The Order of Canada: An accolade that demonstrates why waving the flag just isn’t enough - The Globe and Mail
12-07-11 2:34 PM
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The Order of Canada: An accolade that
demonstrates why waving the flag just isn’t enough
Erin Anderssen
The Globe and Mail
Last updated Friday, Jun. 29 2012, 7:15 PM EDT
U of T scholar Natalie Zemon Davis, who has been awarded the Holberg Prize for outstanding scholarly
work in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law or theology, is photogrpahed at her home in Toronto,
Ont. (Kevin Van Paassen/The Globe and Mail)
To be a conscientious Canadian (or give a fair impression of one) is a relatively sweat-free activity these
days. You may start by rolling your compost bin to the curb on pickup day. Or make a stand for a tolerant
society by clicking “like” on the Facebook page for the new gay-friendly Oreo cookie with the rainbow
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The Order of Canada: An accolade that demonstrates why waving the flag just isn’t enough - The Globe and Mail
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filling.
Former premier Klein, hockey coach Quinn among those added to Order of Canada
Scotty Bowman, Brian Williams to get Order of Canada
Governor-General weighs stripping Conrad Black of his Order of Canada
If you stopped to wonder what all the other kids on the notorious bus ride in New York state were doing,
while their thuggish peers verbally assaulted the grandmotherly bus monitor, there was good to be done. You
could toss a few dollars to the victim’s vacation-turned-lifetime-retirement fund started online by a wellmeaning Toronto nutritionist.
And for a demonstration of patriotism this weekend, don the red and white, and post a “Happy Birthday,
Canada” update, once again online. You can manage it between zombie attacks on Minecraft.
Then along comes the Order of Canada, with its exhortations to national service, and celebration of lifetime
achievement, to give pause to the flag-waving revelry, and point out that real change requires more. If the
Order of Canada celebrates anything, it is effort – the kind given to the benefit of others, often at
inconvenience to one’s self. The latest 70 recipients, selected by special committee from a batch of
nominations, are named officially by the Governor-General, who has made philanthropy, both of the treasure
and talent variety, a platform of his tenure.
The names, released on Friday, include those of politicians, journalists and sport icons – such as former
Alberta premier Ralph Klein, and hockey player and coach Pat Quinn, whose careers brought their own
heady benefits, but also left their mark on the country.
Created in 1967, the award recognizes brilliant accomplishment that does honour to Canada – arguably the
finest example on the latest list being Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the world-acclaimed conductor from Montreal,
who at 38 becomes the youngest living Canadian accorded the highest honour, Companion of the Order. (The
youngest ever was Terry Fox, at 22.)
The same high honour is given to Ian Binnie, the former Supreme Court member who retired, after a highly
regarded 13 years of jurisprudence, from the bench in 2011, as well as Natalie Zemon Davis, a social
historian at the University of Toronto who won the prestigious Holberg Prize in 2010.
Recognition is also given to the generosity of philanthropists, such as Winnipeg businessman John Buhler
who, having achieved their own personal success, then give back – to hospitals, parks and art endeavours.
And tireless community workers such as Carolyn Acker, in Toronto, who started Pathways to Education to
help youth living in poverty.
Among the environmentalists recognized is Laure Weridel, 38, a prominent social activist and writer credited
with starting the fair trade movement in Quebec. The daughter of farmers, a background she credits with
giving her an awareness of environmental issues, she is also a supporter of Quebec Solidaire, a sovereigntist
party with a strong environmental platform. Now completing her doctorate in Switzerland, she wrote in an
article for the Alternatives Journal last fall: “We need a different mindset, a different way to envision what
happiness is and what it means to be wealthy and to progress. The status quo is no longer possible.”
The Order of Canada also pays overdue recognition to writers and scientists, long labouring in obscurity
outside their own professional circles. One example of the latter is Paul Hoffman, a geologist from Victoria,
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The Order of Canada: An accolade that demonstrates why waving the flag just isn’t enough - The Globe and Mail
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who is credited with proving the “snowball earth” theory, which means, in lay terms, what it says: The earth,
more than 650-million years ago, was one giant snowball of ice. (Dr. Hoffman is also part of one of the
order’s rare sibling combos; sister Abigail, an Olympic athlete and the founder of a hostel for abused women
in Toronto, was invested in 1982.)
