January 2001
by Barry Stagg
With the new millennium definitely on the go with the new year, I want to suggest a fresh set of awards to be ordained by our brand new Liberal government. The first is a bit of a derivative but one that should be available by dint of neglect and abandonment in recent times. This is the Order of Lenin. According to an Internet outfit calling itself the Russian Mint, the Lenin was officially established by a decision of the Presidium of the USSR Central Committee in 1930. However the Lenin went the way of the Czars in 1991 with the unlamented demise of the Soviet Dynasty.
The actual antecedents and heraldry of the Order of Lenin are set out by the folks at the Mint in the following summary which should help the Ottawa commissars in making a quick decision on this:
" The Lenin was officially established by a decision of the Presidium of the USSR Central Committee on April 6, 1930. The first pieces of the Order Of Lenin, 700 in all, were minted in silver. Four years later, in 1934, a gilded silver version of the Lenin was added. In 1936, Stalin recalled both the silver and the gilded silver specimens from their respective recipients. In their place, the recipients received a new Order Of Lenin, struck in gold and platinum for the first time. Gold remained the metal of choice until the last Order Of Lenin was struck in 1991, the final year of the Soviet Dynasty. "
These are great reasons to institute this honour and to announce a first Canadian recipient, one worthy of the award in all its statist grandeur. That person is Rick Mercer, state comedian par excellence, non pareil.
There is no need to be modest when praising the accomplishments of Comedian Mercer. This is a Newfoundlander well versed in the statecraft of working the crowd in a country dominated by the big business of government. He is a success and has both the notoriety and the audience command that make for large market share.
Comedian Mercer has now extended his performance resume to include pure political advocacy albeit of the comic variety. His urging of Internet users to abuse the hit counter on his web site in the service of his campaign to transform Stockwell Day into Doris Day was one that luckily evaded the ban on third party advertizing in the past federal election. Surely, this campaign contribution to the Liberal Party should tip the scales in his favour when the Central Committee in charge of such honours meets in Ottawa.
The task of lobbying the powers that be in the federal government should be directed primarily toward persuading them that the Order of Lenin is an appropriate import into Canada. Suffice it to say that with the socialist antecedents of Chairman Lenin, there should be little opposition to the conversion of this award on ideological grounds. The state of disuse of the trophy in the now re-constituted Russia should be a strong factor in getting the award ranked right up there with the Order of Canada as a special, perhaps even precious recognition for deserving public figures.
There are other candidates for this kind of Order but none with the flourish and exemplary dedication to public service that Comedian Mercer has shown. Perhaps Donna Butt of Rising Tide Theatre renown might be deserving of an honourable mention, though not an outright award for her heroic efforts on the CBC Television show Counterspin. The work of Ms. Butt in demonstrating what a 'good' ACOA grant does, sort of like 'good cholesterol', apparently, was yeoman like, though not of the national character of the Comedian Mercer web site work. In recognition of her talents in the area of state industry, perhaps the government might consider importing that more common award of 'Hero of the State', coming as coincidence would have it, from the old Soviet regime. I leave that decision to the worthy commissars in the federal department of Industry, Trade and Commerce.
To this date there is no word from government as a whether or not Trinity Bay will substitute for the Black Sea as being a fit shoreline for the country homes or Dachas that typically accrued to the Soviet recipients of such gestures of privilege, honour and distinguished service to state industry. Again the appropriate decision remains in the hands of those charged by the Central Committee of government in the federal Industry department, where, I am told, the minister is a representative of the good folk of that great, if not far greater, Bay.