Good morning, everyone.
We are gathering on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.
This land acknowledgement bears witness to the shared history of the people of this country. May we continue on the path of truth and reconciliation together, guided not only by our words, but also by our actions.
It is appropriate to be at the National Gallery of Canada this morning.
A few blocks from here, at the Clarendon Hotel, 146 years ago, the first exhibition was held of the Canadian Academy of the Arts.
That academy was the dream of the then Governor General, the Marquess of Lorne, and his wife, Her Royal Highness Princess Louise. They believed that a young Confederation needed institutions through which it could see itself – and through which it could be seen by the world.
Three hundred and eighty-eight works hung in the Clarendon that evening. They would become the seeds of this Gallery, which today holds more than 17,000 works of Canadian, Indigenous, and global art.
Canada was built on the foundation of three peoples – Indigenous, French, and British.
Indigenous Peoples mapped this continent, sustained its lands and waters, and built trading networks from coast to coast to coast for thousands of years before any European arrival.
The French built a society shaped by river and forest, by partnership with Indigenous nations, and by a determination to flourish in a new world.
When the British came, that civilisation did not disappear. It suffered, but endured. And in time, it grew into the federation we know today.
That founding was imperfect. It excluded too many. It was built, in part, on the dispossession of, and broken promises to, Indigenous Peoples.
But that founding contained an insight that has carried us forward. That unity does not require uniformity. That our differences are a strength to be nurtured, not a risk to be managed.
That insight has been first sustained and then reinforced, generation after generation, by our institutions. Parliament. The courts. The Crown. The treaties. The Charter. The public service. A free press.
Institutions are how a country of our scale and diversity does not merely hold itself together, but thrives.
In a more dangerous, divided, and uncivil world, institutions matter more than ever.
A year ago, His Majesty King Charles III opened our Parliament with the Speech from the Throne – nearly 70 years after Canada’s Sovereign first opened Parliament.
The Crown is the continuous thread through our constitutional life. It is, as His Majesty himself said, “a symbol of Canada today, in all her richness and dynamism”.
The Governor General is the Crown’s representative in Canada, Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Armed Forces, and steward of our traditions of peace, order, and good government.
And, above all, the Governor General is the guardian of our constitutional order.
The most demanding part of that role is rarely seen. It is the duty to ensure that government in Canada is formed, sustained, and – when the time comes – dismissed in accordance with law and convention. It is a duty that calls for sound judgment, deep learning, and an unwavering commitment to the rule of law.
That is the office to which I have asked His Majesty to appoint a Canadian whose entire life has been dedicated to that very principle.
I am very pleased to announce that, on my recommendation, His Majesty has approved the appointment of the Honourable Louise Arbour as the 31st Governor General of Canada.
Born in Montréal, Louise Arbour studied at the Université de Montréal, was called to the Québec Bar in 1971, and to the Ontario Bar in 1977.
She built her early career as a scholar at Osgoode Hall and as a leading voice for civil liberties in this country.
In 1987, Louise Arbour was appointed to the Supreme Court of Ontario, as it was then known. In 1990, she was appointed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario. In 1999, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada.
One of Canada’s most demanding judicial careers, more than enough for one lifetime, would serve only as the foundation for what came next.
Because her most consequential work as a jurist was beyond the Canadian courtroom.
In 1996, Louise Arbour was appointed by the United Nations Security Council as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda – the first international criminal tribunals since Nuremberg.
She inherited two institutions that many believed could not succeed. She made them succeed.
Under her leadership, the tribunals secured the first conviction for genocide since the adoption of the Genocide Convention in 1948 – the Akayesu judgment, which also established for the first time that sexual violence can constitute a weapon of genocide and a crime against humanity.
And, in May 1999, in the middle of a war, she signed the indictment of a sitting head of state, Slobodan Milošević, for crimes against humanity and violations of the laws of war.
It had never been done before.
A new precedent for justice, free from fear or favour.
These were not technical achievements.
They are the foundation of the modern proposition that no person, however powerful, and no state, however protected, stands outside the reach of law.
That proposition is the foundation of Canadian citizenship.
We are a country whose civic identity is grounded in the universality of rights – that what is owed to one of us is owed to all of us, and that what is owed to a Canadian is owed, in our tradition, to every human being, whether or not they have the great fortune to live here.
