CKNW Editorial
for September 11, 2000

I was saddened indeed to learn of the death of my old friend Gerry Palmer who courageously fought Lou Gehrig’s disease. Gerry was well known in yachting and rugby circles in BC. We went back to days at Sunday School at St Mary’s in Kerrisdale and St Georges School during the war. I didn’t see much of Gerry for a long time but kept in touch with mutual friends. He was always cheerful even as he fought the disease that was bound to beat him. It can truly be said that he didn’t have an enemy in the world and was a good friend to all who knew him.

I’m going to talk this morning a bit about the Order of Canada and since I have been so critical, offer some suggestions. First let me head off criticisms that I’m just angry because I haven’t got one. Well, let me assure you that, like Groucho Marx, I wouldn’t want to be in a club that would accept the likes of me. I have been nominated at least three times that I know of and in each case I have pled with the kind people supporting my candidature not to waste their time. My sort doesn’t get in and I can honestly say that if in a moment of mass madness coupled with a case of mistaken identity the Companions of the Order of Canada were to select me I would refuse. Though I can’t speak for him, I suspect Gordon Gibson feels the same way. It’s impossible to take seriously any organization dedicated to rewarding loyal Canadians for good citizenship that turned down Mel Smith for membership.

But I have some suggestions that might make the system of honours work in this country. For openers I would abolish that silly little lapel button they wear … looks like a 25 five year membership button for Rotary or Kiwanis. You don’t see veterans wearing their medals in day to day wear … when you go to Britain you don’t see knights riding horses or dukes wearing coronets as they pop into the local for a pint. This bit self congratulatory masturbation tells all that notice that the wearer is, in all likelihood, someone that Brian Mulroney has approved of … for he is a Companion.

But let us assume that it’s a good idea to have an honours system - I’m not all that sure that it is but let’s assume so. Let us, then, look at where such a system is most successful – the United Kingdom. And to look there, one must go back a few years to the early 1920s when David Lloyd George was the prime minister advising the King on the question of honours. Now Lloyd George was a womanizer and as crooked as a dogs hind leg – in addition to being a great Prime Minister. But he was no hypocrite. He sold honours – plain and simple. So much for a knighthood, so much for a barony, so much for a viscountancy and so on. Presumably the money all went into Liberal coffers though there are those who wondered under their breath how Lloyd George lived so well on the pittance the state paid him. The Brits – after the scandal broke – refined the system so that instead of the party in power being the only one able to pay off supporters, all parties could, in proportion to their number of MPs, hand out "honours". In other words, when the queen hands out knighthoods and other such baubles, each party gets to claim a certain proportion – most for the government party but some for each of the other parties.

I make this suggestion in all seriousness because it has the great virtue of being visible graft instead of the invisible sort we have. The British system, unlike ours, makes no pretence of not being political as hell – it is and they admit it.

Now it must be admitted that some members of the Order of Canada did not get them through political connections though I’m hard pressed to think of one. That’s still quite possible if we adopt the British system. If, for example, the Liberal party had 50 OCs to hand out, it could, if it wished, hand as many as it wanted to good people with no known political connection. That the Liberal Party couldn’t bring itself to do so is beside the point.

It has come to my attention that it is claimed that three prominent New Democrats have managed to get Orders of Canada, two prominent labour leaders and one former Supreme Court judge. Churlish though it may seem, I’m bound to point out that both labour leaders heartily supported the establishment’s efforts to get the Charlottetown Accord passed and the ex judge has long supported the government’s initiatives in native affairs.

Why not be honest with ourselves? We are, in part, with the Senate which is our equivalent of the House of Lords. No one ever thinks for a moment that a senate seat is awarded on merit. So Governors-General and Lieutenant-Governors are likewise political hacks. Why not make honest men and women of ourselves, bunch them all together as degrees of an uninherited aristocracy, and be done with it?

This approach would be honest in two ways – first we would know, up front, who the country’s political hacks are. Second, we would be able to identify those who are not – like the late Mel Smith.