Ted Barris

It generally goes like clockwork. And, since Governors General have officiated at investitures to the Order of Canada at Rideau Hall since 1967, they pretty much all happen with precision. Last Thursday went mostly that way. About halfway through the procession of 56 recipients, Ken McKillop, secretary to the Governor General and ceremony MC, called my name.

As instructed, I walked to the front of the hall, faced the audience and McKillop read a citation about my work preserving military heritage. He finished by turning to the Governor General and said, “Excellency, Dr. Barris.”

I looked back as we both realized the “Doctor” title wasn’t accurate.

Nevertheless, I moved to a spot in front of Gov. Gen. Mary Simon. She stepped forward and began attaching the Order of Canada medal onto a hook pinned to my left lapel. But she had trouble connecting the medal to the hook. Because my back was to the audience, however, no one could see the problem she was having.

“It hasn’t been going so well, this morning,” she admitted.

I caught her glance of frustration, and I said, “No problem. It just means I get to spend more time with you.”

She smiled. (I sensed with a bit of relief.)

My reaction to this minor glitch, coincided with Gov. Gen. Simon’s opening remarks, when she complimented us Order of Canada recipients as people who “are resilient in the face of challenges, a little bit stubborn, and deeply passionate about what they do.”

She went on to say – quite rightly – that most of the recipients in the room were “surprised to be recognized with honours such as the Order of Canada.”

Indeed, I remember two years ago driving on the 401 east of London when a member of the Governor General’s staff reached me on my cellphone. When she told me I’d been appointed, I was moved to tears. And I wasn’t alone.

Prior to the investiture, I ran into Tim Caulfield; he’s the research director for the University of Alberta’s Health Law Institute. Among many other things, Caulfield has written, published and spoken extensively about legal and ethical issues within science and medicine, including debunking pseudoscientific claims (so-called negative impacts of vaccines, for example).

“I’d been receiving hate mail and crank calls,” he said. Then, at a science conference in the U.S. where he received a hostile response, suddenly he got a call from Rideau Hall; he thought it might be a hoax. “When I realized the (Order of Canada) appointment was real, I cried.”

During the ceremony, because we were arranged alphabetically, I sat next to the final person receiving Officer status, Barbara Zimmerman. She and I shared how proud we felt to have our work celebrated by the King’s representative in Canada.

Ms. Zimmerman, I learned, has worked for decades to preserve the Amazon rainforest. (Coincidentally, she said, her father and grandfather had both built careers in Canada’s 20th-century lumber industry.)

“It is remarkable,” she said, “to have your life’s work summed up in a couple of sentences in citation.”

And speaking of remarkable careers, during the reception, I enjoyed a few moments catching up with the Governor General’s husband, former CBC broadcaster Whit Fraser. He wanted to talk about an RCAF veteran in one of my books – Dan “Revie” Walker, a navigator on the famous Dam Buster raid in 1943.

“When I was a boy in the Air Force in the early 1960s,” Fraser said, “Walker was my wing commander. I worked in the gas compound, and we didn’t make any money. So, I was filling my 1956 Ford with (Air Force) gas.”

At an all-ranks gathering later, Fraser said he heard a voice over his shoulder. It was Walker telling him while conducting takeoff and landing training, he’d spotted Fraser illegally filling his Ford with military gas.

“That’s what you call separating the large from the small,” Fraser said. “All I got was a laugh and a warning.”

After the investiture, when my family and I left Rideau Hall, we chose a restaurant across from the Chateau Laurier to celebrate the day’s events. When we arrived, one of the staff pointed at my lapel (I’d removed the large medal and ribbon in favour of the smaller snowflake pin we’re supposed to wear in public).

“That’s the Order of Canada, isn’t it?” he said excitedly.

“He just received it today,” my sister Kate Barris told him.

“I heard about the investiture on the news,” he continued enthusiastically. “You’re one of the 56!”

His acknowledgement – a long way from Rideau Hall – proved another of Gov. Gen. Simon’s comments about the investiture. “The Order of Canada is not just about past achievements,” she said. “It’s about the ongoing journey of our nation.”