In 2004, Louise Arbour left the Supreme Court of Canada to become the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
For four years, she gave voice to those whose dignity was denied – in places where the powerful preferred silence.
She did not flinch.
She has never confused being heard with being safe.
There is a third through-line in her career, less remarked upon but no less important.
Three times, Louise Arbour has been asked to look hard at an institution that had failed the people in its care, and to set out what would be needed to put it right.
In 1995, she chaired the inquiry into the Prison for Women in Kingston, a report that catalysed the modernisation of how Canada incarcerates women.
As High Commissioner, she pressed the United Nations human rights system itself to be worthy of the people it claimed to serve.
And, in 2022, she delivered her Independent External Comprehensive Review of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces – a report whose recommendations are now being implemented, and that will reshape Canadian military justice.
Her work matters in and of itself. It also tells us something about what Louise Arbour will bring to Rideau Hall.
The conviction that institutions are the load-bearing walls of a civil society – and that they remain trustworthy only as long as someone is willing to hold them accountable.
Louise Arbour has held nearly every office a Canadian jurist can hold, and several that no Canadian had held before.
She has been recognised with nearly 100 honours and awards, including 42 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada – our country’s highest civilian honour.
But the measure of her career is neither in the offices she has held nor the awards she has received. It is in the lives she has changed through her service: survivors of genocide who saw justice in their lifetimes, women in Canadian prisons whose conditions were improved because she said what no one else would say, and members of our Armed Forces who can serve today with greater dignity because of the report she wrote.
Millions of people have had their rights better protected because, somewhere, an institution that Louise Arbour helped build did its work, and millions more have benefited from the precedents and standards she established.
That is service in its truest sense – not service to a role, but to principles.
Across more than five decades, in every role she has held, the Honourable Louise Arbour has carried the same conviction.
That a free society depends on institutions being properly held to account.
That the law stands between power and the powerless.
That the dignity of every human person should not be a product of the accidents of geography, citizenship, or convenience.
And that Canada’s place in the world is to be a country that lives those propositions and helps others to live them as well.
That is a deeply Canadian conviction. It is older than our Charter and broader than our borders. It runs through our public life, from the Persons Case to the patriation of our Constitution, and from the building of Medicare to the building of the United Nations.
It is the conviction that a community is more than the sum of its members – that it is the institutions, the traditions, and the commitments through which we choose to live together.
This is what Louise Arbour has devoted her life to defending and defining, and it is what she will bring to the role she is about to assume.
Madame Arbour will succeed an exemplary Governor General.
Her Excellency the Right Honourable Mary Simon has been a steadfast representative of Canada and our institutions, at home and around the world.
As the first Indigenous person to serve in this role, she has carried forward a lifetime of advocacy for Inuit rights, for Indigenous self-determination, and for the preservation of Indigenous languages, cultures, and identities.
As she has often said, reconciliation is not a project with an end date, but a responsibility to be lived day after day – in how we listen, how we learn, and how we act.
Mary Simon championed literacy and education as foundations of self-determination.
She elevated national conversations on mental health, particularly in Northern and Indigenous communities, bringing visibility to challenges too often overlooked and dignity to those too often unheard.
Her legacy will endure not only in her service, but in how she served – with grace, resolve, and a belief in Canada’s greatness.
To Her Excellency Governor General Simon, to His Excellency Whit Fraser, and to your family – thank you for your extraordinary service to Canada.
At a time when much of the world is buffeted by crises and the worst are full of passionate intensity, Canada’s history, our institutions, and our enduring traditions matter more than ever.
We retain our convictions. We reinforce our institutions.
As Mary Simon has, Louise Arbour will represent the best of Canada to Canadians and the world.
A Canada that is a bastion of security, prosperity, and justice; a beacon to a world lost at sea.
A Canada that is clear-eyed about the challenges we face and steadfast in the values we uphold.
A Canada that is not just strong, but good.
A Canada that is not just prosperous, but fair.
A Canada that is not just for some, most of the time – but for all, all of the time.
Madame Arbour, on behalf of the Government of Canada, and on behalf of all Canadians, thank you for agreeing, once again, to serve our country.
It is my pleasure to introduce the 31st Governor General of Canada, the Honourable Louise Arbour.