PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER ANNOUNCES COMMITTEE TO SELECT THE NEW LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF QUEBEC

May 25, 2015                                    Ottawa, Ontario                    Prime Minister’s Office

 Introduction

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced that the five members of the Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments are now in place to begin the search for appropriate candidates to fill the position of Lieutenant Governor of Quebec. This is in keeping with the non-partisan process to select Lieutenant Governors announced by the Prime Minister in November 2012.

The two temporary members of the Advisory Committee for Quebec, Norma Passaretti and Claude Rousseau, will join permanent members Kevin MacLeod (Chair), Robert Watt and Dr. Jacques Monet for this process.

Norma Passaretti is currently a management consultant and up until recently was Vice President of the Public Service Commission for the City of Montreal. A teacher by training, she has held senior management and executive positions at the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal and the Government of Canada. Claude Rousseau is currently Vice President of Strategic Partnerships with Alithya, an information technology and management consulting firm. He previously served as President of the Québec Remparts and was an executive with telecommunications companies Bell, Grandes Entreprises and Telus. Both individuals bring a strong knowledge of the province and their respective fields of interest to the process.

The Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments will consult with key stakeholders on prospective candidates and provide advice to the Prime Minister on the progress of committee deliberations.  As a final step, the Advisory Committee will present a report to the Prime Minister with a shortlist of proposed candidates for consideration. 

Quick Facts 

• In November 2012, Prime Minister Harper announced the creation of a new permanent Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments.
• The non-partisan Advisory Committee is responsible for providing the Prime Minister with non-binding recommendations on the selection of the Governor General, Lieutenant Governors and Territorial Commissioners.
• In addition to the Chair and the two permanent members, the Advisory Committee includes two temporary members chosen from the jurisdiction of appointment in the case of Lieutenant Governor and Territorial Commissioner vacancies. 

Quote

“It is my pleasure to name Norma Passaretti and Claude Rousseau as temporary members of the Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments. Their understanding of Quebec and experience in a range of important fields will provide valuable insight to the committee as it searches for the new Lieutenant Governor of Quebec.” –Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Related Product

• Advisory Committee Members

Associated Link

• November 4, 2012 – PM announces new Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments 

  Contacts

• PMO Press Office: 613-957-5555

  This document is also available at http://pm.gc.ca

ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Permanent Members

Kevin Stewart MacLeod

Kevin Stewart MacLeod is a native of Boularderie Island, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He studied at Boston University (Boston, Massachusetts) and Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario), and received both an undergraduate degree in history/political science and a graduate degree in international affairs. He also pursued studies at l’Université de Bourgogne (Dijon, France).

Mr. MacLeod gained 10 years of parliamentary experience as an administrative assistant in the House of Commons. For 22 years, he served with the Department of Canadian Heritage, most notably as Chief of Protocol. In this role, he was responsible for, among other duties, the organization and delivery of Royal Tours to Canada by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Members of the Canadian Royal Family. In 1992, Her Majesty invested Mr. MacLeod as a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO) for personal service to the Sovereign. Subsequently, she promoted him to the rank of Lieutenant (LVO) in 2002 and, in 2005, to Commander (CVO) – the highest level of the Order available to Canadians – making him the only Canadian to have been promoted through all three ranks. During the 2005 Royal Tour, he served as Deputy Coordinator and then as Acting Canadian Secretary to Her Majesty.

Mr. MacLeod was appointed Usher of the Black Rod, Senate of Canada, on March 26, 2008. In addition to these duties, on March 31, 2009 he was further appointed Canadian Secretary to The Queen. In April 2010, he was also appointed by the Prime Minister to the Governor General Consultation Committee – a committee mandated to bring forward names for consideration for the appointment of a new Governor General. This process resulted in the eventual appointment of David Johnston as Canada’s 28^th Governor General since Confederation.

Mr. MacLeod is the author of the bilingual historical novel “A Stone on Their Cairn/Clach air An Càrn,” about the lives of Scottish Highland settlers in rural Cape Breton. He also authored “A Crown of Maples/La Couronne canadienne” – an overview of the Canadian Crown and constitutional monarchy in Canada, published by the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Mr. MacLeod served as a reservist in Her Majesty’s Canadian Forces for some 20 years. He is a member of the Senate of the Cameron Highlanders of Ottawa and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. 

