It's certainly safe to say that Edward and Andrew are the princes we see the most. Perhaps Andrew and Sarah could have made a go of it if they were in Rideau Hall during the late 80s and early 90s. The press wouldn't have been so devastating to Sarah here, for one thing. But that's a whole other thread.
I'd love to see Edward as the next Governor General, personally.
The interesting thing is that a couple of months ago, Sarah was interviewed by the CBC and she said that Andrew becoming the Governor-General was "very much talked of" (although I think she was probably exaggerating with the "very much") when they were first married. She thought that she and Andrew would still be together now if they had been in Canada during the early years of their marriage because of exactly what you said--there would have been less press intrusion (and they would have been together instead of separated by Andrew's naval career). But that is a subject for another thread.
I think that in Canada and some of the other Commonwealth countries, members of the royal family could make good Governors-General. As long as these countries maintain their ties to Britain, the role of "queen's representative" will continue to exist and will have to be filled by someone...so why not actual members of the royal family who need a role to play? The question of "would the queen have done that?" would probably crop up less often, for one thing...(unlike recently in Canada, where the Governor General ate the raw heart of a seal and some commentators, in Britain as well, wondered if she was really representing the Queen by her actions!)
But I think using members of the royal family as Governors-General would ultimately create more problems than it would solve. I totally agree with you,
Mermaid1962, that it would be viewed as a "throw-back to our colonial past" because whenever online news articles mention Canada's ties to the British monarchy, people in the comments section often use that phrase. In fact, after Sarah's claim that she and Andrew could have been Governor-General in Canada, a lot of people wrote that the British were so outmoded if they thought they could still come in and "colonize" us. And during the recent "coalition crisis" in Canada when the Governor-General had the authority to decide whether or not to give power to the coalition or to prorogue parliament, people realized for the first time that the Governor-General had a degree of genuine power and many people questioned whether there should
be a Governor General at all in a democratic country.
So as much as I think Edward and Sophie could do a good job in the position of Canadian Governor General, I don't think most Canadians would go for it!
