Mary Simon made history when she was appointed Canada's governor general. Here's how she's reshaping her role

OTTAWA—It’s not every day an Inuk leader and former advocate is seated next to the head of the Catholic Church. But on a hot July afternoon in 2022, wearing a black dress and red overcoat embroidered with Inuk designs, with her signature purple hair peeking out beneath the grey, is exactly where — Canada’s 30th governor general — found herself. In a tiny packed room in Quebec City, Simon looked a stark contrast to Pope Francis, dressed head to toe in his white robes, zucchetto and crosses.

The pope was on the to apologize for the church’s role in the Indian residential schools system. As Simon — an Indian Day School survivor — delivered her speech, she spoke proudly in English, French and her mother tongue, Inuktitut. “As you indicated, Your Holiness, this is an important step towards further dialogue and actions that will lead to real reconciliation.



Indeed, we look forward to hearing more of the church’s future actions to continue this essential work,” she said. Among the world’s media tuning in was Niigaan Sinclair, an Anishinaabe writer and associate professor at the University of Manitoba. Sinclair listened to Simon’s words and the directive he said she was giving the Pope.

“That’s what Indigenous aunties do all the time,” Sinclair said. “They will publicly and directively tell you to, you know, clean up your behaviour. Be smart.

Please act better.” From Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik, in northern Quebec, Simon has spent over 40 years championing Inuit rights and advocating for . The former head of multiple Inuit organizations, she has negotiated historic land claims, served as the first Inuk ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs and to Denmark, represented Inuit and women in Canada’s constitutional conferences and participated in major public inquiries, including the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and as a witness for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Now more than halfway through her five-year term as Canada’s first Indigenous governor general, Simon is continuing her diplomatic work by connecting two worlds together at a time when reconciliation in this country is at a turning point. “I’ve always been told I was a bridge builder,” Simon, 77, said in an exclusive interview last month at Rideau Hall, her official residence in Ottawa. “It’s to bridge the different cultures and the different peoples that live in Canada to work towards a future where we are respectful of each other.

” The Star's Saba Eitizaz speaks with Governor General Mary Simon in this exclusive interview about reconciliation, respect, and the fight against online hate. Simon was asked to serve as governor general in 2021 during what was proving to be a tumultuous time. That January, as COVID raged, then- after a government report found a toxic work environment.

Then in May, 215 potential unmarked graves of children who had died at Kamloops Indian Residential School had been found, prompting many Canadians to call for the justice Indigenous people had long been shouting for. Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami — the national organization advocating for Inuit rights in Canada — was one of the few people who knew Simon had wanted the role of governor general and was being asked to take it on. He said he knew “she was going to take the right approach to this particular role, considering all of the political conversations around it at the time, especially in the moment that we’re in.

” But Obed knew there would also be negativity associated with the role because of “systemic racism and disrespect towards gender.” “Canada is new to this path of wanting somebody like Mary Simon to act in an official capacity for Canada.” Simon’s appointment was a historic moment for many Indigenous people who have had complicated relationships with the Crown.

“When I was asked,” Simon said, “I thought about the fact that a lot of Indigenous people are probably going to feel that this is a colonial system and why would someone like me take on such a role. “I just always feel that you can be effective in different forms, in different ways,” she said, adding, “I’m not just a governor general for Indigenous people, it’s for all Canadians.” But something she was not entirely prepared for was the onslaught of online hate she would receive.

In February 2023, Simon’s office on all its social media platforms because of an “increase in abusive, misogynistic and racist engagement” on the platforms. A few weeks later, Simon’s account with some of the hateful messages she had received, calling her slurs as an Indigenous person and as a woman. Simon said she had built a “thick skin over time” from her career in politics, but that “nobody deserves those kind of comments, especially in a public forum.

” “I never really experienced it until that moment.” Simon has also received criticism for not being fluent in French, despite being bilingual in English and Inuktitut. In her investiture speech, Simon stated her commitment to learning French and has consistently spoken in all three languages in her official speeches.

But the criticism has continued three years later, including after Simon travelled to Quebec this September. Following the visit, Simon saying she understands “the critical relationship among identity, culture and language. That is why speaking my mother tongue, Inuktitut, has been an integral part of who I am.

“That is why I am so committed to the revitalization and preservation of all Indigenous languages,” she said, also reiterating her commitment to learning French. Sinclair said Simon’s position on the issue is “the most powerful moment of integrity that she could have ever done.” “It is not the job of Indigenous Peoples to learn colonial languages, period,” he said.

