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Clarkson becomes 26th Governor General
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Governor
General Adrienne Clarkson reviews her Honour Guard at
Government House in Ottawa Thursday.(CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand)
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OTTAWA (CP) - Adrienne Clarkson, "a person of
singular talent, discernment and achievement," was sworn in Thursday
as the country's 26th Governor General, amid all the pomp and
ceremony appropriate to the office.
After the formal document from the Queen was read
out, commissioning Clarkson as Governor General, Supreme Court
Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dube administered the three oaths of the
vice-regal office.
While a crowd of dignitaries watched in the
red-trimmed Senate chamber, Clarkson swore an oath of allegiance, an
oath of office and of commander-in-chief and a third oath of the
keeper of the Great Seal.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Chief Justice Antonio Lamer, the
cabinet, Opposition Leader Preston Manning and former governor
general Ray Hnatyshyn headed the gilt-edged guest list.
Chretien praised Clarkson's special qualities "that make her so
worthy of this office." He said she has used "extraordinary insight"
in her dogged defence of Canadian arts and culture.
"We are coming to the close of the 20th century, a great and
terrible century, one of bright dreams and dark nightmares, when we
often had reason to wonder there was any hope for the world," he
said.
"For me, the success of Canada has been about proving to
ourselves and the world that there is always hope for a brighter
tomorrow, for new opportunities for tolerance and understanding.
"Madame Adrienne Clarkson, your experiences and success fortify
me in this belief."
Clarkson praised her 92-year-old father, who was in the audience,
and her deceased mother.
"My mother's intense and abiding love is here in spirit
Thursday," she said.
She recalled her family's arrival as refugees in 1942 and spoke
of the boons and benefits they found in their adopted country. She
quoted poets, politicians and philosophers, including her husband,
in praising Canada's struggle to maintain tolerance and civility.
She also spoke reflectively of the simple glories of Georgian
Bay.
A guard of honour, a military band and red-coated choristers
welcomed Clarkson and her husband, John Ralston Saul, to Parliament
Hill.
Her motorcade swept past a sparse crowd up the curving drive
before the Centre Block and she was greeted by Chretien and Senator
Bernie Boudreau, the newly minted government leader in the Senate.
As she entered the rotunda, the Central Children's Chamber Choir
of Ottawa burst into a rendition of Come Ye Makers of Song, the high
clear notes reverberating off the high, stone ceiling and the marble
floor.
Led by Mary McLaren, the Usher of the Black Rod, the dignitaries
strode down the hall to the Senate chamber and entered with a
trumpet fanfare.
After signing the oaths and assuming the office, Clarkson mounted
the Speaker's dais and took the vice-regal throne, as trumpets
sounded and the blue, vice-regal flag with the gold lion broke in
the breeze over the Peace Tower.
Clarkson wore a simple, black dress, with her Order of Canada at
her throat. She now becomes, in addition, Chancellor of the order
and of the Order of Military Merit.
A 21-gun salute boomed out from the guns of the 30th Field
Artillery Regiment and rattled the windows of the Senate.
A pair of Inuit throat singers performed traditional songs before
Most. Rev. Michael Peers, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada,
read a specially commissioned blessing.
Les Petit Chanteurs de Trois-Rivieres sand Le Doux Chagrin by
Gilles Vigneault and the duo of Donna Brown and Catherine Robbin
sang She's Like a Swallow, a traditional Newfoundland air.
A SKETCH OF HER EXCELLENCY ADRIENNE CLARKSON,
installed Thursday as the 26th Governor General of Canada:
Born: 1939 in Hong Kong.
Arrived: 1942 in Ottawa with family as political refugees.
Education: University of Toronto, Sorbonne in Paris.
Professional career: CBC broadcaster from 1965 to 1982 and
1988-98; former president of McClelland and Stewart publishing
1987-88.
Arts involvement: Chairperson of the board of the Canadian Museum
of Civilization in Hull, Que.
Politics: First agent-general for Ontario in Paris, 1982-1987.
Family: Married to philosopher John Ralston Saul; daughter Kyra
and son Blaise from former marriage to political scientist Stephen
Clarkson; father William Poy; brother Neville Poy, plastic surgeon;
sister-in-law Vivienne Poy, senator.
EXCERPTS FROM THE TEXT OF SPEECH given Thursday by Adrienne
Clarkson at her installation as Governor General of Canada:
Prime Minister,
You have expressed to me the affection, loyalty and esteem of the
Canadian people, which it will be my honour to convey to our
gracious sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II.
