TORONTO (AP) — Retired Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour was installed as Canada’s next governor general Monday after a swearing-in ceremony.The governor general is the representative of Britain’s King Charles III. The king is the head of state in Canada, a member of the Commonwealth of former colonies.Arbour, 79, replaces Mary Simon, who became Canada’s first Indigenous governor general in 2021. The governor general has important constitutional duties, but the job is mostly ceremonial and symbolic. Prime Minister Mark Carney picked a Francophone for the job.The Central Band of the Canadian Armed Forces played “God Save the King” and the Governor General’s Flag was raised on Parliament Hill to mark the moment. Arbour is a world-renowned legal scholar, judge and leader in human rights and justice. 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, the United Nations selected her as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. She led efforts that resulted in the first conviction for genocide since the 1948 Genocide Convention and the first indictment for war crimes of a sitting head of state.
