Edmonton artists and an academic appointed to the Order of Canada
CBC
An Edmonton composer, a sculptor and an academic were each selected to receive one of the nation's highest honours on Wednesday.
John Estacio, Barbara Paterson and Roman Petryshyn were among the 135 appointees to the Order of Canada, announced Wednesday by Gov. Gen. Mary Simon.
Recipients are described as individuals who have made an exemplary contribution to the nation. The list includes philanthropic contributors, community organizers, industry leaders, academics, artists and more.
Roman Petryshyn has worked toward making multiculturalism a part of mainstream Canadian society.
It began in the early 1960s with the prospect of a bilingual nation, which sparked Petryshyn to argue that Canada was more diverse than just French and English speakers.
His work continued into the 1980s at the Edmonton college now known as MacEwan University. He was instrumental in founding the Ukrainian Resource and Development Centre (URDC) where he worked until his retirement in 2015.
He spent much of his time working on projects that tried to strengthen bonds and connections between people and places — work he says is still important today.
"This is a much better solution than polarization or conflict or racism or xenophobia and all the negative approaches that have been tried by various people — even in Canadian history," he said.
He continues to sit on the board at the URDC and works with the Canada Ukraine Foundation.
Barbara Paterson is a visual artist whose sculptures can be seen in many prominent locations.
Her statues memorializing the Famous Five, a group of trailblazing Canadian women that included Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung, can be seen on Parliament Hill and at Calgary's Olympic Plaza.
Composer John Estacio has called Alberta home since the 1990s. He's worked with both the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and Calgary Philharmonic.
His first finished piece, Filumena, was performed in both cities and his career has continued to grow from there.
"There's this ambition and this need to create and construct and do things and tell stories," Estacio said.
Intelligence regarding foreign interference sometimes didn't make it to the prime minister's desk in 2021 because Canada's spy agency and the prime minister's national security adviser didn't always see eye to eye on the nature of the threat, according to a recent report from one of Canada's intelligence watchdogs.