She surmounted the challenges to make two trips to outer space and rose to the high office. A new book looks at why it all ended so badly<\/p>\n
Published Apr 02, 2026 \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 Last updated 3\u00a0hours ago \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 21 minute read<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n You can save this article by registering for free here<\/a>. Or sign-in<\/a> if you have an account.<\/p>\n Once a friend of the former astronaut-turned-viceregal, John Fraser describes how Julie Payette crumbled into \u201cperpetual petulance,\u201d in this excerpt from his new book, The Governors General: An Intimate History of Canada\u2019s Highest Office.<\/p>\n It should not have ended this way. It should have ended with a national celebration of an amazing, vibrant, and still young woman who managed to surmount all the challenges in a mostly male world; who managed to storm through a mostly male engineering school right up to the day she graduated summa cum laude; who managed to get through mostly male selection and training at the Canadian Space Agency; and ultimately, who managed two trips to outer space with mostly American male crews at NASA. As if all that were not enough, she also managed to crown this extraordinary record by being appointed governor general, the highest and noblest position Canada has to offer its most outstanding citizens.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Advertisement 2<\/p>\n This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.<\/p>\n THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS<\/p>\n Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.<\/p>\n Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. 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Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.<\/p>\n REGISTER \/ SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.<\/p>\n THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.<\/p>\n Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.<\/p>\n Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an Account<\/p>\n or<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Except it\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0end that way. Not at all.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Instead, it ended in national obloquy and left bitter feelings on all sides, which have yet to heal. On all sides. In effect, Julie Payette<\/a> was forced out of high office before her term was over, having suffered all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, as well as some undeniably self-inflicted wounds. After she severely irritated senior officials in the Privy Council Office who should have been her stout defenders, after she alienated more than a dozen institutions that looked to her office for moral and honorific support, after she reputedly bullied her own staff<\/a> to a level of toxicity unprecedented in the history of the office, she more or less served herself up to a united and censorious media.<\/p>\n When it all came to a head, she woke up one day to find her appointment abruptly terminated by Royal Letters Patent and was immediately succeeded in her responsibilities by the Chief Justice of Canada Richard Wagner, in the rarely aroused and temporary office of national administrator to the government of Canada. To add to all this, she was booted out by the man who just a few years earlier had told her what an amazing woman she was and how proud Canadians would be to see her at the very pinnacle of the nation\u2019s governance and honour system. That fantasy-spinner was Justin Trudeau,<\/a> for whom due diligence was never his strongest suit.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Almost exactly one year after her unceremonious departure from Rideau Hall, on January 27, 2023, we literally bumped into each other in the main hallway of Massey College in the University of Toronto. It was following the college\u2019s annual dinner honouring Adrienne Clarkson and the Clarkson Laureates in Public Service. In the good-natured melee in the hallway after the dinner, Payette and I were suddenly face to face. It was the first time we had met since her ouster. We had been good friends for quite a while before. She was, after all, a distinguished alumna of my college, having made her mark at Massey during the years that my predecessor, Professor Ann Saddlemyer, was master of the college, and she\u00a0 maintained the relationship after I was elected master of the college. She came several times to stay, and the Junior Fellow scholars \u2014 and everyone else \u2014 were very happy to see her around the place. But the relationship had soured as she started digging her viceregal grave deeper and deeper at Rideau Hall and declined all help, even from those who admired her.<\/p>\n \u201cHi Julie. It\u2019s nice to see you here.\u201d A brief interlude of embarrassed silence ensued. We had stopped communicating as she careened off into her own limbo land of inexplicable rebellion against what was considered appropriate behaviour of a governor general, and she had clearly resented\u00a0my point of view. \u201cAre we talking to each other now?\u201d<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cWhy would I talk to you? You were part of the lynch mob that hounded me out of office.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJulie, you can\u2019t use the word \u2018lynch\u2019 around Massey College. It will just lead to trouble and \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n She didn\u2019t linger. Abruptly turning her back on me, she returned to the nearby Upper Library. I wasn\u2019t surprised or particularly hurt by the snub, because things had been bad between us for some time. But it deeply saddened me because I could see so clearly the wreckage that her life had become, despite her best intentions. It was also sobering to see how little she understood her own complicity in her troubles.<\/p>\n I am still gob-smacked that it took the Toronto Star about ten nano-seconds (that\u2019s journalistic exaggeration for an easy search) to discover Payette had accidentally killed a (pedestrian) by running them over in her car, and also that she had spent time at a police station for allegedly going after her estranged husband with a dangerous weapon. That Star story ran three months before Payette was sworn into office. Due diligence takes on a special negative meaning in the PMO, as this sad but easily researched history demonstrates. I do not believe for a moment that if anyone in the PMO had known of these unfortunate incidents she would have ever been asked to take on the job of governor general.