Barris Beat

WhatsApp versus what really happened

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau answers questions from reporter Tim Ralphe on Parliament Hill during the October Crisis, 1970. CBC.

That October, the country was on the verge of civil war. At least that’s what it felt like. A Quebec cabinet minister had been murdered by the FLQ (Le Front de libération du Québec). A British trade official remained kidnapped. The then prime minister had introduced the War Measures Act to ferret out FLQ members and arrest those responsible.

As a senior student of then Ryerson’s Radio and TV Arts program and thinking only about getting the story on the air, I sat down in a radio studio at CJRT FM in Toronto and interviewed four students of Loyola College who’d been questioned in a Montreal dragnet just days before.

“My guests are John Welsh, Alan Saig, Joe Sagantic and John McKay,” I began. “Tell us how all this affected you.”

And they did. It was Oct. 28, 1970, the height of the October Crisis. (more…)

Barris Beat

Vimy and the value of work

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Bandsman Lyman Nichols, eventually called upon for more than his musical skills in the Great War.

It was nearly the last question I fielded the other night. I’d just told the story of Uxbridge youth Lyman Nichols – how (underage) he had joined Sam Sharpe’s 116th Ontario County Battalion in 1915, but when he turned 18 how, as a bandsman, he joined the 116th officially and marched off to the Great War, how he survived the battles at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, and how he’d come home wounded among 160 surviving soldiers (of the regiment’s original 1,600).

“What had helped the Canadians get through?” someone at my Vimy dinner audience in Peterborough asked.

“They were task-oriented,” I suggested. “Perhaps more than all the regular soldiers from Britain and the Empire, the Canadians before the war had been farmers, lumberjacks, fisherman, labourers, even students who all understood the meaning of getting a job done.”

(more…)

Barris Beat

A lesson in public speaking

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Charlene Orrell, incoming president of the Army Cadet League of Canada, meets with volunteers.

When I arrived at the meeting, the executive director of the group was at the lectern addressing members. Rob Gill had finished his introductory remarks to the Army Cadet League’s annual general meeting, including a few jokes to break the ice.

Then he got to the theme of the weekend conference, “Community Engagement,” and wisely he chose to focus on the organization’s people. Among them, he complimented the outgoing president.

“Rick Brown doesn’t say an awful lot,” Gill said. “But he’s one of the best listeners I’ve ever known.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Silence is not an option

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, March 26, 2024. India TV.

Instincts cannot be unlearned. Early last Tuesday morning (March 26), a retired chief of the Baltimore fire department was wakened when he heard rumbling and felt his house shake. He lives a short distance from the Patapsco River. He said the experience “felt like an earthquake.”

Interviewed by The Associated Press in the U.S., former firefighter Donald Heinbuch explained that instinct told him to drive to toward the unearthly sound. Then, he described what he saw. “The (container) ship was there, and the bridge was in the water – like it was blown up.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Fabric of the nation’s navy

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Royal Canadian Navy warship docked at CFB Esquimalt.
Royal Canadian Navy warship docked at CFB Esquimalt. March 2024.

About an hour into the tour, I discovered one of the secrets to Canada’s military capability at sea. The tour aboard HMCS Vancouver, a Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) frigate currently in a short-work period at the base just outside Victoria, had taken me through the operations room. I’d sat in the commander’s chair on the bridge. Then I’d seen the ship’s massive rudder system.

I happened to pause at a rack of fire extinguishers, helmets and gas masks. In the event of a major fire at sea, I asked, were the people assigned to fight fires on board the ship former civilian firefighters?

Lt (Navy) Konnor Brett guiding us aboard HMCS Vancouver.

“No,” explained Lieutenant (Navy) Konnor Brett. “Every member of the crew is a trained firefighter.”

And I realized immediately that teaching all RCN sailors to fight fires had nothing to do with personnel limitations and everything to do with practicality. If a warship couldn’t depend on every man and woman in her crew to quell fires, keep the sea from swamping the ship in gales or combat, and deliver basic first aid or rescue tasks, its effectiveness would be severely diminished at sea. “It’s a matter of the ship’s survival,” Brett said. (more…)

Barris Beat

Reluctant hero 80 years on

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Pilot Officer Albert Wallace wearing his air gunner’s brevet.

