Trudeau to make appointment 3 years after inquiry confirmed bullying, abuse by Julie Payette
Canada will soon have a new governor general about three years after the resignation of Julie Payette.
Chief Justice Richard Wagner said that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised him that a new governor general would be appointed “relatively quickly,” according to a National Post report.
“It took six months. We have the delays that we have,” he said. “It was starting to get a bit difficult.”
Wagner temporarily took over the role Payette left in 2021.
Rideau Hall employees 'very unhappy'
Payette – who represented Queen Elizabeth II in the country – stepped down from the post after an independent workplace inquiry found she had bullied staff members to tears and subjected them to verbal abuse.
The governor general allegedly had “tantrums in the office and on foreign trips, berated staff to the point of tears and called one employee’s work ‘s***’”.
Payette resigned hours after the inquiry released the results of the investigation; her secretary Assunta Di Lorenzo also quit.
“There are 150 employees at Rideau Hall. They were people who, I must say, were very unhappy because there had been very difficult circumstances leading up to the departure. They had suffered a lot for years,” Wagner said, according to the National Post.
A fifth (20 per cent) of workers say they are currently working in a toxic environment, according to another survey.