But the heart of the award springs from its motto: Desiderantes meliorem patriam – “they desire a better
country.” Or, as 2012 recipient Alia Hogben, executive director of the Canadian Council for Muslim Women,
asks: “What are we all here for, if we don’t do something about it?”
So, at a time when there is much concern about engendering moral action in youth (beyond what they can
accomplish with a smartphone), an over-emphasis on acclaim for accomplishment and a growing discomfit
with social inequality, perhaps there are lessons to be learned from those on this year’s list who have risked
taking a stand or worked for little reward – those who have spoken up for people who most need a country
that can relish its greatness and yet still strive to be greater.
‘You do what you need to do’
Few can claim to have written a pamphlet that landed their spouse in jail.
It was 1952, and Natalie Zemon Davis, than a young graduate student at the University of Michigan, writing
her thesis on the unheralded participants in the Protestant Reformation, had just returned from studying in
France. With a colleague, she anonymously penned “Operation Mind,” a blistering, but “well-researched”
critique of McCarthyism and the Committee for Un-American Activities, which was on its way to Detroit to
investigate people suspected of links to communism.
“It didn’t cross my mind to worry about it,” the 83-year-old says, “because it needed to be said. You do what
you need to do.”
Her husband, Chandler Davis, a well-respected mathematician at the university, was treasurer for the faculty
association that had sponsored the pamphlet, and his name was on the printing receipt. He went to jail for five
months, while Dr. Davis stayed home to look after their three children.
After being stripped for a time of their U.S. passports, the couple eventually arrived in Canada and became
citizens. By then, Dr. Davis had developed a special interest in the members of society – peasants and women
and the working class – whose names don’t appear in the history books. Perhaps. it began early, she
speculates, as one of only two Jewish students at her Detroit private school, and a sense that “you were part
of a group that wasn’t at the centre of things.” (She then set about correcting this by serving in student
government.) At the University of Toronto, she joined a group of graduate students to push for better support
for women scholars with young families at home, and played a role in the creation of the first staff day care.
Named a Companion of the Order for her contribution to social history, in particular, her focus on everyday
people, she says that all success stories have “a whole network” behind them, “and you only get greatness in
a country if you tend to, and care about, these others, who might not surface in the newspaper.”
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The Order of Canada: An accolade that demonstrates why waving the flag just isn’t enough - The Globe and Mail
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As Michele Rouleau, a Montreal-based recipient observes, part of the responsibility of citizenship is
educating yourself about injustice. “The more you see it, the more you want to change things,” she says.
“You can’t just walk away from it.”
The former president of the Native Women’s Association, Ms. Rouleau, 55, worked for women who had
unfairly lost their Indian status, and later, to raise awareness about domestic violence. She was part of the
first truckload of food and supplies allowed through the blockade during the standoff at Oka in 1990, and she
saw how the incident eroded efforts to build understanding about native issues.
“You can’t think about because you will go crazy,” says Ms. Rouleau, who now runs her own production
company that works with native youth on Quebec reserves.
Social change is the product of persistence. “We are living together and we still don’t know each other,” she
says of the current relationship between natives and non-natives in Canada. “But we have to move on and
keep working.”
For Alia Hogben, who will be invested as a member of the Order of Canada, part of that means educating her
grandchildren, the eldest of whom is 13, stressing to them what their role should be.
“They are used to my lectures,” she jokes, says she tells them; “If you see someone being hurt, you speak up.
You can’t pretend that because it’s not your friend, it doesn’t effect you.”
As a social worker, Ms. Hogben, who lives in Gananoque, Ont., worked with women and children struggling
in abusive situations. Later, as a voice for Muslim women, she spoke against the recognition of religious laws
in Canada, and the unequal role of women in her community – despite harsh criticism that she was “airing
dirty laundry.”
During the high-profile Shafia murder trial in nearby Kingston, she challenged the definition of the killings as
an “honour killing” (preferring the term “femicide”) and raised questions about why authority figures failed
to intervene and help the doomed teenagers, despites all the signs of abuse in their home.
