I'm generally in agreement with Audrey's take on Murray Mandryk's attempt to defend Grant Devine's appointment to the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. In effect there doesn't seem to be much disagreement that Devine is the test case as to whether merely occupying the premier's office is enough to justify the honour in the absence of any particular accomplishments - and the answer ought to be "no", particularly since there are trappings specific to the office which Devine has already received.
That said, it's worth noting that the "participation award" standard only apparently applies to premiers. Which seems to me to raise a separate issue of elitism in how Mandryk's standard views the relative value of different careers: what possible reason can there be to require Order of Merit recipients from any other profession to demonstrate something which sets them apart from their peers, while a politician merely has to take up space?
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