Garth Drabinsky, the man who revolutionized Canada’s theatre and film industries before being convicted on two counts of fraud, is the fifth person to be stripped of the Order of Canada, the Star has learned.

The “Ordinance of Termination” was signed by Gov. Gen. David Johnston on Nov. 29, 2012 and will be formally announced in the Canada Gazette on March 2.

But Drabinsky, released on day parole on Feb. 15 after 17 months in prison, is not giving up the fight to keep his illustrious medal and pin.

He is applying to federal court for a judicial review, arguing he was denied a “reasonable opportunity to make full and complete representations” by the independent advisory council that determines who wins and loses the country’s top civilian honour because he was incarcerated at the time.

He hopes the panel will be ordered to reconsider his case with additional submissions — something that has never happened before according to a spokesperson for the Governor General’s office.

Drabinsky first learned that the council had determined there “may be reasonable grounds” to remove his Order of Canada on June 7, 2012, according to a federal court application filed Tuesday.

He was nine months into his sentence at the minimum-security Beaver Creek Institution where he had no access to his “archives, personal papers, records, a proper research library or the Internet.” All his mail, apart from correspondence with his lawyer, was opened and read and his phone calls were limited to 90 minutes a day — time mostly spent speaking with his family, according to a lengthy affidavit from Drabinsky submitted along with the application.

He adds “the past 14 years of criminal and civil litigation have exhausted my finances. I was not and am not able to hire a researcher to assist me to prepare my representations.”

Drabinsky was given one month, plus a one-month extension, to make written submissions for consideration by the 11-member panel. On Aug. 3, he submitted a 36-page “preliminary letter” and a request for an extension until he got out on day parole.

He heard nothing further until Feb. 1, {+ } when his lawyer received a copy of a letter from the Secretary General of the Order of Canada to Drabinsky informing him that his appointment to the Order of Canada was terminated.

“May I remind you . . . the insignia of Officer is the property of the Order and must be returned,” said the letter.

“(Mr. Drabinsky) hopes the court will see that he was treated unfairly in the process,” his lawyer, John Koch, said Tuesday. “If the council were to determine at the end of the day that even in the face of those additional submissions that his appointment should be terminated we’ll have to assess that when the time comes.”

Drabinsky is following in the footsteps of his friend Conrad Black by demanding the council conduct an oral hearing where he could present his case. Black — another high-profile fraud convict whose Order of Canada status continues to hang in the balance — had his request for an oral hearing denied by a federal court justice last October. He is appealing the ruling.

The Order of Canada recognizes “a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation.”

Drabinsky got his in 1995 for being an entrepreneur and risk taker, flying, as the title of his autobiography published the same year says, ever closer to the sun. He helmed Cineplex Odeon in the 1980s and put Toronto theatre on the map with Livent, the company he owned with partner Myron Gottlieb. Livent went bankrupt in 1998, beginning Drabinsky’s long battle with the law that ended with a five-year prison sentence.

In his affidavit — featuring glowing letters of support from his high-profile friends and business associates — he argues that his case differs from those of the four Canadians to previously lose their titles.

“The Order of Canada is not an award for ‘good behaviour’ but for significant contributions to Canada,” he wrote in his letter to the panel.

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“To revoke my appointment would make a mockery of a unique body of work and diminish its value to Canadians and the world.”

The federal court hearing could take place as early as May or June.

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