Nearly 70 years ago, Adrienne Clarkson stood with her family at the edge of a dock in southeast Hong Kong. Permitted one suitcase each, the family of four boarded the next ship, leaving the Pacific War's atrocities in their wake.
It's difficult to pinpoint just when the three-year-old girl fleeing a country ravaged by war grew into the woman who would become Canada's 26th Governor General.
Clarkson's path to Rideau Hall isn't a straightforward one -- it deviates, zigzagging from the lowest deck of a passenger ship to a sprawling estate on Sussex Drive. Still, she insists her life's journey is nothing special.
"What I know of Canada, it's not that extraordinary because there are many people who have come with nothing and less than I had," she says.
Out to prove that all Canadians have remarkable stories to tell, Clarkson wrote "Room for All of Us" (Penguin Books). The 248-page tome released this week chronicles the lives of 10 notable nationals, born in and outside Canada.
Clarkson says the stories from standout Canadians such as Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi and former diplomat Fred Bild supports the idea that Canada offers anyone the ability to conquer onerous circumstances and thrive.
She attributes this atmosphere of opportunity to Canada's "benevolent neglect," a phrase often used to describe a hands-off managerial style.
"People let you alone," she says. "They don't put barriers up in your way in Canada."
Clarkson recalls how her teachers gently encouraged her during her grade-school years at Ottawa's Kent Street Public School and Lisgar Collegiate. Her memoir "Heart Matters" describes how her mother regularly reminded Clarkson that public school was a privilege that wouldn't have been available to her had she remained in Hong Kong.
"There's this feeling that people do want you to participate with them," she says over the phone from her Toronto office. "We're a consciously egalitarian society."
But despite the rosy assessment, the most recent labour force data available suggests many Canadian immigrants haven't been able to access the same level of success as Clarkson or the people in her book.
Numbers collected for Statistics Canada in 2008 and 2010 show that the employment rate for immigrants remains below that of Canadian-born citizens. The data also reveals a persistent wage gap between the two groups, with newcomers to Canada often receiving the raw end of the deal.
Clarkson acknowledges that a newcomer's arrival to Canada is far from effortless. She points to a fierce job market and mounting backlog of citizenship applications as problems "creeping up on us" that need to be addressed.
"We have to look at what's made us successful up ‘til now and try and turn that into something we can face the future with," she says.
Clarkson's appraisal of what should be on Ottawa's immigration agenda appears to be on point.
The federal New Democrats have used the logjam of citizenship applications to criticize the Tory government's immigration policies. Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said that tackling the backlog is one of his priorities.
An accidental love story
Clarkson says Canada's immigration model has been a success, adding that we aren't sure how we've achieved that success. She equates this idea to falling in love.
"You fall in love with somebody and it's just magic," she says. "But in order to…live with that person, it's going to take work and it's going to take an idea of what it is that both of you want."
Pushing that metaphor a step further, current figures imply Canada's romance with immigration hasn't dwindled.
The nation plays host to 2,900 citizenship ceremonies a year. If there are 49 new citizens taking the oath, Clarkson estimates that they will come, on average, from 25 different countries around the world.
"They have come to a country and they have had to adapt to us, and we also. Because they have come to us, we have changed too," says Clarkson.
She adds that Canada is now tasked with figuring how the country has achieved "success" in immigration and refining that model.
While Clarkson left Rideau Hall in 2005, she remains transfixed with Canadian policies that shape immigration and citizenship.
In an initiative she calls her "legacy project," Clarkson founded the Institute for Canadian Citizenship -- a non-governmental organization that has become something of a watchdog on citizenship and a support base for newcomers.
On top of her work with the institute, Clarkson says she continues to respond to a deluge of emails, letters and phone calls related to her time as Governor General.
Those tasks made headlines in early September when the media got hold of government documents showing that Clarkson has billed taxpayers more than $500,000 in administration costs since she left Rideau Hall.
While the spending was splashed across national news pages, Clarkson says she was just fulfilling her responsibilities as the Queen's representative in Canada.
"I didn't defend it. I simply explained it," says Clarkson. "I still receive about 200 requests a month. This is part of what all governor generals and prime ministers receive when they leave office."
Clarkson says she hired two administrative assistants to help her with the correspondence.
"It's understood when you take the office that this will happen because you don't die when you leave office," she says. "Maybe that would be handy, but it isn't what happens."
Clarkson's book "Room for All of Us" went on sale on Oct. 18.