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Nevertheless, she did get the viceregal gig, which turned out to be a disaster on most fronts, and now the wreckage was before the entire nation\u2019s eyes. And my own eyes because here she was at a place we both loved and I was deeply recalling all this when she returned a few minutes later, this time with eyes brimming with tears: \u201cI came back to apologize. I shouldn\u2019t have just said that to you, but you do know I was lynched.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI do know what happened to you, Julie, and no one should have to go through what you went through. But you mustn\u2019t use the word \u2018lynch\u2019 around here. Not since my successor screwed up everything at the college by mishandling a racial incident \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n I was cut off mid-sentence, trying to explain how an ill-timed, ill-spoken barb was directed at a Black student at Massey College. The incident, wildly taken out of proportion, made front-page news and was then allowed to fester and poison the whole place for months to come. It\u2019s still a blot on the college\u2019s reputation.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I was lynched. How else do you explain what I was supposed to do when the prime minister comes and tells me I have to go? I wasn\u2019t given a chance to have my own lawyer present. I tried phoning the chief justice for advice, and he didn\u2019t return my calls. There was no one to come to my help and now I am a pariah. People at the CBC or the Globe and Mail aren\u2019t interested in any viewpoint I might have. They were all part of the lynch mob, too. You didn\u2019t help me. No journalists would help me. No one in the Privy Council would help me. I was completely alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so sorry, Julie, for all this trouble, but I did actually try to reach out to you several times leading up to the showdown, but you never returned any emails or phone calls. I think you had already decided I was an enemy, which I never was. And I\u2019m so sorry for the mess your life seems to still be in. You do know you have the right to present your own case to the public, don\u2019t you? You could write about it. There would be some pushback, but it would still be a chance to show your side of those events.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow can I? I\u2019m not a writer. I\u2019m an astronaut. You could write it if you wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor God\u2019s sake, Julie, I can\u2019t write that particular story. Only you can. I mean you can always get a ghostwriter, just like Prince Harry \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not Prince Harry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I was trying to be funny. That was a stupid thing to say. But look: I do have some ideas on what you can do to reclaim your better identity. I\u2019ll send you an email tomorrow so we can set up a lunch and work out a strategy. Only if you\u2019d like to. It\u2019s fun to turn adversity into a challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think she was listening. All my words seemed to fly up into the fetid air. The hallway was quite crowded with people getting set to go home for the evening, but everyone was making a wide circle to avoid any contact with us. It was obvious that a troubled conversation was going on, but she soon disappeared into the throng.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n I sent the email the next morning, but there was no response. Still haven\u2019t heard, although I remain available. I would tell her to keep lying low, but get involved in some public organization where her presence would make a difference and just keep at it. Eventually, people would take note and as for the dear old media, well, the dear old media loves nothing more than rehabilitating someone it has already dragged down. That advice never got delivered, although in setting down this sad encounter, I did rediscover our last email exchange. It came out of the blue shortly after she was thrust out of office and the chief justice had taken over her responsibilities, the same chief justice who never returned her calls, probably because he had already been asked by the prime minister to take on the job temporarily:<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n 2021-02-08: Hello John. Shouldn\u2019t the monarchists and expert constitutionalists of this country be worried that the Crown\u2019s office has been taken over by the ministry of the PCO (Privy Council Office), and that the administrator is currently from the judicial branch? What happens if we have elections this spring and it is tight? Who will decide?<\/p>\n Best<\/p>\n Jp<\/p>\n To which I replied:<\/p>\n 2021-02-09: Dearest Madam, Of course it\u2019s a concern and a serious one, but not as serious as what has happened to your venerable office! The country has survived an administrator from the Supreme Court before (I think you have even availed yourself of the office from time to time), but the office of governor general is going to be a long\u00a0time recovering\u00a0from all the recent damage.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n I feel so badly for you. On the one hand, no one should have to go through what you did. On the other hand, I criticize myself for not being more honest and forthright when I knew you were heading straight for shoals and all the parameters of danger. I did not want to lose you as a friend and I also highly valued and esteemed your kindness and generosity to Massey when I was at the helm there. I\u2019m not sure you realized it, but I actually stepped down from the presidency of my small institute of the Crown to make sure I wasn\u2019t going to be in any conflict if you needed my help. The one time I really tried to get through to you and was almost in tears (shortly after the pandemic began),\u00a0I think I\u00a0just irritated you.<\/p>\n For me, the office was always more important than any of its holders and I still believe its ceremonial and emotional power is far greater than any vestiges of political power it has retained. I especially thought its symbolism was amazingly powerful during this period of historic reconciliation with the Indigenous nations, but here too I think I became an irritation and I sensed how uncomfortable you were at the Massey-Indigenous events a couple of years ago. In the end I was not of much use to you and that is a great sorrow for me. You have just gone through a terrible, terrible time, but it too will pass and you will have beautiful moments again. That\u2019s the way life works. I shall always be grateful for your immense love of Massey College and the generosity you showed us, especially the time you came with your fellow astronauts \u2014 or \u201cpathfinders\u201d as Ursula Franklin called you.