Governor General Mary Simon (R) delivers the Throne Speech as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau looks on from the Senate of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario on November 23, 2021 ( POOL / AFP / Sean Kilpatrick)

Posts falsely claim Canada's governor general solicited support for Trudeau's removal

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 23, 2022 at 22:50
2 min read
By AFP Canada

Social media posts claim Canada's governor general said she would remove Prime Minister Justin Trudeau if she received 958,000 emails calling for his departure. But her office says she made no such remark, and an expert dismissed the idea that Queen Elizabeth's representative would change the leadership in Ottawa based on public comment alone.

"The Governor General of Canada said she needs 958,000 emails to remove Trudeau," says a February 19, 2022 Facebook post that encourages people to contact Mary Simon to express support for a "non confidence vote" in the prime minister.

Screenshot of a Facebook post taken on February 23, 2022

The claim about Simon -- who was sworn in in July 2021 and has various constitutional duties, including giving royal assent to acts of parliament -- also appeared on Twitter.

But Josephine Laframboise, a spokeswoman for the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, said the claim is false, and Rideau Hall also rejected it in a February 22 tweet.

Screenshot of a tweet taken on February 23, 2022

The claim circulated as Canadian police removed protesters from central Ottawa in February 2022 after weeks of demonstrations against Covid-19 vaccine mandates. On February 14, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, granting his government sweeping powers to tackle the protest. He ended its use on February 23.

At the beginning of February, as the self-styled "Freedom Convoy" and the related protest were gaining traction, local media reported that Simon's office was inundated with calls asking for Trudeau to be removed from office.

Philippe Lagassé, associate professor of international affairs at Carleton University, said that while the governor general has the legal authority to dismiss a prime minister, it is limited by constitutional conventions, and the queen's representative would not use this power based on a petition or emails from the general public.

"The only body whose opinion has bearing on the governor general's exercise of their powers is the House of Commons. As long as the prime minister holds the confidence of the Commons and is acting constitutionally, the governor general will not dismiss the prime minister," he said.

"It has become routine in Canadian politics to write a letter to the queen, governor general, or a lieutenant governor asking them to exercise their powers in some way, contrary to constitutional conventions. This is political theater, no more," Lagassé added.

AFP Fact Check has debunked other inaccurate claims about Canada here.

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