Robert Douglas Watt

Robert D. Watt was born in Picton, Ontario, and currently resides in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Mr. Watt holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from Carleton University (Ottawa, Ontario).

Appointed Citizenship Judge in Vancouver in September 2009, he is a Canadian social historian who served as the first Chief Herald of Canada from 1988-2007 in the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General. Mr. Watt was previously Director of the Vancouver Museum, and the City of Vancouver Archivist.

Mr. Watt has served in several areas of heritage preservation and on the boards of the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, the International Academy of Heraldry, the B.C. Museums Association, and the Vancouver Historical Society. He was also a president of the Bureau permanent des congrès internationaux des sciences généalogique et héraldique. He has written, published and lectured extensively in Canada and internationally on Canadian heraldry, Canadian social history and material culture, notably historic Canadian stained glass, museum and archival studies and genealogy.

Appointed Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order in 2008, he is also an Officer of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St. John and received the 125^th Anniversary of the Confederation of Canada Medal and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2011, he was appointed Honorary Lieutenant Colonel of the 12^th Vancouver Field Ambulance, a reserve unit in the Canadian Forces.

Jacques Monet

Jacques Monet was born in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec. After studying at the Collège Saint-Jean and at Loyola College in Montréal, he entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) at Guelph, Ontario. He received his B.A. from the Université de Montréal, his degrees in Philosophy and Theology at the Collège de l’Immaculée-Conception in Montréal, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Toronto.

Dr. Monet is currently the Director of the Canadian Institute of Jesuit Studies, a position he has held since 1988. He is also the Historian of the Archive of the Jesuits in Canada. He has taught at numerous colleges and universities across the country, and is involved in numerous boards and associations.

In 1966, Dr. Monet was ordained to the priesthood at the Church of the Immaculée-Conception in Montréal and made his final profession in the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) at Saint-Pierre-de-Montmartre, Paris, in 1971.

Dr. Monet is a specialist in Canadian constitutional and social history as well as 19^th century French-Canadian nationalism, in Church and in Jesuit history. He has published many scholarly articles, and has also contributed to many books, including the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and the Canadian Encyclopedia.

For his work, he has received various awards and honours. He is a recipient of Her Majesty The Queen’s Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilee Medals, as well as the Governor General’s Gold Medal, among others.

Temporary Members 

Norma Passaretti

Norma Passaretti is from Montreal, Quebec. She has a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Education from Loyola College and a Master of Business Administration from Concordia University.

Ms. Passaretti began her career as an educator and high school administrator and is currently a management consultant, and up until recently was Vice President of the Public Service Commission for the City of Montreal.

She has held senior management and executive positions at the Business Development Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal and the Government of Canada. Her work with the federal government included serving as Director General of State Ceremonial and Canadian Identity at the Department of the Secretary of State of Canada where she was responsible for executing some of the most visible of the Government of Canada’s policies on the Canadian Crown, including the administration of the Lieutenant Governors’ Program.

Ms. Passaretti is an active volunteer and shares her expertise and time with the Kidney Foundation of Canada and their Founder’s Award Gala, the Canadian Red Cross, Concordia University and the VivaVoce chamber choir.

Claude Rousseau

Claude Rousseau is from Québec City, Quebec. He has a diploma in Business Administration from Université Laval.

He is currently Vice President of Strategic Partnerships with Alithya, an information technology and management consulting firm. He has previously served as President of the Québec Remparts, which is a holding group that includes the hockey organization and WTA Tournament, as well as serving as an executive with telecommunications companies Bell, Grandes Entreprises and Telus. He also recently completed a term as a federal appointee to the Québec Port Authority

Mr. Rousseau actively serves on the board of directors for the Société du Centre des congrès de Québec and Forces Avenir and is the President of Équipe Québec. In the past he has served on the board of directors of Boomerang, the Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec and Pro Hockey Life.

He was awarded the prix Hermès from Université Laval in 2009, was named a personnalité de la semaine by La Presse in 2008, and was named personnalité de l’année by l’Association du Marketing Direct et des Centres de Contacts Clients in 1998.