PQ government miffed at new federal process for naming GG

QUEBEC – The Parti Quebecois government is miffed at a new federal policy for naming future governors general.

The Harper government has created a new Advisory Committee on Vice-Regal Appointments to provide non-binding suggestions when future prime ministers are appointing people to Rideau Hall and to provincial lieutenant-governors’ positions.

The goal is to pick the most qualified people for positions that, for a number of years, were often doled out to political partisans.

Recent federal governments have taken to appointing non-partisans to Rideau Hall once again. In the meantime, a string of minority governments and the 2008 coalition showdown drew attention to the constitutional power of the role.

And that bothers the PQ.

It says the decision to create a committee will more deeply entrench a system that, it says, Quebecers don’t support. It calls the vice-regal positions anti-democratic.