I must take issue with you comment about Jean Chretien's Order of Merit and your comparison to Conrad Black's Peerage . There is really no comparison: Chretien's award is a honour bestowed upon "individuals of exceptional distinction" in any arena, as you say, "following the footsteps of Mackenzie King and Lester Pearson."
Conrad Black got a Peerage, which did not allow him to keep his Canadian citizenship, and it obliged him to take a seat in the British upper chamber --House of Lords -- in England. Having to make a choice, he went off in a huff and renounced his Canadian citizenship for a foreign one, then went off to England to strut his stuff among the British elite, with his paramour Barbra Amiel. Yes, I know; Max Aitken ( Lord Beaverbrook) became a Peer in 1917 after leaving Canada and some questionable business affairs in the cement business. He also got involved with the British press -- apparently a sure road to British Peerage. In Britain, he cemented some great relationships, not the least with Winston Churchill during WWll. When Ken Thompson ( Lord Thompson of Fleet) became a Lord, he forfeited his Canadian citizenship and settled in Britain, also a purveyor of Fleet street news.
There is no "precedent" to follow here; no need for Chrétien to "choose between the honour and his Canadian citizenship". Your allusion to Black's predicament is, what they call in hockey, a "cheap shot ," unworthy of your esteemed publication.
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