The 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours list was recently published and it included 100 awards in recognition of exceptional overseas service to Britain. Ronald Cohen, senior fellow with Carleton University’s Faculty of Public Affairs, was included on the list and was made a member of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Cohen was one of two Canadians, along with Lyse Doucet, BBC chief international correspondent, to receive the award in recognition of exceptional service to Britain from overseas.
“I am absolutely delighted to see this great recognition of outstanding achievement by two distinguished Canadians,” said British High Commissioner Howard Drake. “I send my warmest congratulations to them both. Their work is a source of pride for both Canada and the U.K.”
Cohen lives in Ottawa and is well known for his extraordinary personal collection of Sir Winston Churchill’s writings, the biggest of its kind in the world, and for his authorship of the definitive Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill.
“It is truly an honour to receive this award,” said Cohen. “I had the good fortune to live in London during the last six months of Sir Winston Churchill’s life. It was the outpouring of emotion and respect for him by Britain and indeed the world that inspired me to spend the last half century collecting, studying, writing and speaking about the greatest Briton. That I should merit such recognition by Her Majesty for this passion is both humbling and gratifying.”
About Ronald Cohen
Cohen has been National Chair of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) since 1993. The CBSC is an independent, non-governmental organization created by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters in 1990 to administer broadcast codes in the areas of broadcast ethics, equitable portrayal, journalistic ethics and violence on television, among others. A graduate of both Harvard and McGill universities, Cohen is a lawyer, award-winning film producer and author. He was professor in the Faculty of Law at McGill University and founding chair of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. A member of the Barreau du Québec, Cohen has a distinguished record of achievement in public service, including as senior counsel for Québec’s Commission d’enquête sur le crime organisé and a director of the Consumers Association of Canada, Friends of Library and Archives Canada and the Harvard University Club of Ottawa. A widely published author, Cohen has written the definitive Bibliography of the Writings of Sir Winston Churchill. He is also the inaugural president of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Ottawa. His current research projects include a book, to be co-authored with André H. Caron, based on Prof. Caron’s Les enfants et leurs écrans, on the regulatory issues associated with children, television and the Internet.
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