Transcript: John Fraser

An interview with the Canadian journalist, author and academic

We are at a pivotal moment in Canada, as we reflect on our past and try to forge a more unified future in the face of tensions with the United States. My guest on the program says now is a good time to reexamine our key institutions. This week, he has published an entertaining new book about the office of Governor General, just as speculation abounds that we may be about to get a new one.

John Fraser is a veteran Canadian journalist, an author, and an academic. He is a former Master of Massey College, and the current executive chair of the National NewsMedia Council of Canada. His latest book is The Governors General: An Intimate History of Canada’s Highest Office.

This is an edited transcript for paid subscribers. You can listen to the interview here.

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TH: It’s so nice to have you on this show. We’re going to be talking about your new book, The Governors General: An Intimate History of Canada’s Highest Office. I have to say, it was a delight to read — part memoir, part history lesson, part meditation on the role, part polemic on Canadian identity. It was really enjoyable. It is coming out at a really interesting time right now. There are competing tensions on the national stage. On the one hand, we have these ongoing tensions over Indigenous land issues, reconciliation, legacies of colonialism. On the other hand, a desire to reestablish a patriotism, to forge a nationalism in the face of threats from the United States. Let’s talk — before we get into the details of the book — about the climate that we Canadians are experiencing at this moment.

JF: I will say there’s probably not been a more auspicious time to write a book about governor generals than the present moment, because it is not a subject that exercises much room in most Canadians’ minds. We’re not that good on civics. Our schools aren’t that good on it. But thanks to everything that’s been happening — I won’t just say thanks to Donald Trump, although he’s a major contributor. But because our sense of ourself as a country and our history seems under threat, it means we have to look at it. That means it’s a great time to take a look at things. So, if I had tried to go to a publisher two, three years ago and say, “How would you like a great book on Canada’s governor generals?” they wouldn’t have gotten a foot in the door. Now they’re intrigued and it seems to be getting a lot of interest in lots of places, which is great.

TH: It’s a very entertaining read. I will say for our listeners, there are so many great tidbits here. This audience for this podcast is global. I think it would be helpful if we gave a quick primer on the Westminster-style parliamentary democracy and the role of the governor general, which as you say, is “the oldest continuous office in the Canadian story.”

JF: I’ll do that and I’ll precede it with [talking] about another podcast. One of my favourite ones is Pod Save America, which I listen to. They were in Australia, and one of my favourite announcers started dumping on the whole idea of governor generals. He said, “Why have you crazy Australians got a nanny at the head of your government? You should be grown up.” I listened to him and I thought, what country does he think he’s coming from? He’s from a country that keeps reelecting King George III every four years, and they’re now in such trouble because they have such a difficult constitution to change. Our Westminster system, which evolved from an autocratic kingship to a monarchy that is completely subservient to the people’s demands, has been a natural evolution. Ironically, it’s looking pretty good next to the republican system we have south of the border.

What happened was in the 18th and 19th century, the Americans had their revolution, they wrote their constitution. Countries like Canada and Australia, which were colonies of Britain, evolved a system that was modelled on the British parliamentary system. It was a constant revolution, if you want, in which power is increasingly taken by the representatives of people. The representative of the monarch, the old governors that used to have the same power that a sovereign had in England, they also got reduced in power and they became ceremonial leaders. The expectation was that they would be the dignified part of the Constitution. The House of Commons, the elected House of Commons, and the upper legislature, which was appointed, in Canada’s case the Senate, was the administrative arm. That seems to be working okay. It looks, at the moment, a lot better than the alternatives.

