Canada's next Governor General is, former astronaut, Julie Payette - Polidicks

[IMG]https://i.cbc.ca/1.4201920.1499889359!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_620/canada-politics.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE]Former astronaut Julie Payette will be the Queen's new representative in Canada, CBC News has confirmed. The 53-year-old Montrealer, who speaks six languages, will be named the 29th governor general, a position that comes with a $290,660 annual salary and an official residence at Rideau Hall. ... A computer engineer with a commercial pilot licence, Payette was picked from among 5,330 applicants in 1992 to be one of four new astronauts with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). She participated in two space flights to the International Space Station and served as the CSA's chief astronaut between 2000 and 2007.[/QUOTE] Source: [URL="http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/governor-general-canada-julie-payette-1.4201614"]http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/governor-general-canada-julie-payette-1.4201614[/URL]

I like the idea of people in positions of power & influence viewing Earth from space.

[QUOTE=Daniel Smith;52463603]I like the idea of people in positions of power & influence viewing Earth from space.[/QUOTE] I thought that the rank of the Governor General is a leftover from colonial times and doesn't hold any true power?

[QUOTE=Gorgus;52463612]I thought that the rank of the Governor General is a leftover from colonial times and doesn't hold any true power?[/QUOTE] They are able to dissolve parliament and call an election. Here in BC the Lieutenant Governor recently dispelled the head of the BC Liberal (Conservative in everything but name) party as Premier and gave the position to the NDP leader. Because the Liberals no longer had the confidence of the house.

[QUOTE=Cakebatyr;52463651]They are able to dissplve parliament and call an election. Here in BC the Lieutenant Governor recently dispelled the head of the BC Liberal (Conservative in everything but name) party as Premier and gave the position to the NDP leader. Because the Liberals no longer had the confidence of the house.[/QUOTE] Those are reserve powers that Governors and Governors-General in any Commonwealth country are expected to use in providing for a functional government. It doesn't necessarily mean that they have any power or influence; they can't dispose of Premiers or Prime Ministers on a whim without sealing their own fate, nor can they just call new elections whenever they like. I won't be surprised if Canada has a renewed focus on space as a result of Payette's appointment, but there's certainly going to be nothing substantial about it unless the Prime Minister agrees.

The Governor-General's position is largely symbolic and more cultural than an effective policy force, but the GG does fulfill an incredibly important role: serving as the Queen's representative in Canada when Her Majesty is not on Canadian soil, which is basically all the time. This authority only really matters when the government changes or when a vote of no-confidence passes the House of Commons and the leader of the opposition petitions the Governor-General to dissolve the government and call an election. The Queen, and her proxy the Governor-General, [I]technically[/I] has the power to dissolve the government at whim, but if the Governor-General were to dissolve parliament out of turn, and it was not as a last-resort safety brake on a tyrannical government or some other justifiable extreme situation, a constitutional crisis that ejected the monarchy from power would almost certainly result. In short, the GG's role is largely a mechanical artifact of Westministerian parliament -- in theory the GG is superior to the Prime Minister, but in practice the GG acts on the request of the Prime Minister and rarely the leader of the opposition if the Prime Minister has lost the confidence of the House. Provincial GGs are much like the federal position within their own provincial parliamentary systems.

Didn't one of our Governor-Generals try to dissolve parliament (or refuse to dissolve) on their own a few decades back and we were like 'lol fuck no'? Or am I thinking of another commonwealth country?

[QUOTE=Tuskin;52465287]Didn't one of our Governor-Generals try to dissolve parliament (or refuse to dissolve) on their own a few decades back and we were like 'lol fuck no'? Or am I thinking of another commonwealth country?[/QUOTE] The King-Byng Thing. The PM wanted an election, the GG said no. The PM resigned, allowed another party to form government because they'd won more seats in the election but not a majority, and then immediately teamed up with the 3rd party to topple the government on a confidence motion and won a majority in the subsequent election. Since then the GG has never said no to the PM.