VICTORIA – British Columbia’s lieutenant-governor is leaving office after seven years on the job
Janet Austin is set to perform 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 her position was largely ceremonial, she held the post during significant political moments in the province’s history including the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amanda Campbell, deputy private secretary to the lieutenant-governor, notes that Austin’s 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 tenure, 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 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.
She took over the position from Judith Guichon shortly after John Horgan became 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.
Longtime businesswoman and philanthropist Wendy Cocchia will be sworn in as B.C.‘s 31st lieutenant-governor in a ceremony at the legislature in Victoria that will see trumpeters play the viceregal salute and the firing of a 15-gun salute.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 29, 2025.
