As Clarkson and Saul depart, give them their due
Today Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul will attend the installation of Michaelle Jean as Governor General of Canada. Then, without ceremony or company, they will slip away, private citizens again. While their predecessors did not attend Clarkson's installation, it is unsurprising that she and Saul would want to be at this one. It reflects their sense of the authority and the continuity of the office.
With them, the office always came first. In everything they did in their six feverish years at Rideau Hall, it was always about the office -- how to preserve it, how to protect it, how to enhance it, how to renew it. It was always about the office because, at the end of the day, the office is about the country they serve.
From the moment Clarkson and Saul arrived in Ottawa on Oct. 7, 1999, they knew what to do. They had thought about the complexities of Canada. As Her Excellency delivered her remarks, one observer in the gallery whispered to another: "You know, she's been preparing all her life for this." The reply: "You know, she didn't have to prepare."
Clarkson was Jean Chretien's most inspired appointment. From the start, Clarkson and Saul (who would be a full partner) looked like a vice-regal couple. They had intelligence, instinct, imagination and energy. They knew the shadows of our history and the creases of our geography. Most of all, they had an idea of Canada. They set out to modernize --indeed, Canadianize -- an antiquated institution. It was not easy; they inherited an office held by a succession of congenial if listless mediocrities who saw little role for themselves beyond the ceremonial. No wonder it had fallen into a genteel irrelevance.
How to reverse that? Declare yourself Canada's "de facto head of state." Act like the commander-in-chief. Go North, often, and call it your "spiritual home." Celebrate our past. Understand, fundamentally, as Vincent Massey once said, that the job is "constitutionally conceived but culturally lived."
The Governor General and her husband can look back with pride on schools opened, levees held, condolences sent, medals awarded, honours conferred, hands shaken. But what really mattered were so many other things they did, many unnoticed. The Constitution didn't say that they had to spend every Christmas or New Year's with Canadian soldiers in Bosnia, Afghanistan or the Persian Gulf. Or that they had to honour the forgotten peacekeepers of Croatia. Or that they had to stand in the withering heat of Normandy hearing the names of the Canadians murdered in the woods by the SS in 1944.
When you are prepared to do something right, no vision is too big and no detail is too small. So, you bring back the lion's claws of the Governor General's Coat of Arms. You redesign the chaotic approach to Rideau Hall (Saul's work) and restore its crumbling heritage buildings. You plant the gardens with native flowers and trees, serve Canadian wine and food, and show off Canadian furniture and art. You make Rideau Hall resplendent. You give speeches, more than a thousand between the two of you, in both languages, elegant and thoughtful. You talk about the importance of French immersion and the duties of citizenship and the plight of the homeless. You turn the state visit into a strategic opportunity to sell Canada. You create the Northern Medal and the Clarkson Cup. You rush to the bedside of the dying to give them the Order of Canada. You comfort wounded soldiers who will remember you. You raise money for street kids in Thailand who won't remember you, but it doesn't matter.
You do all this amid a chorus of criticism, all petty, silly, racist or scurrilous. You do it against a Parliament that cuts your budget and undermines your senior officials and a government that cancels a foreign visit it asked you to make. As time will show, the only sins of the vice-regal couple were underestimating how mean-spirited Canadians can be, and how, in this envious nation, it is dangerous to be too ambitious, successful or daring. But you persevere, even when you want to answer your critics but cannot, or when you are ill, which you were. You don't do this for the money (the salary is lousy and your spouse is unpaid) or for the kudos, because praise isn't Canadian. You do it, day in and day out, in more ways with more effort and impact than anyone before you, out of duty, honour, and love of country.
So this afternoon, as Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul leave Parliament Hill for the last time, let them finally receive what they richly deserve: The warm applause of a grateful nation.
Andrew Cohen is a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.
I knew she was a French citizen already so her stopping being that is, er, a step in the right direction I suppose...
