PRIME Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday announced that former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour will be the next Governor General of Canada.
She will be Canada’s 31st Governor General since Confederation and the first Governor General of Canada appointed by King Charles III.
Arbour is a world-renowned legal scholar, judge, and leader in human rights and justice. With a career of service spanning more than five decades, she has held nearly every office a Canadian jurist can hold, and several that no Canadian had held before, Carney said.
She was appointed as a judge to the Supreme Court of Ontario, the Court of Appeal for Ontario, and the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1996, she was appointed by the United Nations (UN) as Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. In these roles, she led efforts that resulted in the first conviction for genocide since the Genocide Convention and the first indictment for war crimes of a sitting head of state.
Arbour was appointed High Commissioner for Human Rights by the UN Secretary-General in 2004 and later served as UN Special Representative for International Migration from 2017 to 2018. More recently, Arbour delivered the Independent External Comprehensive Review on misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces, which became a catalyst for unprecedented culture change and reform.
Arbour is a Companion of the Order of Canada, Canada’s highest civilian honour, and a Grande officière de l’Ordre national du Québec. She has received nearly 100 honours and awards, including 42 honorary doctorates from universities around the world. Arbour’s experience, judgement, moral clarity, and conviction will serve Canada exceedingly well, Carney said.
Carney expressed his deepest thanks to Mary Simon for her exemplary tenure as Governor General and for her lifetime of advocacy for Inuit rights, Indigenous self-determination, and the preservation of Indigenous language, culture, and identity. Her legacy will endure not only in her service, but in the way she served – with an unshakable belief in Canada, Carney said.
