Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Canada's star-studded cast
Jean doles out hardware at her last Order of Canada event
Burton Cummings and former Premier Gary Filmon examine decorations after being invested as officers of the Order of Canada Friday. (FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean, Sandra Birdsell. (ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Hockey great Mario Lemieux with Jean. (FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
OTTAWA -- Super Mario, former prime minister Kim Campbell and Burton Cummings had them running back to Rideau Hall on Friday as Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean presided over her final Order of Canada ceremony.
Mario Lemieux, the hockey impresario who duelled Wayne Gretzky through the 1980s, and rocker Cummings of the celebrated Guess Who added star power to an investiture ceremony that honoured an astonishing array of Canadian talent.
Doctors, fiddlers, novelists, tycoons, jazz pianists, opera stars, economists, movie producers and politicians rubbed elbows in the sweltering ballroom.
Jean, in her last honours ceremony as the Queen's representative before she steps down next month, waxed nostalgic.
"I remember the first time I took part in this ceremony of excellence as Governor General of Canada, in November 2005," Jean said to open the two-hour ceremony. "I remember being greatly impressed by the range of accomplishments of so many Canadians and telling myself how extremely and incredibly lucky this country is to be able to count on women and men of your calibre."
It was another eclectic group Friday.
Filmmaker Ivan Reitman, the guy who brought the movie Animal House to life, shared billing with Max Cynader, a biomedical pioneer at the University of British Columbia who's excelled in neurological function and brain disorders.
Ben Heppner, a world-renowned operatic tenor, was preceded to the podium by New Brunswick's Matilda Murdoch, the octogenarian known as the "Queen of the Down East Fiddle."
Former premiers -- Gary Filmon of Manitoba and John Hamm of Nova Scotia -- joined ranks with Campbell, Canada's first female prime minister, to lead an impressive field of political honourees. And novelists Sandra Birdsell, a former Winnipegger, and Jack Hodgins of Victoria joined actress Tantoo Cardinal, whose roles in Dances with Wolves and North of 60 "have helped blaze a trail in an industry where few aboriginal women previously existed."
Jean paid tribute to them all. "In sport and in business, on the page and on the stage, in laboratories and as part of research teams, in music and on the air, at the drawing board and at our most prestigious institutions, in the most specialized sciences and in health care, and at the ice rink" -- here the crowd laughed and all eyes turned to a blushing Lemieux -- "and the head of governments, you remind us that nothing is impossible for those who are not afraid to push boundaries and borders."
-- The Canadian Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 4, 2010 A3
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