To celebrate Canada 150, the country's 338 members of parliament were each assigned 20 limited edition pins to award to constituents.
And last week, Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam Liberal MP Ron McKinnon presented his first two accolades to an immigrant couple who have yet to take a day off work since opening their grocery store, in 1994.
McKinnon handed the sesquicentennial pins and certificates to George and Connie Lam, natives of China and Macao who keep G&A Market, on Cedar Drive, open for at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week.
"I feel very happy. Thank you to everybody who supports us," George Lam said, adding the certificates will be hung near the entrance.
Although the MPs were given no direction on how and when to award the pins, McKinnon said he wanted to pass them on to unsung community leaders. "They represent the quiet and unassuming people in our society," McKinnon said of the Lams. "There are always here and, without them, we would be lost. They are strong and steadfast in their service."
McKinnon's presentation to the Lams was based on nominations his office received over the summer. He, along with Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart and PoCo Mayor Greg Moore, adjudicated the applications, with preference given to nominees who had demonstrated one of the four pillars of the Canada 150 celebrations: diversity and inclusion; national reconciliation of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians; environmental stewardship; and youth matters.
"There are people's names that always come up," McKinnon said. "They deserve recognition, for sure, but there are others too who are always left out. They are the foundations of our community."
McKinnon's remaining pins — each made with 100-year-old copper from the West Block of Parliament Hill — will be distributed over the next couple of months, he said. The winners will be notified by Dec. 31.
A spokesperson for Port Moody-Coquitlam NDP MP Fin Donnelly said a few of his Canada 150 pins were distributed to veterans at the Coquitlam Remembrance Day service on Nov. 11; two pins also went to RCMP officers at a new citizens reception, Roberta Webster said.
jcleugh@tricitynews.com
