As Ontario’s lieutenant governor, the Honourable Edith Dumont is once again stepping up to serve, as she always has.
You find consistent and admirable characteristics in people who serve. Regardless of their station in life, these special individuals all seem to think of others before themselves, and they go above and beyond the ordinary in wanting to help others. People who serve simply care about others.
This quality perfectly describes Her Honour the Honourable Edith Dumont, the 30th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. She was appointed to the post by the then Governor General of Canada, Mary Simon, on August 3, 2023, on the advice of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. An educator during most of her distinguished career, the Honourable Mme. Dumont is just the fourth woman to serve in the position, following Pauline McGibbon, Hilary Weston and Elizabeth Dowdeswell. Mme. Dumont, who was born in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Québec, to a Québécois father and a Franco-Ontarian mother, is Ontario’s first Franco-Ontarian lieutenant governor.
While the role of lieutenant governor, as representing Charles III, King of Canada, can be seen as largely ceremonial, Mme. Dumont sees it as much greater, since it involves engaging with so many different communities in Ontario, which is such a vast province.
She learned to be engaged with people from her loving and supportive parents, as she told Dolce Magazine in a recent exclusive interview.
“I had parents who were very engaged in their community,” says Mme. Dumont. “I remember coming back from university one Friday and they said before I went out with my friends I needed to come with them because they were opening a community food co-operative the next day and needed help unpacking boxes and putting food on the shelves. I remember having many opportunities where you feel that you can contribute to your community and make a better life for all. I feel this community engagement shaped and influenced me later in my career as an educator, and even to this day in my current role. The community space is a place where I feel very comfortable.”
Mme. Dumont completed her high school education in Iqaluit, Nunavut. Today a mother of three children, she and her husband, Tony Viscardi, have lived in both Africa and France. Mme. Dumont credits this international experience as an asset in a province as ethnically diverse as Ontario. “I think that when you discover a place, it gives you the opportunity to experience — not knowing much, but being curious, listening to people and looking at your new environment,” she says. “Being curious is showing us how we can be friends, how we can get together and what can I learn, how can I help, how can I contribute to your community. That has shaped how I am as lieutenant governor, where I meet people from across Ontario. Listening and being curious is something I have experienced before. I feel incredible meeting new people I’ve never met before — it’s like a small miracle. And if I stay curious and listen, there is a space where someone can come in and share the diversity of their community, and I think that is something very powerful. I think my travels to 10 provinces and three territories in Canada and to many continents brings something special to the role of lieutenant governor.”
In today’s fractured world, where most people live in their media bubbles, on their phones or in their isolated circles of opinion, achieving understanding or consensus on just about anything is increasingly challenging. Mme. Dumont says one of the most important aspects of her role is to bring people together and engage in the long-lost art of conversation, to learn about each other.
“As a lieutenant governor, one of the responsibilities is to bring people together as citizens, across generations, across diversity, and one of the beautiful things is that we get to live here,” says Mme. Dumont. “Bringing people together to encourage conversation among different communities, it’s fostering the way we want to be as Ontarians. We are proud of our diversity, and [because it’s] an apolitical role it gives us the opportunity to have a civic space. It’s meeting people and creating these occasions where we are having a conversation about important topics like democracy, the importance of engagement as a citizen, the importance of leadership among women, the importance of leadership among youth, as they also have a voice. The nice part of being lieutenant governor is being able to create these spaces for conversations. When we know each other better, we feel like shaking hands and making connections. It’s also about building bridges between communities and sometimes I am moved by some of these conversations I witness.”
It is clear that Her Honour the Honourable Edith Dumont certainly does not stand on ceremony alone in her role representing the Crown in Ontario. She is simply working and continuing her service in a lifetime filled with it.