“And the fact that Mary Simon stood up for all of us by saying that, yes, I recognize and I respect those languages, so, I mean, I will learn them, but that’s not the only languages that matter in this country. “What she was doing in that moment wasn’t about her, it was about all of us.” Obed called the criticism “incredibly ironic,” given all of her advocacy work, and the fact that at the time she was raised in northern Quebec, the province denied her a French education as an Indigenous person, calling it a federal responsibility.

Gov. Gen. Mary Simon talks with Pope Francis and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after arriving at the Citadelle in Quebec City during the papal visit across Canada ion July 27, 2022.

Simon began her career as a journalist for CBC Northern Service, before moving on to political work at the Northern Quebec Inuit Association (now Makivik Corp.). She was directly responsible for negotiating and implementing the 1975 James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, one of the first modern land treaties signed between Indigenous people and the Canadian government.

She would do more work on land claims including as a senior negotiator of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami. During the 1980s, she was involved in the constitutional conferences to entrench Aboriginal rights in Canada’s newly patriated constitution, including a meeting in 1984 where she famously went head to head with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau over an equality clause for Indigenous women. Diplomatic appointments followed, but Simon remained a strong advocate within Canada for Inuit rights.

She returned in 2006 to Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami as president and began working more closely with Obed, who said she has “always been an incredible mentor to me.” Obed, who has known Simon since his father worked with her in the 1970s and his own early career under Simon’s husband Whit Fraser, said all the roles she has played throughout her career have led her to becoming governor general. “She’s always trying to find that clear path in partnership to move forward, even though Canada, in much of her time as a leader, has not been as interested as she is.

” One of Simon’s fondest memories during her term so far was at Miyo-Wiciwitowin Day in Regina in 2022. In a stadium filled with 16,000 students along with business leaders and members of the public, Simon spoke directly to the gathered youth, about the future, reconciliation in action, and the importance of education. “It was just the moment where you thought, ‘Yes, this is our future right here,’ ” she said.

Then Chief of the Cowessess First Nation Cadmus Delorme, who hosted the event, said Simon spent an hour after her speech mingling and speaking with Elders, students and guests. “Normally a governor general doesn’t interact too much with the audience, just kind of has to stay within the protocol,” he said. “It was something I’ll never forget.

” Delorme had visited Simon at her official residence at Rideau Hall a few months before the event. It was the first time the young chief was meeting Simon and he said the two laughed and spoke about their roles as Indigenous people with the Crown. “In her eyes, I could just tell she was a little more excited, just because another Indigenous person was visiting her in a house that normally you never see Indigenous people in.

So we just kind of both took in that moment as a very happy moment for both of us.” In May 2023, leading up to King Charles III’s coronation in England, Simon arranged a historic face-to-face meeting between the King and Canada’s national Indigenous organizations, including Obed, former Métis National Council president Cassidy Caron and former Assembly of First Nations National Chief RoseAnne Archibald. Obed said the meeting would likely have never happened if Simon had not been governor general.

“I would find it surprising if another governor general who wasn’t as focused on reconciliation, and didn’t quite understand the gravity of the official relationship between the Crown and Indigenous peoples, would have thought that it would be the best use of her time or the King’s time to have that meeting in that moment,” he said. For Obed, Simon is “what a governor general should be in the world.” “I’m just so proud that she is in the role she’s in and I also think it’s right for Canada.

She is an incredible leader and brilliant person and she leads with her heart and she’s respectful to everyone,” he said. During her investiture speech, Simon described herself as living in “two worlds — the Inuit world and the non-Inuit southern world,” with each’s core values shaping her throughout her life. Reconciliation is “a way of life,” she told the Star.

“To me, that’s an important part of the way Canada should keep moving is to find ways to reconcile the differences that we have and doing it in a respectful way and in a way that allows each of us to really be who we are.” Simon is part of a generation of Indigenous leaders who have spent their careers paving a new path for those after them. Sinclair said the “firsts” will always have to navigate a role differently than those who come after them.

“You cannot just come in and bull in a china shop kind of thing and blow up everything,” he said. “What you have to do is you have to navigate and work within the parameters that you have so that other people can get in the room. “My daughter’s generation will have that ability because of the work that two generations before them have done.

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