I can quote Stephen Harper, a former prime minister of Canada. I wrote another book, which he read. He told me he was typical, he thought, of most Canadians. He really never thought of the Crown, of the sovereign or governor generals, until he had high office. He had to become prime minister before he thought about it. He said many realized it was quite useful. But now this is the interesting thing. He said, “But far more than that, what really scared me is thinking of all the alternatives.” That’s an interesting thought, too. It’s one of the ironies of being a Canadian that there are a lot of Canadians that do not think we need a foreign leader or a foreign king to be head of our government. But you just have to say, “Okay, what then? How do you want to do it? And how do you want to do it in a country that you have to get 10 legislatures to all agree?” You can’t get them to agree even on tariffs between each other. So, there’s that situation. Because of this, generally the situation, people are maybe looking at their institutions a little more closely. Maybe.

TH: You talk about in the book that Canadian citizens have held the office of the Governor General — we’ll just call that GG to be short going forward — since 1952. Before that, it was British aristocrats. You have met every single Canadian-born GG.

JF: That defines why I wanted to do just the Canadians. I gave a little tribute at the beginning to some of the Brit grandees that had the office. But starting as a schoolboy, I’ve met them all. And I’m 82. So I may be among the last living people in Canada that can say that. Within 10 years, I will. It started as a schoolboy with Mr. Massey, who was the first one, and continues right up to now with Mary Simon. Then there will be — it may be that Mr. Carney’s [gets] a governor general that I don’t know, but I’ll certainly get to know him or her before long, I promise.

TH: The thought is that perhaps there will be a new GG coming at some point soon?

JF: I believe very soon. The prime minister in our system — it is the sovereign who officially appoints the governor general, but in reality, it is on the recommendation of the prime minister of Canada or Australia or New Zealand. Mr. Carney visited King Charles about 10 days ago, two weeks ago. I don’t know who it is and I don’t know what they were talking about, but I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. Also the current occupant, Mary Simon, her husband gave an interview saying that they’re already looking for an apartment. So, it looks likely.

TH: It could be an even more timely book. I do want to start with Vincent Massey. Not only was Vincent Massey the first Canadian-born governor general, but he also conceived of Massey College, where you served as Master from 1995 to 2014. I have a connection to Massey as well; I wrote the 2024 Massey Essay on the state of the media. Huge respect for that institution. As you say, you met Massey when you were a schoolboy at Upper Canada College. Can you tell us that story?

JF: It’s a long time ago. So, I’m a schoolboy of about 15, and Upper Canada sometimes used to describe itself as the Eton of Canada. That just makes me cringe. But anyway, it was the school I was at. My parents sent me there. The upper school was declared a structural hazard while I was there, and the whole place had to be torn down. We were in portable classrooms, and then they built it back up. Mr. Massey in the early 1960s decided he wanted a memorial to his late wife. So, it was going to be a small chapel built adjacent to the new building and looking into the quadrangle courtyard. While it was being built, there were two ways into this room. There was one from the quadrangle outside and one from inside in the new staircase.

It turned out for bad boys like me, it was a great place to go and have a smoke at recess and at lunch. You could have a guard on either door. You could have a guard on the door into the staircase or a guard on the door to the quadrangle. If there was trouble coming, you just knock and everyone could pile out the other door. Then, the day that all the chapel furniture — the altar and the pews and all that stuff — was being delivered, we knew that our smoking was over. The workers had gone, and so the cigarette stubs were stopping.

We were going in for a final smoke, and the nightmare happened. There was a simultaneous knock on both doors. Coming from the quadrangle was the most sadistic master in the school — there was still corporal punishment in those days, they caned boys or strapped them on the hand. But coming down the staircase was the principal of the school with the Governor General. Boys aren’t stupid. They knew an exit from one door was a caning, a corporal punishment, and an exit from the other door was expulsion. So, they weren’t stupid. They all ran into the arms of this monster French master — except me.

I was the last in the lineup going out that door, and I couldn’t think of anything else to do, but I got down on my knees in one of the new prayer chairs. I prayed like I’ve never prayed before, like a 15-year-old rarely does. I just kept my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see anything that was happening. I heard a bit of mumbling. I think the master who I was terrified of stuck his head through the door because I heard Dr. Sowby, the principal, say, “Shearer, what are you doing here?” He said, “Sorry, sir, just checking.” I heard some mumbling behind me and then nothing. It was only about two or three minutes and the bell went.

