One of my continuing hopes is that at some point we will be able to free up Elizabeth and her rather astounding corporate memory for protocol events, certainly before she goes into the happy climes of retirement—not that she's thinking of doing that any time soon—and pull together what could be a helpful sort of guidebook or guidelines on the principles of protocol.
I believe the earlier witnesses were talking about that and saying that they were disinclined to have something like this, because people would be then stuck with the written word. I know that this is a danger, but I've been on the flip side of it, whereby you try to tell people it's a convention that the Hall of Honour is used in this or this way, and they say, where is it written down? So it all depends.
I wouldn't like to see us hamstrung by what would seem to be rules that are poured in concrete, but I do think that basic principles, which Elizabeth has told me many times, don't change from one event to another. What you're trying to do is arrange with a kind of invisible courtesy to ensure that everybody who takes part in an event is duly recognized for what they bring to the event and has the attention paid to them that they believe they merit by virtue of their participation, for whatever role they might play. That's where I think the negotiation comes in.
One of the things I've discovered in my time, certainly as deputy clerk when I became deputy clerk in 2000, and since I was named Clerk in 2005, is that the levels of protocol from one country to another may change quite dramatically. If you accompany the Speaker on a visit abroad, you might find yourself with motorcycle escorts and outriders and what have you; it's all very exciting. Then you think to yourself, oh heavens, when we reciprocate and these people come here, there's going to be some difficulty in explaining to them that we don't do it quite that way. “There are no motorcycle escorts except for very unusual guests, and sadly, you're not one of them.”
That's always a bit of a trick. What we try to do there is to say, what we are offering you is this. We want you to feel comfortable in Canada with Canadian norms and Canadian customs, and so this is what we would do for a person of your rank. As I say, it can be a tricky conversation to have, but we have people who are very good at doing it.