A quick glance at a few of the new recipients of the Order of Canada

Messier would join the ranks of Team Canada for three Canada Cup tournaments, one World Championship, and one World Cup.

“I’ve always felt being a Canadian really meant something to me and being able to represent Canada in the international competitions like I did, was something that I’ll never forget and the pride that I felt being selected for those teams,” Messier said.

He captained his hometown Edmonton Oilers, leading them to five Stanley Cup championships, then led the New York Rangers to another title in 1994, making him the first and so far only player to captain two different teams to the title. He also captained the Vancouver Canucks, making him one of three players to wear the C for three different teams. And the National Hockey League now hands out an annual leadership award named after the man nicknamed “Moose.”

Growing up, he just wanted to be a hockey player like his idols Bobby Orr and Guy Lafleur, Messier said. Now, like them, he is also part of the Order of Canada.

“I really aspired to follow in their footsteps and become a National Hockey League player first and foremost, but also try to conduct myself off the ice in a dignified manner that can help people along the way … and I guess in the end become a role model for other kids trying to do the same thing.”

Peter McAuslan, entrepreneur

Years ago, McAuslan was asked why he decided, at age 42, to open a micro-brewery in a working class neighbourhood in Montreal. The answer? It’s everybody’s dream in this country to be a brewer, he said.

McAuslan started the brewery that bears his name in 1988, brewing St-Ambroise pale ale with a staff of four at a time when larger competitors were brewing lagers that dominated the Quebec beer scene. The brewery is now a multimillion-dollar business that employs a staff of more than 50. McAuslan served as president of the Quebec Microbrewery Association, the Brewers Association of Canada and the Association of Brewers in the United States.

Now out of the beer business, he has also helped support the arts and culture in Montreal, and worked with McGill University to create a chair in Canadian-Scottish studies.

“There is a relationship between one’s business activities and one’s community that’s a — I’ll use the word — sacred relationship, that one can never assume your clients are there just because you’re making a good product. You have to go beyond that and create a close relationship with your community. It’s a business responsibility.”

Hieu C. Truong, engineer

Every time Truong reaches for a loonie or toonie, he takes a close look to ensure perfection from the machines he helped create.

Originally from Vietnam, Truong started in the Royal Canadian Mint in 1978 on the floor working late nights fixing the machines that made Canadian coins, rising to be director of engineering. It was under Truong’s guidance — and all that time spent working on the Mint’s machines — that his engineering team created a patented bi-metallic coin locking mechanism to create the toonie.

One of the Mint’s most celebrated innovators, the 76-year-old retired in 2014.

“My shining light when I was in the Mint was to work in such a way to keep Canada at the top of the technology and be recognized as number 1 in the world as the top country in minting. We were successful in that regard because all the mints (worldwide) look up to Canada as the mint to imitate or to follow,” he said.

“I’m proud of that fact, not because of myself, I’m proud for Canada and Canadians. I’m proud that Canada is being regarded as the leader in minting technology. This is what I want. This is all I want is for Canada to be number one.”

Ellen Hamilton, artist

Hamilton was coming near the end of her first year of teaching Inuit adults in a hamlet in the North and found nothing had worked. Just for fun, she started a theatre group in Igloolik that her students could use to tell their own stories. And they did, putting on a show about the changes in their community over the previous 50 years.

They also improved their literacy, leaps and bounds beyond their time in the classroom.

In the more than decades since, Hamilton has worked to use the arts to tell Inuit stories. She founded the Qaggiavuut Society, which promotes the performing arts in the Arctic and advocates for a Nunavut performing arts space. The society has helped the region’s youth tell their stories by linking them to their elders — a fading generation who was the last, she said, to live largely off the land in the harshest conditions through traditional knowledge.

“Even though it seems like it’s fluffy to do plays and music, it isn’t. It’s actually essential to everything else. And of course right now we face the need to create a sense of belonging for youth in the Arctic,” said Hamilton, 58.

“It’s very important for all of us in the North to surround children and youth with a sense that they are important and that they belong and all the research shows that the performing arts are one of the most important ways of giving you a sense of belonging.”

Alan Doyle, musician

When Doyle first started playing traditional music from his home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, he didn’t do it because he felt obligated. Or that it was the right thing to do. Or that it was good for him or anyone else. It just came naturally, he said.

“I loved that kind of music and I loved playing it and I loved singing it, and I still love singing it,” Doyle said. “They’re great songs to sing, so I sing them.”

Doyle started to sing those songs in the early 1990s when he, Sean McCann, Bob Hallett and Darrell Power formed the band Great Big Sea, playing in St. John’s, N.L., pubs. He continued to sing those songs over the next two decades with the group and more recently as a solo artist. He has also appeared in film and television, including the Canadian TV series “Republic of Doyle” (not named after him).

He has played the same stage as the Tragically Hip, and twice been on Parliament Hill for Canada Day, including 2011 when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William and Kate, were in the front row.

“It’s a real sort of capital-C, Canada moment to get to play that gig and I always feel a little bit sort of humbled by the chance to get to do it, to tell you the truth,” Doyle said.

Graydon Carter, journalist

It was in 1992 that Carter, after writing gigs at Time, Life and GQ magazines, took over as editor of Vanity Fair. Now more than two decades later, Carter is still head of the magazine and holds a unique place in the halls of power, money and celebrity in the United States.

The Toronto-born, Ottawa-educated Carter is considered an expert on Donald Trump, having written deep profiles and followed the American president’s business career for the better part of three decades. Now in the White House, Trump has taken shots at Vanity Fair with Carter writing about the American president and his policies.

Carter still keeps his connections to Canada. He once described his fishing camp in rural Connecticut as “a little pocket of Canada in the fifties.” He said in an email that he drives family and friends “to distraction pointing out people like Al Waxman and Gordon Pinsent in movies and just generally making the claim that Canadians run American show business.”

His film projects and magazine have won numerous awards. His writing and outside business interests — particularly two restaurants in New York — have won him accolades.

The Order of Canada, he said, is different: “It’s more a reflection of who I am and where I come from.”

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

A quick glance at a few of the new recipients of the Order of Canada

What's Trending