Adrienne Clarkson And The Erosion Of The Canadian State’s Legitimacy

The revelations that the long-retired Governor General Adrienne Clarkson has been charging the public treasury in personal expense claims for “continuing to serve” Canada to the tune of $1.1 million in the years since her retirement in 2005 have shone light on wastefulness in the dark recesses of the Canadian state. Her extravagant personal expense claims have been above and beyond her annual tax-free annuity of $143,816. 

According to information published by the National Post on November 9th 2018, Ms. Clarkson has been billing the public purse in excess of $200,000 annually in recent years in personal expense claims.

This flagrant waste of the public funds is embedded in an arrangement made in 1979 that entitles retired Governors General to continue billing the public treasury ad infinitum for personal expenses related to their so-called “ongoing service” many years after their official duties have ended, with no accountability to the Canadian public and for activities they undertake at their personal pleasure. We now understand that such personal expense claims need not be publicly recorded in the governmental expenditures if they do not reach $100,000 annually.

A Globe and Mail editorial published on October 31st, 2018 stated the matter clearly:

“Ex-governors-general are entitled to bill the government for office expenses ad infinitum, with no public disclosure of what the money is buying.….

Adrienne Clarkson, for instance, charged the taxpayer $114,803 for personal expenses in her most recent annual filing. It marked the ninth time she has exceeded the six-figure threshold since leaving Rideau Hall in 2005.”

The fact that Ms. Clarkson significantly exceeded this sum in her yearly personal expense claims has brought this unsavoury practice of squandering public funds by the former Governor General, who retired more than two decades ago and has absolutely no official duties, to public attention.

As commentator Rex Murphy stated in his insightful observation published by the National Post on November 9th, 2018:

“What kind of job is it, that has no duties, but for which there is an [annual] expense budget of one-fifth of a million dollars? An absolutely ideal one maybe. But in the ordinary run of things, volunteer activity, public service, “giving back” — call it what you will — does not summon such compensatory sums from the public vaults. It rather confuses the idea of “making a contribution” with receiving one.”

Clarkson’s self-serving commentary published in the Globe and Mail on November 2nd, 2018 clearly shows she has no understanding that Canada is a political democracy where there has to be accountability and prior authorization for any expenditures billed to the public purse. The fact that Clarkson blandly states in her commentary – without a tinge of conscience – that she is continuing “to serve Canada” and is therefore entitled to lavish spending at the expense of Canadian taxpayers should be disturbing to anyone who loves Canada.

Across the vast span of history are strewn the ashes of regimes whose narcissistic elite lost touch with their people, forgot their duties, and became preoccupied with lavish living. Marie Antoinette of France and Tsarina Alexandra of Russia both through their lavish lifestyles helped bring about the brutal revolutions that swept off the face of history the corrupt regimes that tolerated their extravagant lifestyles.

Similarly, though at a much lower level, Adrienne Clarkson’s lavish personal expenditure charged to the public purse more than two decades after the end of her term is a threat to the social and political order in Canada, since it tends to diminish the legitimacy of the political and social system governing life in Canada.

Retired Governors General are entitled to receive a pension consistent with the length of their tenure like all other citizens – that is, 2% of their highest salary multiplied by the years of their being in office. No further personal expense claims against the public purse should be authorized or paid for. To allow expenditures of the Adrienne Clarkson kind by a long retired former Governor General at taxpayer expense is to delegitimize the political order that funds it.

Ms. Clarkson is living with the delusion that she is a lifelong member of the royalty – or the Viceroy of Canada for life – and therefore accountable to no one. Her tenure as Governor General proved a disservice to Canada in light of her extravagant expenditures, such as an uncalled for and totally wasteful circumpolar junket purportedly to promote Canadian culture whereby she took along a large number of her associates, 59 in all, and cost the people of Canada $5.3 million. She was planning another such wasteful circumpolar junket but was forced to abandon her plans following a massive public outcry.

Ms. Clarkson’s abuse of public trust via her extravagant, publicly-funded personal expenditures since retirement has profoundly tarnished the Office of Governor General and could constitute sufficient justification for abolishing all the residual and undemocratic institutions still remaining from Canada’s past history as a subservient colony, such as the position of the Governor General, those of provincial Lieutenant Governors, and the scandal-ridden, parasitic, unelected Senate.

The larger, institutional corruption lies in the enactment of the so-called Former Governors General Program, established by the Liberal government of Jean Chretien, that entitles all former Governors General to continue charging the Canadian public to the end of their lives for dubious voluntary “services” they claim to continue to perform.

As summarized by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation:

“The Program allows former governor generals to expense taxpayers for duties they perform in retirement and can cover hospitality costs, salaries for four staff members, office costs and travel expenses. The program also covers payments to a former governor general’s estate up to six months after their death.

Each former governor general can expense taxpayers up to $206,040 each year. The annual cost of the program could reach $1,030,200 with Canada’s five former governor generals.”

Repeal of this wasteful legislation would do much to restore public trust in the Canadian state. In accord with the Constitution, Canada should have only one Governor General at a time. The fact that half a dozen former Governors General could pretend to perform the functions of the Governor General is deeply troubling.