As part of my story on the new Canadian Honours exhibition at 90 Wellington, I spoke to another of the attendees, Petty Officer 2^nd Class James Anthony Leith, MMM, SC, MSM, CD, one of the most decorated members of the Canadian Forces – who, I will add, is one of the most humble and charming people I have ever interviewed. As I couldn’t get much of the interview in the story, I’m posting the whole thing here.

Q: Briefly, tell me what your decorations and medals are.

A: You never get these things by yourself – somebody always nominates you. They tell the stories that they shouldn’t have told to somebody else, and it gets passed up. I was gracious enough to know some big mouths. The one on the far left is the Canadian Forces Decoration, and you get that after twelve years of undetected crime – basically you’re a good boy. Next to that is my General Service Star for Afghanistan. I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate with the Army…in 06/07. Next one is the SWASM – South-West Asia [Service Medal] – it’s a theatre medal. Everyone who goes over there gets one, and it’s like being in the Boy Scouts – you get one if you go. The next one is a sacrifice medal – in 2006, I was in an armed personnel carrier that got obliterated by an IED, so there’s a bunch of us that got kind of injured from it, and we don’t have the wound stripe like the Americans do, so they commemorate it with a sacrifice medal. Everyone who theoretically bled on the battlefield gets one of those. Next to that is the Meritorious Service Medal – again, wrong place right time or right place wrong time. I was working in Halifax as a commercial diver as part of the fleet diving in the Atlantic, and Swiss Air 111 pitched and went into the sea. They immediately called us because of the depth, and we participated in the recovery because of the depth operation, and for that they gave us that little one. The next one is the Star of Courage – I was in Afghanistan in 06, and after we got blown up, we found some other nasties that the other team had put in the ground. All of my tools that had been in the first vehicles were destroyed, and that’s the story that everybody loves hearing. I basically MacGyvered the second IED with what I had left, which was my bayonet. Because I’d just been blown up […] and not have any of the proper equipment that I’m supposed to have, and the fact that I took apart that second one, somebody said that was either very brave or very dumb. Everybody loves a good story, and somebody told somebody else, and I was invited up here again to get this one. And next to that is the MMM – the Order of Military Merit. Because I have 20-odd years of service, and pretty well been a good boy for all that time, at a certain point in your career, after a long career spanning a lot of service, they nominate you, it goes before a committee and they sit down and figure out who gets what, and are they truly deserving, but again I don’t know who nominated me, but somebody put my name up there and wrote a very nice, lengthy, long-winded paragraph, and I’m sure they hummed and hawed, and it must have been the end of the day, and they said give it to the guy anyway.

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As part of my story on the new Canadian Honours exhibition at 90 Wellington, I spoke to one of the attendees, Dr. Elaine Jolly, the Founder of the Shirley E. Greenberg Women’s Health Centre, and recipient of the Order of Canada and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal. I couldn’t get much of my interview in the story, but I figured I’d put the whole thing here.

Q: Tell me about your story.

A: Well, I’m an obstetrician and gynaecologist, and presently I’m the medical director of the women’s health centre at the Ottawa Hospital. I was very honoured and privileged to receive the Order of Canada in 1999, and was notified in 1998. It was for the activities that I had undertaken for women’s health, and as an academic – because I’m a professor at the University of Ottawa – I have had extensive experience with education and public education, and education of students and residents, and our own continuing medical education for physicians. With regards to accomplishments, I must say that when I got the Order of Canada, I was very overwhelmed because I didn’t think that I was doing anything terribly special that many other academics had done, but having a focus on women’s health – and at that time, I was obviously nominated and supported for this – they deemed that that was a good thing. What it did do, however, was spur me on to really fulfil things that I would have liked to have done, and I think it probably helped, and that’s the development of the Shirley E. Greenberg Women’s Health Centre. In Ottawa, I formed a women’s health council, because having a women’s health centre fell on deaf ears in the Ottawa hospital system. Not because it’s not a good thing, but because there were many other priorities, and women’s health is not one of them. It’s really not a priority still for the provincial government. If you have cancer, and that’s important, and if you have orthopaedic things like hip replacements and cataract surgery that’s good, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but we still have to really work hard to get the issues related to women’s health and obstetrics and looking after women who are pregnant seems to be a little more appreciated, but looking after women and their health, promotion of health, prevention of disease, looking at the number one issue that women have mortality with is cardio-vascular disease, and how does it differ from men’s health, because it is different – women don’t have that sudden, horrible chest pain – they have atypical symptoms. So looking at that, and osteoporosis, and cancers that women have, the number one cancer killer believe it or not is not breast cancer but lung cancer, so smoking cessation is pretty important. Looking at diagnosis and early management of breast cancer is important, and looking at the global picture for women’s health, and as a gynaecologist, I look at problems with women’s reproduction. At the Women’s Health Centre, we have a multidisciplinary group, but mainly gynaecologists looking at those areas that fit in. We have 30 gynaecologists, we see 30,000 women a year, we opened in 2005 – Shirley Greenberg was instrumental in giving us a lot of money, which we also raised to not totally match, but we came close to it. And then the government was sort of pushed into supporting us, and the hospital was pushed into supporting us because the women’s voices were heard, and I have to tell you that the women here in Ottawa and in Eastern Ontario are responsible, along with Shirley for improving women’s health. Being a catalyst for that sort of thing, along with my daily duties, it was a good thing. My story is pretty simple, but I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished.

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