Ottawa: Canada installed a traditional woman as Governor General on Monday, the first person to hold the position, in a complicated ceremony highlighting the country’s efforts to make peace with his colonial past.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Mary Simon – Former journalist, Ambassador, and Advocate Community Inuit – to serve as a representative in Canada Head of State, Queen Elizabeth, earlier this month.
Simon was the first customer who took the role, created more than 400 years ago to represent colonial power in North American soil.
The change came as a Canadian grapple with her treatment heritage to indigenous peoples.
“We need people like Ms.
Simon because we need people who build bridges and unite us,” Trudeau said at the ceremony.
Since May, hundreds of graves of non-marked children have been found in former “housing schools,” ran for customary children forcibly separated from their families in the state of truth and reconciliation of “cultural genocide”.
“I have heard from Canadians who describe the possibility of being updated for our country and hope that I can unite people,” Simon, 73, said after being installed.
The ceremony, broadcast by Canadian Broadcasting Corp.
also in the original Inuktit language of Simon, upgraded and the mask was worn because of Covid-19.
A drummer accompanied the entry into the Senate where he took an oath.
The Governor General performs functions such as swearing in the government and formally signed a law, but also a commander in the head of the military and can call or dissolve parliament.