3 Out Of 9 Kind Of Sucks: 2/3rds Of Morgentaler Protesters Kept Their Snowflakes!

Last week we discovered that Frank Chauvin, the fellow who launched a court-challenge against Henry Morgentaler's Order of Canada back in 2008, and who had threatened to return his own snow-flake in protest, eventually decided to hang onto the thing.

One of the articles that discussed his decision also mentioned that:

...at least eight other recipients had [returned their Order of Canada], in order to pursue the judicial review.

And in another article on the same topic, it was stated that:

On Wednesday, former New Brunswick lieutenant-governor Gilbert Finn returned his Order of Canada in protest.


So I thought: hmmm! I wonder how many of the original nine protesting recipients actually followed through. And I wrote the following email to the GG's office:

Mr. Gilbert Finn claimed in 2008 that he had returned his Order of Canada to protest the awarding of the same medal to Dr. Henry Morgentaler. However, when I check Mr. Finn's entry there is nothing there to indicate that the award was actually returned. Can this be confirmed somehow? Also, there were 8 other recipients who claim to have returned their medal for the same reason. Would it be possible to confirm if there were any actual returns made in 2008?

M.J. Murphy
Toronto, Ontario
Canada

And yesterday the GG's office finally responded:

Dear Mr. Murphy:

Thank you for your email. Mr. René Racine, Ms. Jacqueline Richard and Cardinal Jean Claude Turcotte resigned from the Order of Canada in 2008. The Honourable Gilbert Finn has not resigned.

Thank you for taking the time to write.

Yours sincerely,

Denis Poirier
Assistant Director / Directeur adjoint
Chancellery of Honours / Chancellerie des distinctions honorifiques
Office of the Secretary to the Governor General
Bureau du secrétaire du gouverneur général1
, promenade Sussex Drive
Ottawa ON K1A 0A1
t: 613.991.5845
t: 1.800.465.6890
f: 613.991.1681depoirier@gg.ca
www.gg.cawww.mentor2009.gg.ca

So three out of nine actually walked the talk, while the other six (often after having received much fawning media attention from right-wing columnists for their "bravery" in confronting the "culture of death" and etc.) had second thoughts. Sucked out, as a matter of fact.

Now, one happy sub-story here is the fact that Alphonse Gerwing's name is missing from the list above. Mr. Gerwing had passed away in 2007, and in fact it was his brother and sister who were contemplating sending back the snowflake in his name. This caused a rift within the family--Ralph Gerwing spoke to the matter here--and so in the end I think it a good thing that calmer heads prevailed.

Gerwing On Gruending On Gerwing

Yesterday's post on the family (nephew and sister) of Alphonse Gerwing returning his Order of Canada, to protest the awarding of the medal to Dr. Henry Morgentaler, drew an eloquent comment from Ralph Gerwing, another member of the Gerwing clan, which I thought I would reproduce here:

To your readers, Dennis [Gruending]:

I would like to be on page with you , in support of the following.”

We did agree that it is essential to support women and families in every way possible – including the provision of adequate child care, housing, increased minimum wages and improved maternity and paternity leaves. ”

As to the paradox of speaking for the dead. I can only speculate that Al’s thoughts would be of engaging the moral and ethical ideas of members of the Order of Canada in his work in Brazil.

Al Gerwing would not diminish the contributions of Dr. Morgentaler: but only debate their effectiveness as social construction tools in Canadian’s helpful work in Haiti and Brazil.

Motives, Convictions and expressed thoughts, are part of inclusiveness in a democratic society. In this we all can be thankful. rtg. yvr.ca

Ralph T. Gerwing Vancouver Metro

To read about the work that earned Alphonse Gerwing his medal in the first place, visit the website of the Alphonse Gerwing Foundation.

Gruending On Gerwing And Morgentaler

Dennis Gruending discusses a decision by the family of Alphonse Gerwing (specifically, his nephew and sister) to return the man's Order of Canada medal over Henry Morgentaler's being made a recipient of the same medal:

I don’t know how it was decided that Al’s Order of Canada medal should be returned. Al never married so there was no immediate family to make such a decision, but at least one relative has expressed his displeasure with what has happened. Jim Gerwing, a former Benedictine monk at the monastery near Humboldt, wrote a letter to The Globe and Mail on July 23. “The Order of Canada was not given to the Gerwing family,” he said, “and they have absolutely no right to return it simply because they disagree with the fact that Henry Morgentaler is also a recipient. Canada should not accept the return of such an honour unless it is explicitly written into the deceased person’s will.”

It does sound as though Alphonse Gerwing was pro-life. But there is a long leap of reasoning from that fact to the conclusion that he himself would have wanted his snowflake returned. Preston Manning, after all, has kept his.

And here is Jim Gerwing's letter in its entirety. I agree that the families of Order of Canada recipients should not be able to exploit a medal they are not entitled to in order to score political points.