Today, a well-regarded Filipino Canadian highlighted a disgraceful omission by the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada. Joseph Planta, founding editor of TheCommentary.ca and host of Planta: On the Line, summed up a shameful record with a one-line post on Bluesky.

“I still don’t see any Filipino Canadians on the list of Order of Canada recipients,” Planta declared.

It came on the final day of Filipino Heritage Month when another 83 people received the country’s highest civilian honour.

Think about that for a moment. In the 2021 census, there were nearly one million Filipino Canadians. The community has grown enormously since 1967 when Canada eliminated a discriminatory national-origin rule for immigration. It was replaced with a universal points system, enabling more qualified immigrants from the Philippines to move to this country.

In that same year—Canada’s centennial—the federal government established the Order of Canada. As of June 30, there have been 8,261 recipients, according to the Governor General of Canada website.

Last week, through Bluesky, Planta posted that not a single Filipino Canadian had been invited into this exclusive club.

Not a single Filipino Canadian doctor, not a single Filipino Canadian scholar, and not a single Filipino Canadian human rights advocate, singer, theatre or dance artist, author, cleric, journalist, businessperson or politician has been selected.

Planta’s post made me think of Aprodicio Laquain, a Vancouver urban-planning expert who grew up in the slums of Manila. From these humble  origins, he went on to win a Fulbright grant to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Techology, earning a PhD.

Laquin served as a consultant to the United Nations. He was also a director of the Centre for Human Settlements at the University of British Columbia. Surely, Laquin, who died in 2023, would have been a worthy inductee into the Order of Canada.

Order of Canada relies on applications

Then there is Leonora C. Angeles, a UBC professor in the School of Community and Regional Planning and the Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC. She has mentored countless students, been a beacon in promoting arts and culture, and furthered understanding of the history of Filipino Canadians in Canada.

Here’s another worthy candidate: Rey Pagtakhan. He was a pediatric respirologist and medical school professor before becoming the first Canadian of Filipino origin to become a member of Parliament. He was also the first Filipino Canadian sworn into a federal cabinet position.

Filipino Canadians can probably rattle off many other strong candidates.

In a year when Filipino Canadians endured a horrific tragedy at the Lapu-Lapu Day Block Party in Vancouver, it shouldn’t have been too difficult for the Advisory Committee for the Order of Canada to hustle up a single Filipino Canadian to honour with the country’s highest civilian award.

But that didn’t happen.

Why? In part, because Canada requires people to submit applications for this honour. If you want to join the club or have a friend join the club, you have to fill out a bunch of paperwork and collect a bunch of letters. Your application may move higher up the list if these letters of recommendation come from other members of the club. This system benefits insiders and ladder climbers. It’s a recipe for systemic discrimination and helps explain why Filipino Canadians have been overlooked.

Keep this in mind the next time you turn on the TV and see the prime minister proudly wearing his Order of Canada pin on his lapel.

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