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| Affiliation | Unknown |
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| Name | Michaëlle Jean |
| Address |
Montréal, Québec , Canada |
| Email | None |
| Website | None |
| Born |
September 06, 1957
(67 years)
|
| Contributor | Monsieur |
| Last Modifed | Juan Croniqueur
Dec 22, 2024 01:08pm |
| Tags |
Black - Haitian -
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| Info | Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, CC, CMM, COM, CD [mi·ka·ɛl ʒɑ̃] is the 27th governor general 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 took place on September 27. As Governor General, Jean is 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.
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 held dual citizenship (Canadian and French) as a result of her marriage, but on September 23, 2005, announced her voluntary renunciation of her French citizenship in order to feel 'more comfortable' in her acceptance of her appointment as Governor General of Canada. She has one daughter, Marie-Eden, adopted from Haiti.
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.
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."
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. 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. 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.
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. 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.
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 Rhéaume, 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. 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. 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," although some critics continued to argue that her response remained too vague.
Another minor controversy concerned her French citizenship. A section of the French civil code forbids French citizens from holding government or military positions in other countries and, as Commander-in-chief of the Canadian Forces and as de facto head of state, Jean would hold both military and government positions, however the law is rarely applied. The French embassy stated that there was "no question" of the law's being enforced in Jean's case. This is mainly because the role of Governor General is mainly ceremonial.
However, on September 25, two days before her scheduled appointment to the title, Jean made a statement renoucing her French citizenship, putting the controversy to rest.
Following her installation as Governor General, a personal coat of arms for Jean was unvielled. The arms depict her Haitian routes. The shield shows a sand dollar, a special tailsman for Jean and the crown symbolising her vice regal authority. The crest is a shell in a broken chain, symbolising escape from slavery. The supporters are two Simbis, water spirits in Haitian culture. The motto is Briser les solitudes, which means Breaking down solitude.
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