In practice, the title of commissioner has evolved to include a variety of senior officials, often sitting on a specific commission.
Therefore titles such as commissaire in French, Kommissar in German[a] and comisario in Spanish or commissario in Italian, can mean either commissioner or commissary in English, depending on the context.
Unlike the governor general or a lieutenant governor, commissioners are not viceregal representatives of the Canadian monarch; rather, they are delegates of the federal Crown-in-Council and, under federal statutes governing the territories,[2][3][4] act following written instructions from Cabinet or the minister responsible (currently the minister of northern affairs).
Commissioners thus perform ceremonial duties similar to those of the monarch and viceroys, including reading the speech from the throne at the opening of the territorial legislature and presenting commendations to Canadian Forces members for long-term or outstanding service to the office.
All town, village, district and parish local government bodies consist of commissioners, except for Douglas, which has a council and councillors.
[5][6][7] In Minnesota,[8] Alaska,[9][10]New Hampshire, New York,[11] Texas and Tennessee, the heads of some statewide departments are called "commissioners".
Commissioners’ role closely resembles that of the ministers of the Union’s member states; each is assigned a portfolio under the authority of the president of the EU Commission, but they make important decisions collegially, often subject to approval by the European Parliament and/or the Council of the European Union, the two organs of the EU’s bicameral legislature.
The French equivalent, commissaire, was used for various officials employed at different levels of the colonial administration in several French-ruled countries.
Grigoryev) were appointed, alongside the last native tribal paramount chief (title Ambyn-noyon), followed by a single commissar of the provisional government (October 1917 – 16 March 1918 Aleksey Aleksandrovich Turchaninov) until czarist rule collapsed for good, giving way to the Soviet regime A UN commissioner appointed in 1949 supervised the transition of the UN Trust territory of Libya (a former Italian colony; actually Tripolitania and Cyrenaica each was under a British administrator, in 1949 restyled Resident, Fezzan under a French military governor, in 1950 also restyled résident) to independence as a united monarchy in 1951.
From the mid-19th century until 1939, two U.S. government cabinet departments used the title "commissioner" for officials posted abroad who did not enjoy diplomatic status.
[22][23][24][25] Noted American author Mark Twain recounted meeting one of the 19th-century roving agricultural commissioners in Innocents Abroad: I was proud to observe that among our excursionists were three ministers of the gospel, eight doctors, sixteen or eighteen ladies, several military and naval chieftains with sounding titles, an ample crop of "Professors" of various kinds, and a gentleman who had "COMMISSIONER OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO EUROPE, ASIA, AND AFRICA" thundering after his name in one awful blast!
I said that if that potentate must go over in our ship, why, I supposed he must – but that to my thinking, when the United States considered it necessary to send a dignitary of that tonnage across the ocean, it would be in better taste, and safer, to take him apart and cart him over in sections in several ships.Ah, if I had only known then that he was only a common mortal, and that his mission had nothing more overpowering about it than the collecting of seeds and uncommon yams and extraordinary cabbages and peculiar bullfrogs for that poor, useless, innocent, mildewed old fossil the Smithsonian Institute [sic], I would have felt so much relieved.
[31][32][33][34] The exact powers of the commissioner depend on the constitution and/or rules of the league, and are invariably limited by State and Federal Law and collective bargaining agreements.
Landis' title derived from the National Commission, the ruling body for baseball established in 1903, when the two leagues were largely autonomous organizations.
Desperate to restore public confidence in their sport's integrity, baseball owners agreed to appoint Landis as the game's sole commissioner after he rebuffed their offer of a position at the head of a reformed commission.
The NFL, which in its early years faced several rival leagues, intended its commissioner's office to be analogous to the one then held by Landis in baseball, with authority over all of professional football.
The National Basketball Association followed suit by appointing a commissioner in 1967, largely in response to a rival league that commenced play that year.
The NHL finally appointed a commissioner in 1993 (long after merging with the WHA) when incumbent Gary Bettman assumed office.
[36] The NWSL's highest office was styled as "president"[37] until the "commissioner" title was reinstated when Lisa Baird filled that post in 2020.
[38] Due to the unique ownership structure of the Professional Women's Hockey League, the organization has no current plans to appoint a commissioner.
A key difference between the state of affairs in North America and Europe is that most European sports (including those in Great Britain) include powerful governing bodies that operate independently of and hold some power over the professional leagues, whereas in North America the equivalent governing bodies' de facto authority is mostly confined to amateur sport.
Current commissioners of the North American professional leagues are Roger Goodell in the NFL, Rob Manfred in MLB (and Minor League Baseball), Adam Silver in the NBA, Gary Bettman in the NHL, Don Garber in MLS, Randy Ambrosie in the CFL, Oliver Luck in the XFL, Cathy Engelbert in the WNBA, and Lisa Baird in the NWSL.