CKNW Editorial
for September 6, 2000

No editorial today … just some thoughts about a great British Columbian and Canadian we lost last Sunday. Melvin Henry Smith QC was ill for many years – indeed he fought cancer for 16 years and even his closest friends didn’t know about it until five years or so ago. He fought it with immense courage … as did his wife Beverly and his two children. Mel didn’t live long enough to see his first grandchild who is on the way. Just to indicate a bit of the stuff Mel was made of, he wrote his best selling Our Home Or Native Land while serving out his death sentence.

I will have much to say about Mel’s professional life at his funeral next Friday in Victoria so I’ll not dwell upon it here … except to say that he was acknowledged as one of a very small handful of Canadian constitutional experts. He and I were colleagues in government during the run-up to the patriation of the constitution and we were colleagues in many fights afterwards – we shouldered arms together in the fight against Meech Lake and Charlottetown and both tried to convince both major governments that Nisga’a was the wrong way to go.

But there was a difference between us – and a very important one. My positions, while I hope I can say they were based upon some knowledge and experience, mostly came from the gut … they were visceral reactions to what my tummy told me was wrong. That was true for Mel too … except he also had the intellectual back-up which allowed him to make a case not only from the gut but from the experience of a true and recognized expert in his field. People like Gordon Gibson  and I were able to say what we did with some conviction because we had Mel’s wisdom and intellect behind us.

What I want to say today is bitter … it is bitter because I am bitter. And I have reason to be so … and so do you.

Mel Smith advised 5 premiers over nearly 30 years on matters of the utmost importance to his province and his country. He did so fearlessly and honestly in the best tradition of the true public servant. He advised countless other organizations through the years, wrote and spoke extensively, and, as I mentioned above, wrote the work on native land claims which unhappily is proving to be all so prescient and which, when read 10 years from now, ring the tocsin of the prophet unlistened to.

Mel was a lifelong, devout Christian who, while never pushing his beliefs on others, lived  his life as close to Christ’s example as it is humanly possible to do. He truly was the man entitled by all yardsticks to be called "great".

Why, then, did he never receive an Order of B.C. let alone an Order of Canada? That he was nominated for both I know as a fact. Yet he somehow didn’t qualify. I’ll tell you why Mel wasn’t honoured by his province and his country – the people who make these awards are the establishment … and Mel went beyond the bounds of dissent permitted by that establishment.

Let me tell you what his greatest sin was – he not only opposed the Charlottetown Accord, erroneously so called, but criticized the Companions of the Order of Canada for entering that fray. He and I and others thought it wrong for the Companions to be political especially since they did so on the basis that they were doing it as loyal Canadians … implying, of course, that those who disagreed were ill informed at best, traitors at worst. That’s why Mel Smith never received the recognition from his country he truly deserved.

You should know something about the Order of Canada – it’s political as hell. I know of one Order of Canada recipient whose campaign for that honour was at least as intense as any of her campaigns for public office. People well connected get Orders of Canada … friends of Brian Mulroney got them by the bushel full … friends of Jean Chretien get them now. When Michael Duffy moaned a couple of years ago that the Prime Minister’s Office was no longer recommending him for the OC, because of an article by Frank Magazine, there was a denial that there was any political influence in such appointments. I am angry enough to say today "don’t eat that Elmer, them’s horse buns."

Everyone who wears that rosette in their lapel – a sort of breast beating even Victoria Cross winners who were real heroes wouldn’t stoop to – ought to look at that pin today for with the passing of Mel Smith it has become obviously tarnished. Mel did the unforgivable – he spoke out without fear on issues and educated his fellow citizens as he did. He spoke candidly, and in words we all could understand. He deserves the thanks of his nation, thanks and recognition that small minded politicians and Companions of the Order of Canada refused to allow to happen.

There once was another man who wasn’t properly recognized by his countrymen and he, Cato the Elder, said it all when he remarked "I’d rather men ask why no monument has been erected in my honour than have them ask why one was.

Mel Smith, a great Canadian and a great British Columbian, known as that by all except those who couldn’t bear to listen to what he had to say, has gone.

Rest in peace, old friend, rest in peace. We who loved you know who you were and what you stood for in your long career committed to your province and your country. I have no doubt that your Master has already said, "well done, thou good and faithful servant."