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Governor-General David Johnston and his wife Sharon are all smiles at on Oct. 15, 2010.Pawel Dwulit

Stephen Harper did the asking but it was Laureen Harper who closed the deal.

The Prime Minister really wanted David Johnston to serve as the next governor-general and the university president and long-time academic was receptive. His wife Sharon, however, was reluctant.

So Mr. Harper dispatched his wife, Laureen, with instructions to work her magic.

It was a trip to the RCMP stables, just down the road from Rideau Hall, that helped convince Mrs. Johnston, an avid horsewoman, that life in official - and very public - Ottawa would not be too bad.

"She did some fast-talking with me," Mrs. Johnston admitted Friday as she and her husband, Canada's 28th Governor-General, sat down for an interview with The Globe and Mail. "She's so much fun. She is just a breath of fresh air."

Her reluctance, though brief, was born from a desire to really settle down on their horse farm in southwestern Ontario after a peripatetic life as the wife of a successful academic.

But she describes herself as a person who is "very engaged." And after a "chat" with her husband, who was excited at the prospect of serving Canada in this way, and discussions with her daughters, she was convinced.

It helps that she will be riding four times a week at the RCMP stables.

The couple - who have been married for 46 years - took over their vice-regal duties two weeks ago. Since then it's been a series of media interviews, events and dinners.

High-school sweethearts, they are clearly good friends. Both of them are very fit and active. They have a lot of ideas about what it is they want to achieve over the next five years.

Family, children and education are dominant themes. The Johnstons have five daughters - all accomplished and all involved in public service. There are seven grandchildren (one of them was blowing kisses at her grandfather during the installation ceremony; two of them were coming over for a sleepover at Rideau Hall Friday night.)

Mrs. Johnston laughs as she recounts their first evening at Rideau Hall. Friends and relatives, including 15 children, were over for dinner. They were all sitting around the formal long table in the dining room of the vice-regal mansion.

Two days later, the couple played host to the Aga Khan and members of the Ismaili community at the same table.

"To be able to go from 15 kids in high chairs to the Aga Khan ... was amazing," said Mrs. Johnston, noting the contrast.

With a PhD in Rehabilitation Science, she wants to do more for military families, whose sacrifice to the country she admires.

"It's quite remarkable that a big house like this can be so welcoming in a familial sense," she said. "And so I would like to be able to invite, and hopefully they will want to come, military families."

For someone who was raised by a single mother and a grandmother - (Mrs. Johnston is writing a book about her grandmother, a hospital superintendent, teasing that it includes some scandalous bits) - family also means community and support groups.

The Governor-General and his wife spoke enthusiastically, too, about early education for young children - reaching them at that vulnerable and impressionable period between birth and 3.

"You have to start before the child is born because you're looking at the prenatal period and young mothers who are at risk," Mrs. Johnston said.

The Governor-General, meanwhile, said he want to leave the office "better than when I found it.

"That makes no judgment on how I found it, but any institution that I have gone to, that has always been job number one - has always been to understand it and improve it," he said.

He cautioned that his next answer might sound arrogant - but he said there is nothing that scares him about his job, not even the prospect of having to deal with some messy political situation.

That's because he is prepared - a student of history and law, he is well-read and well-informed. And he said, too, that he has lots of advice to "call upon" and is surrounded by a good group of people at Rideau Hall.

"For me, the definition of leadership is recognizing your total dependence on the people around you," he said.

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