Gord Downie is appointed to the Order of Canada from Governor General David Johnston in Ottawa on June 19, 2017.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
On Monday, the Tragically Hip's Gord Downie was appointed to the Order of Canada during a Rideau Hall ceremony recognizing leadership in Indigenous issues. The honour came on the heels of the news that Downie's Secret Path album, a conceptual LP concerning the death of the 12-year-old Ojibway boy Chanie Wenjack in 1966, was named to the long list of 40 discs nominated for this year's national Polaris Music Prize.
Since being diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2015, Downie has established himself has a fierce, poetic advocate for Indigenous people. During a nationally televised Tragically Hip concert last summer, the singer-songwriter addressed the conditions of Canada's North. "What's going on up there ain't good," he said. The broadcast of that concert, from Rogers K-Rock Centre in the band's hometown of Kingston, will be re-aired this weekend (June 24, 8 p.m., on CBC-TV and other platforms). A feature documentary on the concert and the tour is set for a fall theatrical run ahead of a two-hour special on CTV, scheduled for October.
Brad Wheeler