In the dead of night in western Poland, Albert Wallace made sand disappear. That winter of 1944, he trekked through snow, his RCAF airman’s pants concealing long sacks of sand excavated from secret escape tunnels. Inside a now darkened theatre, his German captors had allowed POWs to build inside their prison compound, Wallace quietly stepped into a designated row of seats.

“I was told to sit there because that’s where the trapdoor was,” Wallace said. “I sat in seat Number 13, pulled the sack strings and emptied the sand inside my pants through a trapdoor hidden under the seat.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Are you glad “it’s happening here”?

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Instead TV hockey, I’m watching dogs hanging out of car windows.

There I was, a few weeks ago, settling into my TV easy chair on a Saturday night, prepared to watch the Leafs play somebody. And suddenly the screen was awash with picturesque images of rural Ontario. Next, there was a guy in a tractor cab.

“Is this a trailer for a CBC series I haven’t seen?” I asked myself.

Then the same guy was offloading sacks from a flatbed near his barn. And there was a lush soundtrack of orchestral music rising behind him. And I realized this was an advertisement.

“It’s gotta be a beer commercial,” I thought, “because they’re the only sponsors who can afford commercial spots on Hockey Night in Canada.” (more…)

Barris Beat

“Like-minded” equals “contempt”

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
In Canada’s court system what Trump said would be considered contempt and prosecutable.

Outside his residence in Florida, several weeks ago, a former United States president made sure the cameras were running, raised his fist in the air and then verbally slammed Judge Arthur Engoron. The justice of the Supreme Court of New York had just handed down his ruling in the civil business-fraud trial against Donald Trump. The former president reacted.

“A crooked New York State judge has just ruled that I have to pay a fine of $355 million for having built a perfect company,” Trump said, and he went on to call New York Attorney General Letitia James, who initiated the case, “totally corrupt.”

If any politician, no, make that if any individual had said that in Canada, she or he would have been charged with contempt. (more…)

Barris Beat

Do it locally, or lose it!

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
What 10 tons of tree did to our garage and car in the derecho.

It was the worst of times for us all. The May 21, 2022, derecho struck Uxbridge, Ont., from the Sixth Concession through the west end of town, across the railway yards, devastating homes, downtown apartments, Second Wedge Brewery and Trinity United Church among many places.

Power was out for days, phone service spotty, and just the goodwill of neighbours got us through. With our garage gone and my car crushed, I turned to my insurers, who told me my car was a write-off. They offered me a cash settlement for the wreck. I agreed. Then, the agent read me the fine print of my policy over the phone.

“The car rental clause (promising six weeks of rental,)” she said, “since you’ve agreed to the sale of your (written-off) car, it ends today.”

In effect, they had terminated my coverage seven days after the storm. (more…)

Barris Beat

Does Bell really care about community?

Written by Ted Barris on . 2 Comments
CFQC Radio co-hosts Wally Stambuck (left) and Denny Carr pose in front of Unity, Saskatchewan, grain elevator on Canada Day 1977.

It was one of the first phone calls I made when I arrived at a new job in Saskatoon in 1976. I dialed city hall and asked for the mayor’s office. I explained that I was new in town and wanted to meet with the man to discuss a media opportunity with him. His assistant took down my name and number and said the mayor would get back to me. A day or so later he phoned me back.

“Mayor Cliff Wright here,” he said. “How can I help you?”

“Thanks for returning my call, Mr. Mayor …”

“You can call me Cliff,” he said.

I explained that as a new radio producer of CFQC Radio (part of Baton Broadcasting, owned at the time by CTV) I’d been asked to approach him and offer him a weekly spot on our morning radio show, hosted by Wally Stambuck and Denny Carr. It was part of the station’s initiative to connect with community. (more…)