The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund: Stories

Madame Clarkson recalls her own refugee experience December 11, 2009

By Christine Hills

The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson

The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson addressed members and invited guests at a dinner held on the Friday evening of The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund’s national leadership forum in October. Madame Clarkson is the patron of PWRDF’s 50 Refugee Families Sponsorship initiative and spoke about the importance of refugee sponsorship from first hand experience.

The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson
Adrienne Clarkson was born in 1939 in Hong Kong and came to Canada in 1942 with her parents William and Ethel Poy. The Poy family were refugees. This has endeared her to the many people who continue to work for the protection and resettlement of refugees in Canada and around the world. Madame Clarkson has had a rich and illustrious career since her arrival on Canadian shores. She has worked in journalism, broadcasting, the arts and in public service. She is a prolific author and has been recognized for this with several awards and appointments. She was sworn in as Canada’s 26th Governor General on October 7, 1999. Her passion for Canada is evident in all she does. Her years at Rideau Hall were spent promoting tolerance, public responsibility, a sense of community and belonging that are now engrained in the Canadian conscience.

When approached by Archbishop Fred Hiltz, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada to become honorary patron of The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund’s 50 Refugee Families Sponsorship initiative, Madame Clarkson stated that she wanted to support this initiative: “because it is important for people to realize that Canada has always been a welcoming country and that the first European immigrants were welcomed here by the Aboriginal people. I feel particularly strongly about this having been a refugee myself, arriving in Canada in 1942 in the middle of the Second World War with one suitcase for each one of us – my mother, father, brother and I. We will never forget how we were taken in by different people who became friends – French-Canadians to whom we had an introduction because one of their relatives had once worked in Hong Kong in the 30s, our friends that we made through the neighborhood and through our first church which was Christ Church Cathedral. I know that our being Anglicans certainly did help us a great deal and our later attachment to the Church of St. John the Evangelist was also a meaningful thing for our family so that we belonged to an Anglican family within a Canadian society. Although we were accepted warmly, there was no structure to coordinate anything that might have been done for us. I feel it is very important now for the Anglican Church of Canada to continue this warmth and welcome and acknowledgment in a structured way. I believe that as practicing Anglicans, we must manifest our desire to be part of a better world by helping anyone less fortunate than ourselves and I feel that we must start where our interest lies on a day to day basis i.e. in our parishes.”

“Only those who have ever had to face the upheaval involved in moving their home and country through war and who are thrown like flotsam and jetsam into a wider world of which they know very little can appreciate the terror and the fear that this generates. When we think of families being involved in this, we should appreciate that the parents are worried not only for their own sake, but also for the insecurity this will cause to their children. In many cases, the refugees do not speak either French or English and that is an additional barrier to understanding what is happening to them. I see our involvement as Anglicans as a human action to include all people as part of our extended family. I believe if we all were to put ourselves in a refugee’s place we would gain a greater understanding of what it is to have privilege and what it is to start again from nothing. As a Canadian, I can’t think of more useful work joining our religious commitment to our duties as citizens than being a part of a settlement program for specific refugee families.”

 “Christ showed us that we should love each other the way He loved us. Remember when you are dealing with something that seems interminable and to which there seems to be no immediate resolution, that it is that love that sustains all of us.”

Madame Clarkson is a living example of the transformative gift that refugee sponsorship represents. She brings meaning to welcoming the stranger and a sense of hope to those who have been displaced by war, famine and persecution. She also brings hope and encouragement to all Anglicans in Canada, especially those involved in the refugee sponsorship program.