I finally looked around and there was no one in the room. I thought, “My God, there’s a God. It’s my God.” I went up to Mr. Bailey’s math class and one by one, my poor buddies returned and they’d all suffered. I didn’t feel guilty in the least. Schoolboys — guilt is a hard thing to find. Anyway, halfway through the class, the phone went and Mr. Bailey answered at the class phone and he looked right at me. He said, “Yes, sir, he’s here. I’ll send him right down.” He turned to me, he said, “Fraser, the principal wants to see you in his office right now.”

I thought, “Oh Lord, someone snitched.” I went down with heavy feet and got into the secretary’s office and she said, “Oh, they’re waiting for you.” I walked in and there was Dr. Sowby and the Governor General. Dr. Sowby said, “Fraser, His Excellency was very pleased to see a boy at prayer. I thought you’d be very pleased.” I said, “I’m very honoured, sir.” So, that was my first meeting with the Governor General. Then I ended up running the college that he founded. So, he’s been big in my life. I thought about him a lot.

It was weird in some ways because he was not a particularly pleasant person. I think he was more English than the English. He was a snob. There were some hints of antisemitism, typical of that sort of class, of that era. But he was a dreamer too. He dreamed up Hart House on the U of T campus. His family dreamed up what was called the Department of Household Economics, which sounds so condescending, but it was for women. The building is still there at the corner of Queen’s Park and Bloor Street. But it was before Hart House and they wanted to do something. The sexes were divided in those days at universities. He dreamed up Massey College. He dreamed up our arts councils, all sorts of things. Yet I don’t think I’d ever have wanted to go on a canoe trip with him, to tell you the honest truth. [Laughs]

TH: I thought that was a really good place to start with the book because we are at this moment where it’s hard for us to come to terms with our history, but all of our historical figures have these different parts of them that we have to reconcile. Another figure I want to talk about is Georges Vanier. You were a lifelong friend of his wife. You knew his son Jean Vanier, who founded L’Arche, a Catholic community for people with disabilities. You spearheaded Jean Vanier’s 1998 Massey Lecture, Becoming Human. We’ll talk about Jean in a moment, but I want to first talk about Pauline Vanier. One of the real challenges that you’ve returned to in this book is that of “spousal alienation” in the role of the GG. She pioneered a more active and involved spousal role — by necessity because her husband was unwell — but it really set the stage for a more involved spouse. Tell us about her.

JF: She was used to an honorific secondary position. Her husband had been an aide-de-camp to the notorious Lord Byng of the Byng/Mackenzie King dispute. But she knew what to do. She was a grande dame of the old school. She had a husband who had an artificial leg and who got exhausted easily. So, she knew she basically had to fill in. She was from an older Canada. She was Franco-Irish. Her name was Pauline Archer. Her mum was francophone and her father was not.

If I could summon them up for you … By the time I got to know them, or saw them, [Georges Vanier] doted on her. He just depended on her. And she had strong shoulders. She was a lovely, warm person. She would give you bear hugs. She was an amazing person. I got to know her really well, for a variety of reasons.

General Vanier died and she moved off to France because she wanted to support Jean Vanier at the principal L’Arche movement. And Jean Vanier was this huge figure in my life. I was on the board of the Daybreak community in Toronto, which was this L’Arche community for handicapped adults. It was Jean Vanier that taught us that if you want to see the measure of your soul, take a look into the eyes of a handicapped person and see what gets reflected back to you — and you can see a bit about yourself. [He] was a huge personality.

Then after he died, these stories started coming out. Basically, he was such a charismatic leader that he had all sorts of people flocking to him, and he took advantage of that. I can’t make it nicer. It was with the young and early middle-aged women who came as assistants to the L’Arche communities. It wasn’t — you know, I’m going to get in trouble, again, because I try to mediate. What he did wasn’t, on one level, so horrible. On another, it’s a guy saying that. I’ve got three daughters and a wife. I’ve been through this whole thing with them. And they say, “Dad, you can’t make that better by saying things like …” I’ll just say it — that he never penetrated them. But he did manipulate them and he did want them for personal comfort. So, it’s just there. L’Arche is still going. It didn’t come out until after he died.