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Please take care of yourself.<\/p>\n Fondly,<\/p>\n John<\/p>\n I can be na\u00efve. Much of her time in office, I kept wishing she would wake up and realize that the best impact she could make for the country during her mandate was with settler-Indigenous relations. The Canadian Crown has a unique role there. The historic opportunity for reconciliation past all the cruelty and tragic initiatives and misapprehensions of the past was occurring on her watch. No previous governor general was ever handed such a remarkable file so admirably suited for such a high office. What I failed to see was why \u201creconciliation\u201d has gone down so badly in Quebec and for French Canadians, and this lost soul, Payette, was definitely a child of her native culture. Maybe it was because it was so\u00a0obvious that I simply\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0see it.<\/p>\n The first stumbling block, and it\u2019s a huge one, is that reconciliation begins with rethinking Quebec\u2019s mystique as the founding nation. The point has been made earlier but bears repeating. Sorry. In the new dispensation, the French settlements in Canada were simply those of another European intruder, different in time but not in substance from the British intrusions. More devastatingly, Indigenous reconciliation totally undermines Quebec\u2019s once primary claim of victimhood. Sorry again. Get in line behind historic Indigenous victimhood \u2014 and not just in line, but way back.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n There wasn\u2019t a hope in heaven or hell that this governor general would wade into these unpleasant realities. The few times I saw her with Indigenous leaders at their ceremonies, I wanted to shed tears at her evident frustration and irritation.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Nevertheless, even if it was her own damn fault, Julie Payette wasn\u2019t wrong to fuss about either the fact that she was railroaded out of high office or the potential conflict between a chief justice of Canada\u2019s Supreme Court acting as governor general, and a government caught out in conflict over the prorogation or dismissal of Parliament. We saw some of the potential damage to our constitutional equilibrium when Micha\u00eblle Jean was faced with a prorogation request from Stephen Harper just under a decade earlier. The residual powers of a governor general mean that if an election is indecisive, handling how the country can proceed to fashion its governance falls directly on the lap of whoever resides at Rideau Hall. If there were any objections to that course of action, say brought by an opposition party, it would be up to the Supreme Court of Canada to adjudicate the constitutionality of it all, but if the chief justice is already the acting governor general then, how to put it delicately, we have something\u00a0of a problem here.<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n Article content<\/p>\n![\"Governor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2020-senate-main-3.jpg\")
Canada’s Governor General Julie Payette delivers the Throne Speech in the Senate, as parliament prepares to resume in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on September 23, 2020. (Photo by Adrian Wyld \/ POOL \/ AFP) (Photo by ADRIAN WYLD\/POOL\/AFP via Getty Images) Photo by ADRIAN WYLD\/POOL\/AFP via Getty ImagesArticle content<\/p>\n![\"National](\"https:\/\/dcs-static.gprod.postmedia.digital\/20.9.1\/websites\/images\/identity\/logo-identity-np-new.svg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n![\"Prime](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-senate-justin-trudeau-2017.jpg\")
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers his speech to newly sworn-in Governor General Julie Payette in the Senate on Oct. 2, 2017. Photo by LARS HAGBERG\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"On](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2009-shuttle-endeavour-nasa.jpg\")
Julie Payette, third from right, with the rest of the STS-127 crew hours before Space Shuttle Endeavour launched from Kennedy Space Center on July 15, 2009, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Governor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2017-queen-elizabeth.jpg\")
Governor General-designate Julie Payette meets the late Queen Elizabeth II during a private audience at Balmoral Castle on Sept. 20, 2017, in Aberdeen, Scotland. Photo by Andrew Milligan\/WPA Pool\/Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Newly](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2017-honour-guard.jpg\")
Former astronaut Julie Payette inspects the honour guard at Rideau Hall on Oct. 2, 2017, after she was sworn in as governor general. Photo by LARS HAGBERG\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"Governor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2018-rideau-hall-macron.jpg\")
During her tenure as viceregal, Julie Payette largely avoided Rideau Hall save for official functions, such as greeting French President Emmanuel Macron in June 2018. Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
![\"Governor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-son-2017.jpg\")
Julie Payette with her son, Laurier Payette Flynn, at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., after her swearing-in. Photo by LARS HAGBERG\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n![\"National](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2020-chief-bellegarde.jpg\")
Before the pandemic, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations Perry Bellegarde \u2014 shown speaking at the Canadian War Museum in November 2020 \u2014 made a historic speech at Massey Collage during the annual viceregal retreat. Photo by Ashley Fraser\/Postmedia News<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-john-fraser-massey-college.jpg\")
Author John Fraser, shown in 2011 in Ondaatje Hall, was master of Massey College from 1995 to 2014. Photo by Matthew Sherwood\/National Post<\/p>\n![\"Governor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2017-soldiers.jpg\")
Julie Payette visits a training exercise for the Canadian Forces School of Military Engineering at New Brunswick\u2019s CFB Gagetown in November 2017. Photo by OS Karine Charette\/DND<\/p>\n![\"Governor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/canada-governor-general-astronaut-julie-payette-2019-d-day.jpg\")
Julie Payette speaks on June 6, 2019, at an event at Halifax\u2019s CFB Windsor marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Photo by Tim Krochak\/Postmedia News<\/p>\n