We already saw his Jubilee Medal fiasco, where they handed them out to all and sundry (60,000 of them) with the help of "community groups" in the Conservative government's pocket with the result that all kinds of nutballs got them (including me, but that's another story - http://lautens.blogspot.ca/2012/12/its-jubilee.html).
The Order of Canada was set up with an impartial panel that reviews award nominations. It is not a "government award" in the sense that politicians sit down and decide which of their friends and donors get one.
Contrary to the idea that it's just artsy types who get the Order of Canada, you can't walk down Bay Street without seeing every other robber baron and captain of industry pass by with one in their lapel. My cousin just recently was awarded the Order of Canada for his work as a chemist producing new medicinal compounds or molecules, or something I don't understand. Not very artsy.
But that's not enough for Harper. He needs to give them out as yet another political plum for the loyal footsoldiers in their relentless drive to dismantle Canada. They need to go to rubes, ideologues and people high on the party donation lists.
By the way, the motto of the Order is DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM (They desire a better country). If Harper gets his mitts on it, that will have to be the first thing to go.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/could-budget-2015-mean-an-order-of-canada-for-don-cherry
