The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, is jointly represented by Léonicka Valcius and Carolyn Forde.
Madame Jean was eleven years old when the Canadian government offered political asylum to her parents, who were fleeing repression from the dictatorial regime in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
After an outstanding career as a journalist, presenter and news anchor on Canadian public television, Michaëlle Jean, whose commitment is and has always been to act through the power of truth, courage, justice, dignity and purpose, was appointed Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada, the first Black woman to reach the highest constitutional office in the country.
At the end of this mandate, on October 1, 2010, the United Nations immediately called upon her, as UNESCO Special Envoy, to support reconstruction efforts in Haiti after the brutal earthquake in that same year.
In 2014, Michaëlle Jean was elected Secretary General of La Francophonie, the first woman to lead this multilateral organization comprising 88 states and governments on 5 continents.
A seasoned stateswoman and diplomat, her words serve to convene goodwill everywhere in the multilateral sphere, in every UN forum, from New York to Geneva, all the way to the Security Council, as well as within the European Union, the European Parliament, the OECD, the African Union. She is best known and appreciated for her convictions, her deep sense of universal humanistic values, the principles and rules of democracy, the rule of law, justice, fundamental human rights and freedoms, which she never betrays.
Together with her husband Jean-Daniel Lafond, she has co-chaired the Michaëlle Jean Foundation since 2010, whose programs help support platforms and civic initiatives alongside some of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised—yet eager and creative—young people in Canada, for vigorous collective action against exclusion. Michaëlle Jean currently serves as Chancellor of United College at the University of Waterloo.
Welcome to Transatlantic Madame Jean!