CFN – Jim McDonell, MPP hosted a ceremony to award the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal to 14 deserving citizens from Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry who have made exceptional contributions to their community.
Gerry Benson, founder of Benson Autoparts in Cornwall Ontario accepts his medal.
Recipients of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal are citizens nominated by the community who have made exceptional and significant contributions to their local community, Ontario and Canada over the course of many years. The award is a way to recognize their service to their peers, as well as a collective token of appreciation to commemorate Her Majesty’s sixty years of loyal service to her subjects throughout the Commonwealth.
This ceremony celebrated the following recipients: Gerry Benson, Richard Herrington, Vera Joyce, Gail Kaneb, Hugh A MacDougall, Don Mitchell, Susan Rainey, Onagh Ross, William J Shearing, Rev. Gary Stokes, Lorne Strader, Stan and Betty Vandenbosch and Johnny C Whitteker.
Jim McDonell, MPP comments: “I am proud to have been given the opportunity to recognize 14 outstanding citizens. Their spirit and dedication are worthy of a Diamond Jubilee Medal and we are lucky to have them among us in our community.”
You will note that the Mayor and members of the City Council are not named on the list. We should have a “For Shame” medal struck and award each one of them with a medal (except Andre Rivette)
I get Bill Shearing, but Gail Kaneb?
WOW !!! Another tory fumble handled by our elected members. Lauzon with his supplyof medals and now McDonnelll handing out this prestigious award to civilian citizens, their friends and cronies and none to vets. These awardees will probably throw their medal in a drawer somewhere whereas a veteran who pledged allegience to her majesty the Queen served and defended our country and would proudly wear and display this honor are passed over. Shame.
If this keeps up, every Canadian will have to have a back-brace just to stand up under the weight of of all these medals.
A truly deserving person would have simply smiled and turned away.
As a younger man in the army I sometimes while in the field carried a 50 lb rucksack and a 20 lb radio on my back with an 11 lb rifle on my shoulder through mud sand slush snow and bad weather I never complained as it was duty for my Queen and love of country. I have been on November 11th parades for almost 50 years now and I have never heard a Canadian or vet complain he has too many medals and they are so heavy. A true vet wears medals with pride and a backbrace, wheelchair,or other mobility device would not break his spirit. Unlike Americans who get medals for tying thier bootlaces , we as Canadians cherish the awards we get. Memories go hand in hand with these medals.Sometimes it would be nice to be given the opportunity to wear the give me awards handed out as these Queen’s medals. “God Save the Queen”.
When it was thirty below and I was in Northern Ontario snowstorms putting wing covers on airplanes and catalytic heaters in engine housings to make them warmer than me, (ironically), the last thing I was thinking about was bling.
And bling it is. A tradition that really took off with Napoleon. Bling given out to his poor and ignorant troops like shiny trinkets to children.
Sure, medals commemorate remarkable deeds and events, but they are just baubles. And a look at the ranks of the Canadian military these days show some pretty heavily bedecked senior officers that know less of tactics than a novice in a nunnery.
These past 9 years have seen a once under appreciated military now running around with a few too many swollen heads and a less than gracious attitude towards the many Canadians who have been taken in by the overdone patriotism that is thin cover for a failure in Afghanistan.
Hell, Canadians have blindly accepted the munitions wasted in Libya to simply change dictators.. and by waste I mean that the money spent on every “smart” bomb dropped, was equivalent to the price of an MRI unit that could have been put into operation in a hospital here at home.
There are sixty thousand of these medals being awarded. Every federal MP (even the separatist ones) gets one. All recipients of The Order Of Canada, including Conrad Black, gets one. Political hacks (fund raisers) are getting them. These silly baubles are pretty meaningless. I mean really.. Conrad Black???
Nothing wrong with Conrad.
Ah yes, Conrad is a model Canadian citizen. Oh wait… Isn’t he the convicted felon who gave up on Canada to dress up in funny clothes in Jolly Olde? He should get the medal for sheer audacity.