British Columbia’s lieutenant-governor is leaving office after nearly seven years on the job.
On Tuesday, Janet Austin performed her final ceremony in Victoria with a viceregal salute by the Naden Band of the Royal Canadian Navy and a farewell from Premier David Eby.
Austin was sworn in as the province’s 30th lieutenant-governor in April 2018, and while the position is largely ceremonial, she held the post during significant political moments in the province’s history, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
She took over the position from Judith Guichon shortly after John Horgan became B.C. premier, the first time a New Democrat government had been back in power in the province since 2001.
Before taking the job, Austin was chief executive of the YWCA Metro Vancouver.
In a statement, the premier’s office thanked Austin for her service, and said the province would be donating $5,000 to the Lieutenant-Governor’s B.C. Journalism Fellowship, established during Austin’s time in office.
“She has been a steady and trusted hand through turbulent times, including a global pandemic and the passing of a beloved monarch,” Eby said in the statement.
“All British Columbians have benefited from her dedication.”
The province said Austin took lessons in SENĆOŦEN, the language of the WSÁNEĆ peoples in southern Vancouver Island, during her time in office.
“She did so as a sign of respect and as a way to champion the revitalization of Indigenous language and culture, which her colonial predecessors had once sought to extinguish,” reads the statement from the premier’s office.
Amanda Campbell, deputy private secretary to the lieutenant-governor, noted that Austin’s tenure was a couple of years longer than the typical five-year term, “and quite a lot has happened in the world and in our beautiful province in that time.”
During her stint, Austin made more than 2,000 formal speeches, was a patron to 108 organizations and made the historical transition from being the provincial representative of Queen Elizabeth to that of King Charles, following the queen’s death in 2022.
“I would say her honour’s greatest focus and the work that she’s really put her heart into has been in her role to further reconciliation in the province and to deepen the relationship between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples in British Columbia,” Campbell said.
Austin also helped establish the B.C. Reconciliation Award in 2020.
Longtime businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia has been chosen as B.C.’s 31st lieutenant-governor. She will be sworn in at a ceremony at the legislature in Victoria that will see trumpeters play the viceregal salute and the firing of a 15-gun salute.