Well before Confederation, the office had evolved from serving as chief executive of a colony to reflecting the constitutional monarch it represented. It was a glittering symbol of British authority, and the office holder acted simultaneously as an agent of the British government and a crucial go-between for Britain and Canada. When the Dominion of Canada was proclaimed in 1867, the duties became more circumscribed, while the prime minister’s expanded. Historian Margaret MacMillan has pointed out that after Confederation, “much about the position of the Governor General was unclear.” However, its chief responsibility — and sole area of discretion, then and now — has been to ensure Canada has a legitimately elected prime minister. Johnston sits at the apex of a power pyramid: in theory, the executive (run by the prime minister) and the judiciary (headed by the Supreme Court) defer to him.

Johnston is the twenty-eighth Governor General since Confederation, in a long line of distinguished individuals who by and large had to make it up as they went along. “Each incumbent has to decide how he or she will use this platform,” says Christopher McCreery, a historian who has written extensively on the Canadian honours system. “The job is about more than standing in for the Crown.” None of the first seventeen post-Confederation Governors General was born in Canada. Almost exclusively members of the House of Lords, they were chosen by Westminster with limited input from Canada.

The early viceroys wore their imperial authority effortlessly, and treated their postings to the distant, icy capital of Ottawa with varying degrees of enthusiasm. In idiosyncratic ways, they found their platforms. In the 1870s, the Earl of Dufferin and his wife staged amateur theatricals at Rideau Hall. His successor, the Marquess of Lorne, Queen Victoria’s son-in-law, supposedly swathed himself in buffalo robes and hosted elaborate tobogganing parties. In 1893, Lord Stanley donated a large silver cup to the winners of an amateur hockey competition. These regimes featured pomp and ceremony and dripped with noblesse oblige, but British grandees were startled by the absence of class deference within the Dominion. “Guests and waiters chatting to each other seemed a little odd at first,” recalled a steward to the Duke of Connaught, the tenth post-Confederation Governor General, “but we soon got used to this and thoroughly enjoyed waiting.”

During these years, Governors General, who had a permanent office on Parliament Hill, regularly discussed policy with prime ministers but were rarely drawn into partisan politics. The most famous occasion on which this did happen was the King-Byng Affair of 1926, when Lord Byng of Vimy refused Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s request to dissolve Parliament and call an election. The wily King immediately created a constitutional crisis, declaring that Byng’s legitimate action amounted to unwarranted political interference by Britain. When the dust settled, King was back in power as prime minister and the role of Governor General had been still further reduced. No future Governor General would represent both the sovereign and the British government. Instead, a Canadian High Commissioner in London and a British High Commissioner in Ottawa would act as intermediaries.

So what are the duties of a twenty-first-century Governor General? Most fall under the category of “formal ritual,” in the words of Ned Franks, a professor emeritus of political studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. The Governor General summons, prorogues, and dissolves parliamentary sessions; reads the Speech from the Throne; gives royal assent to bills and government appointments; receives ambassadors and visiting dignitaries; hosts state dinners; and presents awards and honours. However, an added dimension lends the office a whiff of magic: metaphorically, he or she embodies Canada. The appointment of the Governor General is the most important duty the monarch continues to exercise in Canada, although today it is always on the recommendation of the Canadian prime minister. According to MacMillan, the Governor General “symbolizes the nation in good times and bad and performs the duties and conducts the rituals that summon up what we share as citizens.”

But it’s challenging to help build a national community in a hugely diverse country. During his tenure, Johnston is pushing three themes: education, philanthropy, and support for families. Despite the 200 speeches he has delivered during his first year in the position, his themes have proved too nebulous to gain much traction. He has yet to make his mark.

hen asked which of his predecessors he particularly admires, Johnston names two who filled the job splendidly but were impossibly stuffy by today’s standards. The first is John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir (1935–1940), because of his “Scots rigour of hard work and accomplishment.” The second is Vincent Massey (1952–1959), because he was “a man for all seasons who helped to establish a Canadian presence in this office at a very important time.”

Johnston’s choices are interesting. Like him, Buchan and Massey were fit, self-assured men of Anglo stock who were educated at elite universities and had distinguished careers before moving to Rideau Hall. Buchan, a successful novelist, trained as a lawyer, worked in South Africa, wrote for the Times of London, and sat as an MP in the UK Parliament. Massey taught history at the University of Toronto and ran the family agriculture machinery company. Later, he chaired the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts and served as High Commissioner in London. These two viceroys had experience in public life, radiated dignity, and upheld traditional values while quietly modernizing the office and making it more responsive to ordinary citizens.

Buchan founded the Governor General’s Literary Awards to encourage Canadians to develop their own distinct identity, and was constantly on the road, he explained to his son, because “I am the only trait d’union between the Atlantic and the Pacific, the St. Lawrence and the North Pole.” Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born viceroy, established the Governor General’s Awards for Architecture and the Massey Medal for achievement in Canadian geography, and laid the foundation for the Order of Canada, the country’s most important system of honours. (He was also grander than most British nobs. GG watchers still love the story of a British peer who once complained, “Damn it all, the fellow always makes one feel like a bloody savage.”)

But if Johnston resembles his favourite predecessors, he differs significantly in one respect. The early lives of Buchan and Massey took them all over the world, exposing them to diverse milieux and peoples. Johnston’s career has been varied, stimulating, and indisputably successful, but he has spent his entire professional life within the small world of central Canadian universities.

He was born in Sudbury, Ontario, then a rough mining town where his father ran a hardware store. A scholarship to Harvard University launched him into the academic elite: he graduated magna cum laude and was a two-time all-American hockey player. He also acquired a splinter of mystique that no amount of denial has removed: his jogging partner at Harvard, Erich Segal, reportedly used him as the model for a minor character (captain of the hockey team) in the bestseller Love Story. From Harvard, Johnston went on first to the University of Cambridge in England, then to Queen’s University, collecting law degrees at each.