{"id":33206,"date":"2026-05-05T20:14:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/33206\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T20:14:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T20:14:38","slug":"louise-arbour-named-canadas-next-governor-general-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/33206\/","title":{"rendered":"Louise Arbour named Canada\u2019s next Governor-General"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney walks with Louise Arbour on Tuesday as he prepares to announce that the former Supreme Court justice will serve as Canada’s next Governor-General.Adrian Wyld\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Louise Arbour, a former Supreme Court of Canada justice who later served as a United Nations commissioner and prosecuted war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, has been named Canada\u2019s new Governor-General.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada is a wonderful country, shaped by its diversity of people of perspectives and experiences, but I think shaped also mostly by a common respect for strong public institutions and for the rule of law,\u201d Ms. Arbour said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove all, we all thrive, strive to provide for each other in a spirit of equality and generosity. I\u2019m very mindful of the legacy that I\u2019m stepping into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Arbour succeeds Mary Simon, an Inuk and advocate for Inuit rights who became the first Indigenous person to hold the title when she was appointed by then prime minister Justin Trudeau in 2021.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Mary Simon has, Louise Arbour will represent the best of Canada to Canadians and the world,\u201d Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday in announcing her appointment at a ceremony at the National Gallery of Canada.<\/p>\n

Ms. Arbour, 79, was born in Montreal. She taught at Osgoode Hall Law School and first became a judge in Ontario in the late 1980s. She was a justice on the Supreme Court from 1999 until 2004.<\/p>\n

After retiring from the high court, Ms. Arbour worked as the United Nations high commissioner for human rights. Later, she was a special representative of the UN secretary-general for international migration, working on global migration policy.<\/p>\n

She was the chief prosecutor in two UN international criminal tribunals, which investigated war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda. This led to the indictment of Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, the first such legal action against a sitting head of state by an international tribunal.<\/p>\n

From the archives: Louise Arbour\u2019s dealings on human-rights stage lead to her appointment to review misconduct in the military<\/a><\/p>\n

Starting in April, 2021, Ms. Arbour led an independent review of Canada\u2019s Department of National Defence and the Armed Forces. In a report issued in May, 2022, she recommended reforms to address sexual misconduct and institutional culture.<\/p>\n

Mr. Carney said Ms. Arbour\u2019s career speaks to the approach she will bring to Rideau Hall, the official residence of the governor-general.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conviction that institutions are the load-bearing walls of a civil society \u2013 and that they remain trustworthy only as long as someone is willing to hold them accountable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLouise Arbour has held nearly every office a Canadian jurist can hold, and several that no Canadian had held before.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said she has been recognized with nearly 100 honours and awards and is a Companion of the Order of Canada \u2013 an honour she will be involved in presenting during her term as Governor-General.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the measure of her career is neither in the office she has held nor the awards she has received. It is in the lives she has changed through her service,\u201d Mr. Carney said.<\/p>\n

As Governor-General, Ms. Arbour will be the representative of King Charles III in Canada, and have a mix of ceremonial and constitutional duties. Introducing Ms. Arbour on Tuesday, Mr. Carney said the King had approved the appointment on his recommendation.<\/p>\n

In the lead-up to the appointment, Mr. Carney had faced pressure to ensure the next governor-general was fluent in both English and French.<\/p>\n

The summer Louise Arbour worked the phones for Expo 67<\/a><\/p>\n

Ms. Simon, also born in Quebec, was criticized for a lack of fluency in French, despite taking French instruction. She speaks English and Inuktitut, one of Canada\u2019s principal Inuit languages.<\/p>\n

Ms. Simon, a former broadcaster with the CBC and long-time Indigenous activist, focused her efforts on Indigenous reconciliation, mental health and the environment.<\/p>\n

During her tenure, she welcomed Pope Francis during his visit to Canada in 2022 \u2013 a trip that included an apology to residential school survivors. She also hosted the King during his visit last year.<\/p>\n

The role of the governor-general mixes ceremonial responsibilities with duties central to the national governance of Canada. Constitutional roles include swearing in the prime minister and cabinet ministers, delivering the Speech from the Throne and granting royal assent to acts of Parliament.<\/p>\n

The governor-general is also the commander-in-chief of the Canadian Armed Forces, offering support to members, their families and loved ones, awarding military honours and visiting personnel at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

In addition, the governor-general officially welcomes new diplomats, hosts visiting foreign heads of state, travels abroad on official visits and presents honours and awards to acknowledge Canadian excellence.<\/p>\n

Ms. Arbour was asked Tuesday whether she\u2019ll take a special focus on the military, given her past work examining sexual misconduct, but she did not directly answer the question.<\/p>\n

She was also asked, in French, about what she thinks she\u2019ll accomplish on the job, with a reporter contrasting the intensity of her previous jobs with the more ceremonial aspects of being a governor-general. <\/p>\n

Ms. Arbour said people asked her the same kind of questions when she joined the Supreme Court after years working in war zones, and she\u2019ll carry out her new duties with great enthusiasm. <\/p>\n

Some premiers, including Alberta\u2019s Danielle Smith and Nova Scotia\u2019s Tim Houston, had called for a governor-general from outside Central Canada, given that recent holders of the office have largely been from Quebec and Ontario. Ms. Smith noted that it has been more than 30 years since there has been a governor-general from Western Canada.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Prime Minister Mark Carney walks with Louise Arbour on Tuesday as he prepares…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[111,484,361,113,906],"class_list":{"0":"post-33206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mark-carney","8":"tag-mark-carney","9":"tag-noastack","10":"tag-pleasemod","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-yessnap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}