The Order of Canada

Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellers. 1983 – 2023.

To have been called to the Order of Canada is perhaps a fitting and just end to what had been a long touring career for us. 2023 marks our 40^th year as an entity. We got the news in November and were asked to say nothing until the press release of December 29^th. Since then, the e-mails, texts and social media posts have not stopped.

Copy from the website: The Order of Canada is one of our country’s highest honours. It recognizes people across all sectors of society who have made extraordinary and sustained contributions to our nation. DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM, which translates to “They desire a better country,” is the motto of the Order.Dec 29, 2022

Somebody was watching. Through our career we brought Newfoundland to Canada and were generously accepted. We never celebrated the two separately.  We toured the whole country, 364 and cities and towns (ya, Wayne counted) over 37 years and we put on a million road miles and million more in the air.  Ours was a firsthand look at Canada, the big and small, the remote and central. We took Canada as ours and were warmly embraced wherever we went.

So, we’ll be off to Ottawa sometime this year, but we don’t know when. We’re told that the pandemic has backed things up for two years and consequently the Governor General is behind on this ceremony. We’ll get the call and head up I suppose when she feels it’s time.

All this to say we’ll be brought into the company of about 7900 individuals who since 1967 have been honoured with the highest civic award this country offers. Given that this is a country of 36 million and a few million come in every year and a few go out, that’s an elite. It is with a great deal of pride and not a little cheekiness that we puff out our chests to have a pin stuck into it and shake hands with Canada’s rep of the monarch himself. it’s a pinnacle on which we find ourselves and is more responsibility than award. I guess we’ll have to be on our best from here on, no more knocking the legs out from under the oldies or stealing Halloween candy from children. Nothing for it but to look the very best going forward.

However, to you, all our followers; citizens from Flin Flon to Pembroke, Yellowknife to Abbotsford, the diaspora all up and down the coast of B.C., the tar sand miners of Alberta, the loyal audiences from Edmonton to Medicine Hat through the small prairie towns, Wainwright to Moose Jaw, and the cities- Regina and Saskatoon, Brandon and Winnipeg, on through the near and far of Ontario from Kenora to Petrolia and Sudbury to Pembroke, and all the cities and towns that make up that huge landmass called Southern Ontario, through Quebec and through the Maritimes, Nunavut and Labrador, too many places to recall…  Thank you. Finally, to the remaining settlements on our Island to which in our early days we ranged every weekend, in which audiences warmed School and Church halls, before spending 30 luxurious years in this province’s soft seat theatres, (one of our greatest Provincial assets). To all you who spent time with us, who in anyway supported us, who informed and criticized us, you made our trip what it was. To you we remain true. We are of you and about you. Thank you, thank you and thank you.

Kevin, Ray and Wayne (sometimes Byron)

January 10^th, 2023

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