alliances and seeking new trade partners around the globe, the naming of the internationally renowned Arbour projects strength, gravitas, integrity, as well as respect for human rights and the rule of law.

And with a potential referendum on the horizon in Alberta in October, as well as the possibility of one in Quebec if the Parti Québécois wins the fall election, Arbour has constitutional knowledge, while representing stalwart Canadian values such as justice, equality, fairness, toughness and grit.

Her appointment should appease language hawks in Quebec, who were critical that current Governor General Mary Simon is not fluent in French, though she was bilingual in English and Inuktituk. (Although much of Quebec’s political class also thinks having the King as head of state is outdated if not offensive, and thus the governor general redundant).

Arbour is a francophone Montrealer who once thought she’d never get hired as a clerk at the Supreme Court of Canada after law school because she didn’t speak enough English. But she bridged the Two Solitudes when she met her life partner, an anglophone, and they later settled in Ontario to work and raised a family.

She described that move from francophone Quebec to English Canada as a profound “cultural shock” in a sit-down for the MasterCard Foundation, which provides scholarships to Indigenous youth in Canada and Africa. Arbour sits on the board as a distinguished member. 

Arbour is a stalwart defender of women’s rights, having witnessed the struggle for equality during Quebec’s Quiet Revolution. From the age of 10, she was raised by a single mother who started her own business at a time when women needed husbands to sign bank loans and had to jump through hoops to obtain a divorce.

Her mother always told her: “Get yourself into a position where you never have to depend on anybody.”

Arbour went to all-girls school Collège Regina Assumpta from Grade 6 until she completed her baccalaureate at age 20. It was run by nuns she remembers as highly educated, very competent and entirely independent in administering their cloistered world.

When she started law school at Université de Montréal, she was at first worried how she’d measure up in a class that was majority male. But once all the marks were posted after her first term, Arbour told herself: ‘If this is the competition, bring it on.’

In 1995, she led a commission that investigated mistreatment at the Prison for Women in Kingston, producing a landmark report that led to major reforms. More recently, she probed sexual misconduct in the Department of National Defence and Canadian Armed Forces in 2022 — the military she will now lead as a figurehead.

Arbour said her mother used to ask her how she did it, raising three kids with such a demanding career. She said she now wonders the same about the next generation of women she sees practising law at Montreal’s Borden Ladner Gervais, where she has been working as special counsel.

Attending a conference in South Africa on developing a constitution for the post-Apartheid era in the late 1980s launched Arbour into international law. There Arbour met Richard Goldstone, who became the first war crimes prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. He put her name forward as a possible successor when he left the role, and Arbour was confirmed by the United Nations General Assembly as the chief war crimes prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

With sang-froid, Arbour secured the first indictment against a sitting head of state, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who was eventually arrested, convicted and imprisoned. She also fought to have sexual violence recognized as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.

Arbour returned to the bench as a member of the Supreme Court of Canada in 1999. Though she could have stayed for the rest of her career, she left in 2004 to serve as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, lead the International Crisis Group and act as a UN Special Envoy on international migration.

Arbour calls herself a champion of the underdog. She describes sitting as a judge “humbling.” She believes acknowledging people have different perspectives than your own fosters “political empathy.” Last year, she told an audience at the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University that “it’s all about the facts” while decrying misinformation and disinformation eroding the pursuit of the truth.

This is the example we need in a polarized world and a country riven by fault lines. Arbour’s influence as governor general may be symbolic, but her appointment is nevertheless a powerful statement.

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