I am pleased to accept the responsibility of being Her Majesty's
representative in Canada, with all that entails, through our history
and our custom. Knowing better than anyone my own shortcomings, I
undertake this task with humility and ask you all, as Canadians, to
help me.
I take on the responsibility of becoming Canada's 26th Governor
General since Confederation, fully conscious of the deep roots of
this office, stretching back to the governors of New France and to
the first of them, Samuel de Champlain . . .
Allow me a moment of personal reflection. The Poy family,
arriving here as refugees in 1942, was made up of my parents, my
brother and myself. Three of us are in this chamber Thursday.
We did not arrive as part of a regular immigration procedure.
There was no such thing for a Chinese family at that time in
Canadian history.
My mother's intense and abiding love is here in spirit Thursday.
My brother, Dr. Neville Poy, was seven when we arrived.
And my father, Bill Poy, is here - extraordinary, in his 92nd
year. Lance-Cpl. Poy, dispatch rider with the Hong Kong Volunteer
Corps, received the Military Medal for his bravery during the battle
of Hong Kong. Like many soldiers, he never speaks of those actions,
but it is his bravery which is the underpinning of his children's
lives. To have been brought up by courageous and loving parents was
a gift that made up for all we had lost . . .
Because my father had a job with the Department of Trade and
Commerce and because we lived among French-Canadians, I became
fixated, from the age of five, with the idea of learning French.
I remember the day when I was dressed up in my patent leather
shoes and pink smocked dress, and was taken up the street by my
parents to the convent of Ste. Jeanne d'Arc, where I was interviewed
by a kindly woman wearing white all around her face, while a dim
crucifix glowed in the background. Walking home, I sensed that there
was dejection in the air and disappointment. It had been explained
to my parents that it was not possible for a Protestant to receive
French-language education in Ottawa.
In my lifetime, this has changed to such a radical degree that I
don't even need to comment on it. But that early sense of something
being impossible, which actually was nonsensical, put steel into me
. . .
There seem to be two kinds of societies in the world Thursday.
Perhaps there have always been only two kinds - punishing societies
and forgiving societies. A society like Canada's, with its four
centuries of give-and-take, compromise and acceptance, wrong-doing
and redress, is basically a forgiving society.
We try - we must try - to forgive what is past. The punishing
society never forgets the wrongs of the past. The forgiving society
works towards the actions of the future. The forgiving society
enables people to behave well toward one another, to begin again, to
build a society in hope and with love . . .
We must not forget that this complexity is whole. To be complex
does not mean to be fragmented. This is the paradox and the genius
of our Canadian civilization.
In the contemplation of our wholeness lies the symbolic
importance of the Governor General: the identification of this post
with inclusiveness - the inclusiveness that lies at the core of
Canadian society, at its best. This is the essence of our notorious
decency, our infamous desire to do good . . .
The essence of inclusiveness is that we are part of a society in
which language, colour, education, sex and money need not, should
not divide us, but can make us more aware and sensitive to
difference . . .
We must not see ourselves as a small country of 30 million
people, floundering in a large land mass. We are among the
healthiest, best-educated people in the world, with great natural
riches. We have two of the world's great languages.
We must not see ourselves as people who simply react to trends
but as people who can initiate them.
We must not see ourselves as people to whom things are done but
as people who do things . . .
The streetcar our family often took on Sunday afternoons to
Rockliffe Park used to pass the closed gates of Rideau Hall. I'm so
glad that has changed. I'm delighted that crowds of people now come
through the grounds and the Visitor Centre. I look forward to
continuing the tradition of welcoming Canadians to what is, in
effect, your national house.
But we will not always be in Ottawa. John and I intend to travel
and re-travel this whole country by plane, train, car, canoe and
kayak. We are initiating the holding of a public levee in each
province and territory we visit. You are all invited . . .
As I take up this task, I ask you to embark on a journey with me.
Together, I hope that we will be able to do it with the Inuit
quality of isuma, which is defined as an intelligence that includes
knowledge of one's responsibility towards society. The Inuit believe
that it can only grow in its own time; it grows because it is
nurtured. I pray that with God's help, we, as Canadians, will trace
with our own lives, what Stan Rogers called "one warm line through
this land, so wild and savage."
And in the footsteps of Samuel de Champlain, I am willing to
follow.
© The Canadian Press, 1999
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