Adrienne Clarkson and I have never spoken

together. We have never even, as Voltaire said he occasionally did to God, nodded. However, over the years we have found ourselves in the same places at the same time - Trinity College, Toronto; St Mary Magdalene Church in the same city; the C.B.C.'s old Jarvis Street buildings and the roof lounge of the Park Plaza Hotel. Each of those places has served such an important function in our respective lives that one is tempted to feel an affinity with the great lady that is not, in fact, real.

I was for some years a C.B.C. radio voice on an interview and talk show called "Interplay" while Mme Clarkson was a nationally-known television personality. We worked with some of the same producers and control room people. Their gossip increased my illusion of knowing her personally. Too, that legal squabble over her right to block a Yorkville neighbour's sunshine by building an addition to her own house involved some people whom I knew.

The recent Clarkson book, Heart Matters, has received varied reviews. One writer summarised her comments on the relationship with Paul Martin, the former prime minister, with the word "meow". That would be "miaou" in French. Speakers of either language will get the point. The irrepressible Rex Murphy fired a volley in his usual flawless prose. She had penned, he said, a larger view of Canadian politics than Tolstoy had provided of the Battle of Borodino in War and Peace. "Whatever may have been at stake in that ruckus", he wrote, "I feel it [Her Excellency's viewpoint] is less in the territory of Tolstoy than of P.G. Wodhouse". Wodehouse (1881-1975) was a writer of humourous fiction, the creator of "Jeeves", the consummate gentleman's gentleman who regularly rescued his aristocratic master, Lord Bertie Wooster, from predicaments.

The chief controversy that blew up around the Clarkson tenure of Rideau Hall concerned a circumpolar trip in the company of 35 experts and cultural attachés to emphasise Canada's solidarity with northern nations and their aboriginal people. I thought it to be a good idea but there were some who considered any such expenditure of time and money unwarranted. Those of that opinion came down heavily on the former G-G. Others may think her observation in the book that the world of politics suffers from too much male triumphalism, lack of compassion and contempt for weakness to be aggressive feminism.

The other major misunderstanding was Her Excellency's claim to be "above politics". Many would not, of course, wish to descend to the level of much current politics, let alone fall below it. Question Period in the Commons is sometimes a national disgrace and there more skulduggery behind parliamentary doors than one likes to think about. Plus, there are those who put themselves forward for public office who are 'infra dignitatem' ('beneath dignity') in their lack of education or sophistication. It is to Mme Clarkson's credit that while she was Her Majesty's representative in Canada she never acted in an 'infra dig' manner. In that sense she was certainly above politics. There was a certain professional 'hauteur' that some disliked but it is important to have leaders who would not appear out of place in circles of power and influence anywhere. That is equally true of those elected to municipal councils.

It would be better to regard the representative of the Crown as being beyond rather than above politics. When the Scottish author John Buchan, Lord Tweedsmuir, was Governor General he said in a speech at Bishop's University in Lennoxville that Canada, French and English, has always been a monarchy and that the King or Queen represents the history and continuity of the nation - and of the commonwealth of nations - beyond all the mutations and vicissitudes of party politics and regional differences. He added that a constitutional monarchy and responsible government keep final power out of the hands of any demagogue or commander-in-chief who may not actually represent the "mind of the nation" at any given time, especially in a time of crisis.

It is to be noted that the Governor General, and certainly not the Prime Minister, is not Canada's Head of State. She represents, and he serves as the first minister of, the Queen who is our Head of State. That is why the monarch's image is on the coins in your purse or pocket. The small anti-monarchist lobby delights in the slogan "Off with her head". Its partisans like to portray the monarchy as a survival of feudalism or as the top rung of a class system that does not have the approval of most Canadians.

As I remember, Lord Tweedsmuir, the educated and urbane son of a Presbyterian minister and certainly not an aristocrat, said that the Throne is outside any class or profession. The monarch is akin to and, one hopes, an example for, everybody in the realm. And although there have been unworthy and unpopular monarchs, just as there have been that kind of popes, it is the office that is significant. In our monarchy responsibility and power are shared widely. The Queen, as they say, reigns but she does not rule. There is a subtle and important difference. It cannot be said of a constitutional monarch, as it sometimes is of the president of a republic, that he/she is the most powerful person (for good or ill) in the world.

Stephen Harper talked politically and probably inconsequentially to President Karzai of Afghanistan when the latter met recently with the federal cabinet and spoke in the House of Commons. At Rideau Hall Mme Micha_lle Jean and others made it clear to Mr Karzai that many think our military presence in Afghanistan is achieving neither its military objectives nor the aim of restoring the stability from which alone peace can come.

Nor are Canadians all that happy about our involvement in his country and the thought that we shall almost certainly have to be there long past 2009. Each new government has its own agenda. A Governor General who is above/beyond politics can advise the power brokers what Canadians, however they vote, may really be thinking.