Last December, three Canadians of international distinction were appointed as Officers of the Order of Canada, and, as in most years, received the standard single-day recognition which typically follows the announcement of the nation’s highest honours.
Basketball superstar Steve Nash, late night musical director Paul Shaffer and the world’s best known hockey dad–Walter Gretzky–joined the ranks of Farley Mowat, Bruce Cockburn, Pamela Wallin and hundreds of other distinguished Canucks as Officers, the second highest rank of the Order.
Yet few pay attention to the annual ceremony outside of a few newsrooms and attentive sports fans. Indeed, the appointment of Members, Officers, and Companions of the Order of Canada, the closest this country can come to offering knighthood, is forgotten as soon the next day’s news arrives.
Forty-one years ago, Canada celebrated 100 years of existence with parades, a world’s fair, and a level of patriotism that has yet to be replicated. In this tide of patriotism, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson recommended to the visiting Queen Elizabeth that she establish Canada’s own system of honours.
The Order has since created a venerable canon of politicians, athletes, artists, activists and business leaders who have shaped this nation’s history, culture, and image abroad. It is a directory of the divisions–English, French, Aboriginal, man, woman, business, labour–brought together to symbolize the power of diversity.
But the achievement which unites those 5,268 men and women is, at best, an afterthought for most Canadians.
What has led to this lamentable circumstance? First, the award itself, while no doubt prized by its members, hardly has the sex appeal of the Junos or even the NHL Awards, let alone the Academy Awards or Grammys.
Where the big-budget galas have red carpet interviews, slickly dressed celebrities and throngs of paparazzi, the Order of Canada appointment ceremony is held in the regal Rideau Hall as largely a closed affair.
And, as a relatively young award, the Order has yet to acquire the mysticism that surrounds knighthood.
The selection process is effective, yet hardly as glitzy as the nomination announcements for the year’s best actors and actresses. Names are written in by supporters of a Companion-to-be.
Then, the 11-member advisory panel, comprised of some of the country’s most esteemed public servants such as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Beverly McLachlin and Kevin Lynch, the Clerk of the Privy Council, determines who is worthy of the title. While they are citizens of the utmost repute, they are hardly the household names seen on Entertainment Tonight.
Added to these conditions is a broad sense of mediocrity which pervades much of the national conscience.
In our endless attempt at distancing ourselves from our southern neighbours, we tend to view excellence as a source of personal pride, not of national honour. And in doing so, the Order becomes a casualty of our remarkable ability to view achievement with suspicion.
The Order of Canada is far from a perfect institution. Two of its members, Alan Eagleson, a convicted fraudster, and David Ahenakew, a native leader who praised Hitler, have been stripped of their title. But these setbacks pale against the vivid mosaic of cultural identity which the Order could be.
In the Order, all Canadians have a point of reference to what successive governments generally deem as valuable and worthy work, to what forces have shaped recent history, to what qualities create the national character.
It is the rare opportunity to define just what Canada is and can be.