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Barris Beat

A skate of passage

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Grandfather and granddaughter celebrate "skate" of passage.
Grandfather and granddaughter celebrate "skate" of passage.

Our family enjoyed a once-in-a-lifetime moment last weekend. It was one of those events that almost always happens in this country. You can bet on it each winter when snow falls, ponds freeze and community recreation centres shift to wintertime activities. This rite of passage began a few weeks ago – at Christmas – when it was agreed our granddaughter would take her first skate this winter.

“I’ve got the bob skates,” my daughter told me last week. “Let’s take in a pleasure skate at the arena.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

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Barris Beat

A verdict falls short

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My Corolla sitting in a wrecking yard the afternoon of Dec. 30 last year. Almost a year after being t-boned in a Whitby intersection my case came to an Ontario courtroom.
My Corolla sitting in a wrecking yard the afternoon of Dec. 30, 2009. Almost a year after being t-boned in a Whitby intersection, my case came to an Ontario courtroom on Dec. 17, 2010.

It happened one day last summer. I think I had just finished mowing the lawn, when a police cruiser motored up the driveway. A couple of Durham Regional Police officers stepped out. My wife and I exchanged a surprised glance.

“Are you Ted Barris?” one of the officers asked.

“Yes…” I answered a little nervously.

“I have a summons here for you,” he continued, “in connection with an automobile collision last year.”

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Barris Beat

Best Christmas present ever

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Homemade Barris Christmas angel ornament (fashioned by our daughter Quenby in 1980s).
Homemade Barris Christmas angel ornament (fashioned by our daughter Quenby in 1980s).

It happened after I’d graduated from Ryerson in 1971. I’d learned about a position writing press releases and biographies about up-and-coming rock ‘n’ roll musicians. They called it A&R, an artist and repertoire position. My employer would be one of the biggest recording labels in the world – Warner Brothers. And, they told me, I would be working from a brand new office in Yorkville, the heart of Toronto’s pop music world.

I wanted that job so badly I could taste it. I applied in June, got it in September and was told I’d start in December. It would be my biggest, best Christmas present ever. Then, the roof caved in.

“Sorry to have to tell you this,” the Warner Brothers flunky said on the phone that December. “Changed their minds. No A&R office. No job.”

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Barris Beat

Pre-Christmas dedication

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Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King pins wings on the uniform of an early graduate of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during a symbolic ceremony on Parliament Hill. King made sure the plan became an entirely made-in-Canada phenomenon.
Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King pins wings on the uniform of an early graduate of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during a symbolic ceremony on Parliament Hill. King made sure the plan became an entirely made-in-Canada phenomenon.

December 17 is an anniversary. It’s not the kind of anniversary Canadians notice much anymore. Indeed, the number of those who acknowledge it, dwindles each year. And yet, it’s the day back in 1939 that some historians suggest marked this country’s true declaration of independence. Then Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King signed an international agreement that day.

“I suppose no more significant agreement has ever been signed by the Government of Canada,” King wrote in his diary that evening. It also happened to be his 65th birthday, so it was doubly auspicious, he thought.

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Barris Beat

What public courage deserves

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“In order for us as a team to protect our player...” Greg Walsh said, “we said that we weren’t going to play..."
“In order for us as a team to protect our player...” Greg Walsh said, “we said that we weren’t going to play..."

There’s a brave hockey coach in our midst. He’s paying a pretty severe penalty at the moment. You might have heard about him. A few weeks ago, Greg Walsh was coaching his Peterborough-area minor hockey team – a team of 16-year-old boys.

In the heat of a game, an opposing player blurted out a racial slur at one of Walsh’s players. The boy used the N-word. Walsh couldn’t believe his ears. He responded with the most demonstrative action he could think of.

“In order for us as a team to protect our player from that,” Walsh told a Toronto Star reporter, “we said that we weren’t going to play and we went to the dressing room.”

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Barris Beat

Champions of a dream

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Don Harron collaborated with Norman Campbell to produce the first TV version of "Anne of Green Gables" for CBC in 1956.
Don Harron collaborated with Norman Campbell to produce the first TV version of "Anne of Green Gables" for CBC in 1956.

It was 1956. Television was in its infancy. Canadian programs such as Cross-Canada Hit Parade, Front Page Challenge, The Big Revue and, yes, the Barris Beat, were new on the tube. This country’s actors, singers, dancers, writers and directors were just getting their show-business legs in a new medium. One of its rising stars, a multi-faceted comedic actor named Don Harron, happened to meet another up-and-comer, producer Norman Campbell.

“What am I going to do?” Campbell asked Harron. “I’ve got 90 minutes of time to fill on CBC TV and no program.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Harron said. “Let’s put ‘Anne of Green Gables’ on TV.”

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Barris Beat

The price of these words

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Cover image from "International Free Expression Review 2010," published by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
Cover image from "International Free Expression Review 2010," published by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.

I hear it among my colleagues often – industry complaints. Some of my friends in newspaper journalism worry about the uncertainty of their jobs. Others in the magazine business object to their copy being squeezed by over-sized ads. Meanwhile, those of my associates in the electronic media whine about insufficient pensions to cover their expenses when they retire.

I wonder if any of them would ever complain again, if they knew the plight of Cameroon Express editor Bibi Ngota. Earlier this year, while imprisoned at Kondengui prison in Cameroon, he died of “abandonment (and) improper care,” according to official records.

Why was he in jail? According to a press release from the organization Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), “(He) was charged with ‘imitating the signature of a member of government,’” short for criticizing the Cameroonian government.

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Barris Beat

Psychology of time

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WATCHFACEA few weeks ago, at Centennial College where I teach, we realized things were reaching a breaking point. Students faced a never-ending stream of deadlines. Faculty appeared completely stressed out. And everybody seemed at wit’s end. So, we invited in a campus counsellor to conduct a stress workshop. Eventually, she just asked straight out, “What seems to be the problem?”

“I can’t seem to get things done,” one student said. “There’s never enough time.”

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Barris Beat

Never in November

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Grave of J. Robertson, VC, at Farm.
Grave of James Robertson, VC, who served with the 27th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. He died Nov. 6, 1917, during the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium. He was 35.

They tell me if things go a certain way, one day soon I’ll have this day to myself. I’ll be able to rise, take a leisurely breakfast and then do the right thing. They tell me if their plan is accepted, I’ll have all day to pay my respects to Canada’s veterans. That plan will mean I’ll have a statutory holiday on Nov. 11, on Remembrance Day. At least, that’s what the sponsor of a private member’s bill, MPP Lisa MacLeod, believes.

“There’s been an outpouring of support for Canadian soldiers, our war veterans and our war dead,” she told CBC a few days ago.

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Barris Beat

More lethal than disease

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PENNIE_TAINTED_JACKETIn his 2009 book “Tainted,” Canadian author Ross Pennie explores the hypothetical likelihood of a regional health facility facing a sudden outbreak of mad-cow disease in a small Ontario community without any apparent explanation. The book is a thriller, an entirely fictionalized depiction of a system facing a medical crisis and widespread public panic right in our own backyard.

But Dr. Pennie admitted to me – and the audience watching our interview at the Whitby Pubic Library, Monday night – that he didn’t write this medical mystery as a slam against doctors or Canadian health facilities. No, he said, it was, in a way, medical teaching universities he was decrying.

“I’m not criticizing doctors or the medical system,” he said, “but I am knocking those in academe who would rather drag each other down than see any one individual scientist get credit for advancing the cause of medicine.”

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