I can’t resolve it, except that we are, all of us, made of dark and light. Some of us hopefully can control the dark. But he succumbed to convincing himself that somehow he had rights. And yet, I never met a humbler person.

It is still very hard for me to reconcile all this. But I had come to accept what the women I admire most in my life, in my family, got me to understand: There is this dynamic in the relationship between men and women, particularly coming out of an older dispensation. Men who are powerful speakers and charismatic can still do bad things.

TH: I appreciate you being willing to talk about it. It is a difficult thing to unpack.

JF: I wrote about it in the book because it is part of the story. One of the things, Tara, that I wanted to do in the book was there is this institution, the Governor General, the representative of the sovereign. It doesn’t mean that much to most Canadians because it hasn’t intruded badly in their lives. Maybe occasionally when there’s a prorogation and they suddenly go, “How does that person get to say no or yes?”

But to me, it’s a spotlight on all different kinds of people stuck in an interesting position. Their lives become focused on how they deal with people, what their backgrounds were, how their backgrounds helped them. And it is a very interesting focus on what we are as a country. On what these amazing individuals — some of them, like all of us, flawed in certain ways. But take that job on and every flaw will be exposed, and also every asset. You can have examples of people who aren’t maybe particularly nice, but they’re brilliant governors general. And people who are good people and kind of useless with people and prime ministers haven’t thought about it when they make appointments.

It’s interesting. It’s different than hereditary monarchs, although that’s arbitrary too. But our system has a dignified end of the Constitution, so that if the government screws up, we still have something kind of noble at the top. Even if the person isn’t noble, there is a nobility to the concept of how we govern ourselves. At least that’s my maybe overly romantic view of it.

TH: You had a lot of praise for Adrienne Clarkson — in particular for her vision for the country.

JF: She was the best. She and Georges Vanier, for different reasons, were the best. It’s her curious alchemy. You don’t want to be on the bad side of Adrienne Clarkson because she’s a very articulate, excellent communicator, as I am sure you know. But she knew what to do in that job. She had a sense of the country. She came as an immigrant — she was just a baby when she came. But she grew up in a kind of singularity. I don’t think there were that many racially Chinese people in Ottawa when she first grew up there. She had a sense of identity with the capital city, with the friends that were there, and the people there. She really knew what she loved about Canada. She just had an innate sense, and ability, to register it. Like anyone, she wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But no one could [better] convey in words and in some of her actions what it was to be proud of Canada.

We don’t do pride that well. I mean, we have it. Just watch a hockey game in certain circumstances — or try and take away our health system. But we’re best known for our apologizing, things like that. And our cold winters. But to find someone that could articulate what it was to be Canadian, that’s a hard thing to find. And she managed it. I put in the whole of her speech that she made when the Unknown Soldier was brought back from Europe. It’s a very moving account in which she draws [on] all these different strains of what it is to be Canadian: Indigenous, Francophone, Anglophone, Ukrainian, whatever. She just found a way to do it. That’s part of her skill as a communicator, and she put that to work.

She also was supported by a guy who didn’t mind doing the Prince Philip job, the two steps behind. [John Ralston Saul] had a very strong sense of his own worth and value, just as Mammie Vanier did. So, those two are the real successes of that office, post-the colonial period.

TH: There’s a quote you add in the book from podcaster J.J. McCullough. I’ll just read it because it’s funny. He said, “As a practical matter, the only real purpose of the position is to bring a bit of Victorian whimsy to the dreary lives of politicians in Canada’s capitol and provide an object of obsession for effete royalist nerds to ring their wrists over.”

JF: [Laughs] Royalist nerd, here I am.

TH: In a sentence, what would be the best counter argument to that for the younger generation?