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Payette's disrespectful comments tarnish her position as Queen Elizabeth II's federal viceregal representative

It only took one speech for new Canadian Gov. Gen. Julie Payette to confirm why some columnists and pundits (including me) were lukewarm about her nomination in the first place.

"Oh, but she's an astronaut and a scientist," crowed her enthusiastic support base during the dog days of summer.  "She'll bring a fresh new outlook and diverse opinions to an old, staid ceremonial position."

I could certainly go for some old, staid representation right now.

Anything would be better than Payette's politically-charged diatribe last week to the Canadian Science Policy Conference.  The Governor General deviated from her speaking notes (one assumes and hopes) and went rogue on several occasions.

"Can you believe that still today in learned society," she said, "in houses of government, unfortunately, we're still debating and still questioning whether humans have a role in the Earth warming up or whether even the Earth is warming up, period?"

She said she was dismayed "we are still debating and still questioning whether life was a divine intervention or whether it was coming out of a natural process let alone, oh my goodness, a random process."

To top it off, she mockingly exclaimed, "so many people I'm sure you know many of them still believe, want to believe, that maybe taking a sugar pill will cure cancer, if you will it!"  Or that people believe that "every single one of the people here's personalities can be determined by looking at planets coming in front of invented constellations."

Who knew our new Governor General was a graduate of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's prestigious school for the dramatic arts?

Payette's disrespectful comments tarnish her respectful, ceremonial and constitutional position as Queen Elizabeth II's federal viceregal representative.  It's not her place, or her role, to attack Canadians who don't believe in some or all of the science surrounding climate change, hold a different opinion in the creation-evolution debate, have doubts about modern medicine or enjoy astrology.

Moreover, Payette's statements fly directly in the face of free speech and free expression.  While some Canadians don't respect these cherished values as much as their American cousins, it's long been an important principle for the success and survival of western democratic thought.

While the Governor General has the right to her intolerant views about others, she must grant that same right to people of opposing views who she finds ill-informed.  To paraphrase the late U.S. columnist Nat Hentoff, it has to be free speech for me and thee.

Instead, she has infuriated religious Canadians and free-thinking individuals of all political stripes and walks of life.  And she's only been on the job since Oct. 3.

Trudeau doesn't seem terribly concerned about this controversy and has strongly defended her statements.  "I am extraordinarily proud of the strength and the story of our Governor General, Julie Payette, who has never hidden away her passion for science and her deep faith that knowledge, research and the truth is a foundation for any free, stable, successful society," he recently said.  "And I applaud the firmness with which she stands in support of science and the truth."

Alas, Trudeau doesn't seem to understand his version of the truth is somewhat different than other versions in his native land.  This includes political opponents and, whether he cares to admit it or not, political proponents.

Is this a one-time outburst by the Governor General?  You would hope so.  But Trudeau has clearly opened the invisible door for her with respect to just about anything under the sun.

If this trend continues, there's one option (albeit a massive long shot) that frustrated Canadians could consider doing.

The Governor General traditionally serves for a five-year term.  But it's actually unfixed and done "at Her Majesty's pleasure."

Maybe the Queen would be pleased to become more informed about her controversial Canadian representative.  Just sayin'.

Troy Media columnist and political commentator Michael Taube was a speechwriter for former prime minister Stephen Harper.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


By now most political observers and pundits would agree that there are two major fronts in a campaign.  There's the general political war, which involves fundraising, polling, nominations and getting your message and vote out, and the culture war, which is about traditional values versus progressive values.

The tendency of most of these pundits is to emphasize the first war over the second.  For them, getting caught up in cultural crossfires can only hurt your campaign and are best avoided.

Like these other pundits, I made this same mistake when I predicted, a year ago, that the Trump campaign was toast after he was forced to apologize for comments where he all but endorsed sexually harassing women in the infamous "grab her by the p***y" tape.

