National Post: '...It has been a curiosity of mine for a long time why this most vivid of Canada’s patriots, a gentleman so greatly favoured by our military, and hailed by such a broad sweep of Canadians, was never enrolled in our country’s honour system, the Order of Canada, as one of its outstanding citizens and achievers.
'There are very few who have won the honour — and this is no disparagement of them — who can measure up to, in influence, affection among the Canadian public, energy, or sheer presence, as Mr. Cherry.
'And yet he has been resolutely passed over again for that honour, even now in his twilight, as he had been passed over for decades.
'I presume it was those who arbitrated the award viewed Cherry as a little too vigorous, thought perhaps his heart-on-the-sleeve boosting of Canada’s many glories too brash, or his unique verbal style — there was something of a bulldozer directness to it — most unCanadianly assertive. Was he perhaps too “common?” I would not like to think so, for that would imply a certain snobbishness attends the choice of who may be considered for the country’s great honours...'
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