Still, she understand how difficult it is to stand up, and risk the consequences. She herself is haunted by a
YouTube video she saw from the Middle East of a woman being dragged out and whipped by police, while
others stand and watch.
“I have thought about that so much; if I had been there, what would I have done?”
She doesn’t know, not for certain. But in the end, there is only one right answer to the question.
Companions of the Order
Ian Binnie, Toronto (law), Natalie Zemon Davis, Toronto (heritage), Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Montreal
(music)
Officers of the Order
Robert G. Bertram, Aurora, Ont. (commerce), Jean Bissonnette, Montreal (communications), Francine
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The Order of Canada: An accolade that demonstrates why waving the flag just isn’t enough - The Globe and Mail
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Décary, Montreal (health care), Elizabeth Dowdeswell, Toronto (public service), Angèle Dubeau,
Westmount, Que. (music – promotion from member), Chantal Hébert, Montreal (communications), Paul F.
Hoffman, Victoria (science), Prabhat Jha, Toronto (health care), Ralph Klein, Calgary (politics), Maryse
Lassonde, Montreal (social sciences), John Last, Ottawa (health care), Jean-François Lépine, Ville MontRoyal, Que. (communications), Hadi-Khan Mahabadi, Mississauga,(engineering), Ermanno Mauro,
Mississauga, (music), Marianne McKenna, Toronto (architecture), Craig Oliver, Ottawa (communications),
Michael Pitfield, Ottawa (public service), Sharon Pollock, Calgary (writing), Pat Quinn, West Vancouver
(sports), John D. Richard, Ottawa (law), Cecil H. Rorabeck, London, Ont. (health care), Louise Roy,
Montreal (commerce), Gordon Semenoff, Surrey, B.C. (science), Gilles Tremblay, Montreal (arts/music),
Marilyn Counsell, Sackville, N.B. (politics
Members of the Order
Carolyn Acker, Toronto (social service), Dyane Adam, Saint-François-de-l’Île-d’Orléans, Que. (social
service), Patsy Anderson, Toronto (voluntary service), Allan Gordon Bell, Cochrane, Alta. (music), Rabbi
Arthur Norman Bielfeld, Tor- onto (social service), Roger Bland, Edmonton (health), Robert B. Bourne,
London, Ont. (health care), Pierre Bruneau, Montreal (communications), John Buhler, Winnipeg
(philanthropy), Silver Donald Cameron, Halifax (communications), Stephen Chatman, Vancouver (music),
Guy Corneau, Montreal, (social sciences), Franklin Delaney, Beaconsfield, Que. (voluntary service), Wadih
M. Fares, Halifax, (commerce), Anthony Fields, Edmonton, (health care), Allan Gotlib, Thornhill, Ont.
(health care), Michel Goulet, Montreal (visual arts), Alia Hogben, Gananoque, Ont. (social service), Greg
Hollingshead, Edmonton (writing), Nancy Kilgour, Calgary (stage), Henry Kloppenburg, Saskatoon
(voluntary service), Merril Knudtson, Calgary (health care), Frances Lankin, Restoule, Ont. (social service),
Louis LaPierre, Moncton (environment), William Laskin, Toronto (music), Monique F. Leroux, Montreal
(commerce), Guy Maddin, Winnipeg, (film), Salem Masry, Fredericton (science), Kenneth Maybee, New
Maryland, N.B. (social service), Des McAnuff, Stratford, Ont. (stage), Elizabeth McWeeny, Thunder Bay,
Ont. (voluntary service), Lois Mitchell, Calgary, (voluntary service), Bernice Morgan, St. John’s (writing),
Marian Packham, Toronto (health care), Gordon Rawlinson, Calgary/Prince Albert, Sask. (communications),
Jean-Guy Rioux, Pointe-Brûlée, N.B. (voluntary service), Michèle Rouleau, Montreal, (social service), Marie
Saint Pierre, Montreal (commerce), Emanuele (Lino) Saputo, Senneville, Que. (commerce), Steven Schipper,
Winnipeg, (stage), Cyril Simard, Québec City (heritage), Laure Waridel, Montreal (environment)
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