Now at the time I thought myself more savvy than the old schoolers who had written Trump off months ago.  I acknowledged the existence of the culture war and Trump's willingness to fight that war when others wouldn't.  I even knew that there were many men  and women who agreed with his comments, as disgusting as they were.

But I underestimated how important it was to these people that Trump was actually fighting, even if he was losing at that point.  Even if he apologized and walked back his comments the one time, all the other times that he didn't gave him a credibility amongst cultural warriors that would endure, and has endured despite an absolutely brutal first year as President.

Now, the people running Patrick Brown, Jason Kenney and Andrew Scheer's campaigns watch the same political developments worldwide as I do.  The editorial boards at the Star and the Globe and the Post count the same number of lies that pass Trump's lips as I do.  And the Liberals continue to to decry Trump's attempts to divide as they practice their own version of the culture war, from soaking the rich over tax loopholes to having Trudeau dress up as Superman for Halloween.

Everyone, even people in consensus-building Canada knows this cultural war is being fought.  It's just that the Conservatives either don't or won't fight it.

So on a given day you will find in your inbox a breathless missive from the Conservatives federally or from your local provincial affiliate decrying tax hikes, thumping their chests about how much money they raised this quarter or how many members they've signed up, or broadcasting favourable polling results.

You're not going to find any emails from them addressing questions raised by their progressive opponents over Patrick Brown's voting record as an MP, Jason Kenney's comments on gay-straight alliances or Andrew Scheer's decision to choose Hamish Marshall as his campaign manager.

And it's not because they forgot or the issue hasn't crossed their minds, either.  They know full well that these are problems and big ones at that.  They just really, really don't want to talk about them because they have no interest in fighting the culture war.  Why?  Because they know they'll get pummelled.

If this seems strange to you, consider that ten years ago the Conservatives had no interest in fighting the battle for Canada's minority communities.  The pat answer was, "They don't vote for us," and that was all there was to it.  You can still find plenty of Conservatives who still don't see a need to set foot in certain parts of their ridings, and it's only because Kenney himself, or Rob Ford, or Stephen Harper showed them it was possible that they're willing to consider doing it.  (I can only imagine what it must have been like to float the idea of a female Conservative, or a Conservative on the LGBTQ spectrum in days of yore, and the ongoing battles that still take place on those fronts.)

But while a Canadian Conservative in 2017 may win the minority vote, LGBTQ vote, Indigenous vote or votes from women, they are batting zero when it comes to the culture war.  Wile E. Coyote has a better track record when it comes to catching the Road Runner than Canadian Conservatives do when it comes to winning the culture war.

Why did John Tory lose over faith based schools in 2007?  Culture war.

Why did a blog post about gay people burning in a lake of fire destroy the Wild Rose in 2012?  Culture war.

Even by 2015, Stephen Harper himself was barely further along on the culture war learning curve than he was when photographed wearing the infamous leather vest and cowboy hat at the Calgary Stampede.  Sure, he played the piano with a cover band and tried getting his picture taken with Nickelback and Wayne Gretzky, but one wayward line about "old stock Canadians" torpedoed all of that, to say nothing of the party's stance on the niqab, on the Barbaric Cultural Practices Hotline, and on Syrian refugees.

And while Conservatives are busy getting trounced on the culture war, the Liberals have been winning so much that it's a wonder that they don't get tired of winning.

We need look no farther than Governor General Julie Payette's recent pronouncements on religion and science to show how far the Liberals have moved the line down the field as far as cultural issues are concerned.  Robyn Urback's pronouncement that the GG is supposed to be neutral misses the point.  As far as Canadians are concerned, these statements ARE neutral.  Religion is a fantasy, more women should be in politics because it's the current year, and "debates" on abortion, climate change and immigration are settled.  These are no longer controversial opinions because no arguments refuting them are offered and taken seriously by the Conservative brain trust or the membership.

And so complete is the Liberal victory on the culture war battlefield that Conservative surrender has become baked into Canadian culture at large.

Written by Josh Lieblein

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.