Canadian actor Peter Keleghan will get ACTRA Toronto Award of Excellence. (Photo courtesy of ACTRA)

Actor Peter Keleghan has created characters such as the oblivious news anchor in CBC's The Newsroom, lonely and deluded Ranger Gord on The Red Green Show and a film industry CEO in Made in Canada.

A versatile actor who has lent character to dozens of comedies, he has had more than 80 roles on small and large screen.

But when people recognize him on the street, they always want to know about his experience on Seinfeld.

That bothers him.

"I love the work in the States but it's that Canadian thing — it's never 'Oh, I love you on Made in Canada [or] The Newsroom;' it's 'What was it like working on Seinfeld?'" Keleghan told CBC's Q cultural affairs show on Friday. "Well, I did one episode."

Canada's largest actors' union, ACTRA, will honour Keleghan with its Award of Excellence for his outstanding body of work in a ceremony on Friday.

The award has previously been given to Sarah Polley, Paul Gross, Eric Peterson and Keleghan's father in-law, Gordon Pinsent. Keleghan is married to actress Leah Pinsent.

But he says his role as a promoter of Canadian culture may be just as important as his acting pedigree.

"I think a great part of this award is for the roles I've played, but also for action I've taken with the credit union and political stuff such as Canadian culture," Keleghan said.

Mortgages for arts workers

Keleghan worked on an ACTRA project to create a new credit union for arts professionals, one that will grant mortgages to people who have contract work in film and TV.

He has also been a vocal advocate of more Canadian drama on television, opposing a 1999 change to CRTC rules that allowed networks to claim reality TV and entertainment news shows were Canadian content. ACTRA has long fought that rule, which resulted in diminished Canadian drama on TV.

"I think our problem is that we have culture in this country in the hands of big business," Keleghan said. "The private networks said they would provide us with so much more Canadian content once they had enough money from simulcasting American products, which is tantamount to dumping because I think they can buy it for far less than we can make it.

"We went from so many dramas in this country to very, very few."

Keleghan said the private networks are "doing the right thing in the corporate world — they're making money for shareholders — but it's not really the right thing for what we need in this country, which is a vision, a realization that arts and culture define us as a people. It makes us family and solidifies and identifies us as a people."

He recalled growing up in Montreal and seeing Pinsent on the screen in the 1960s-era show Forest Rangers. The memory was so vivid that he could think only of that character when he first met Pinsent.

"My worry is, who do my kids see on screen that represents us?" he said.

PM's gaffe put arts on election agenda

Keleghan said he was thankful for Prime Minister Stephen Harper's gaffe during the election campaign when he said Canadians didn't care about artists at rich galas.

"I don't think it was ever on the Conservative agenda to have so much culture on the political scene," he said. But Harper's comment stirred so much reaction, culture is now an issue "by default," he said.

"I’ll take it, no matter how it happens, if it gets Canadians talking about culture and it gets some sort of vision happening and some sort of sustained funding for the arts."

Keleghan said he lived in Los Angeles in the 1990s and says his time there made him appreciate more the Canadian lifestyle and outlook.

He has no regrets about escaping Hollywood, he said.

"Well, if I had done this in the States and I had got there what I got in Canada, I could retire by now. That's not what it's about for me, it's about quality of life — it's about working where you want to die," he said.