Order of Canada marks 50 years with quintessential additions

Peter McAuslan was 21 in 1967 when he took three weeks to hitchhike from Vancouver to Montreal, stopping in local pubs to watch the Stanley Cup final along the way.

The trip across the country tied together hockey, beer and Canada’s centennial.

Five decades later, McAuslan will be recognized for his efforts to grow the Canadian beer industry as his name is added to the cornerstone of the Canadian honours system, one that’s celebrating a milestone anniversary of its own on Saturday.

It was on July 1, 1967, that the Order of Canada received its first members.

This Canada Day, the list of appointees will grow by 99, including the Prince of Wales, soccer star Christine Sinclair, hockey legend Mark Messier, actor Mike Myers, actress Catherine O’Hara, musician Alan Doyle and TV host Alex Trebek, making some 7,000 people who will have their names on the rolls of the decades-old honours program.

There are actors and athletes, community and business leaders, and innovators and entrepreneurs, including the beer man McAuslan.

“The whole Canadian-andbeer thing, it’s a romance that goes back a really long way,” the 71-year-old founder of McAuslan Brewery said in an interview. “They are a reflection of not only who we are, but where we’ve come from.”

While the Order of Canada turns 50 this year, it could have easily been turning 150 if not for decades of political unease about creating a distinctly Canadian honours system, worried it would be seen as another symbol of political patronage.

A royal commission headed by former Governor General Vincent Massey, which provided the foundation for modern arts and culture funding, recommended creating a Canadian honours system like the Order of Canada.