In France, Governor General Michaelle Jean referred to herself as Canada's Head of State.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper reminded the GG that, no, she's not head of state, Queen Elizabeth II is.
And now, a freshly updated GG Web site (according to Maclean's John Geddes) makes the case that, yes, the GG is the head of state:
In 1947, the Letters Patent of King George VI transferred all the duties of Head of State of Canada to the Governor General and the new Commission of Appointment referred to the Office of Governor General and Commander-in-Chief in and over Canada.
UPDATE: The GG updated their Web site after I posted this and so the link to the source for the info on letter patent will not work. I leave the link intact, though, as a kind of footnote as to where I got this info. (End of update)
Meanwhile, Ottawa-area Conservative MP Royal Galipeau or someone pretending to be Galipeau jumped in to this debate last night on Twitter. Galipeau, who tweets as GalipeauMP, had this up after dinner Thursday night:
GalipeauMP: The GG is the defacto Head of State so everyone just chill. She can call herself whatever she wants….she eats seal meat!!!!
That remark was then deleted from Galipeau's Twitter timeline (you can still find it via search.twitter.com by searching for the phrase “seal meat”) and this showed up in its place:
Somebody got to my Twitter. Was not my post. Thanks to @MinJK for spotting it.
(@MinJK is the real Jason Kenney).
This link “a freshly updated GG Web site” when clicked comes up as …
“The page cannot be found
The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable. …”
The Link Warden
It's scary that a sitting MP doesn't have the competence to protect a password to his Twitter acct. I wonder what other passwords he's let people get their hands on. Sheesh!
Sorry, David, but the GG's site actually says “In 1947, letters patent signed by King George VI redefine the powers of the governor general and authorize the governor general to carry out the responsibilities of the Crown previously assumed by the sovereign, without having to refer to the sovereign. Since then, the governor general has represented the Crown in Canada and carries out nearly all of the duties of the head of State”. (My italics)
The site also clearly states ” Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is the sovereign and Canada’s head of State“. (My italics again)
http://www.gg.ca/role-and-responsibilities
Seems like another case of the media (in this case Mr. Geddes and yourself) not checking the source properly.