It’s the last thing my wife and I do each night and nearly the first thing each morning. It’s been that way for nearly 50 years. We turn off the light at night and wake up each morning in sync with broadcasters and their newscasts. At 11:30 p.m., Lisa LaFlamme says:
“That’s it for us at CTV News. Have a good night.”
Then, each morning at the top of the hour, we catch Nil Köksal introducing us to, “World Report…” on CBC Radio. (more…)
Darrin called me this week. And he talked to me as if we were best pals, as if we’d known each other for years. I asked for an explanation.
“I’m Darrin,” he said, cheerfully. “from Rogers Communications.”
And I knew instantly this call was a pitch. I decided to listen to what he had to say, because my wife and I have been concerned about what’s happening to our cable TV service. (more…)
It was 1983. The Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which had become law the year before, faced an important test. A constitutional conference had assembled then prime minister Pierre Trudeau and Indigenous leaders to debate the incorporation of Indigenous rights. Trudeau seemed frustrated that one Indigenous spokeswoman was not satisfied.
“I wish you and your sisters would take it out of your head that somehow we’re deliberately trying to frustrate the concept of equality,” Trudeau said.
“At least in the law, everybody is assured here that we are not. In a sense, you’re equal when you think you’re equal. And if you think you’re unequal, the law won’t change much.”
The camera swish-panned to a young woman, whose mother was Inuk, and her father was non-Indigenous. (more…)
It was the climax of the chapter, about a 19th-century military battle in western Canada. It was an important feature in my first non-fiction book, written 44 years ago. It pitted a massive force of army militia troops from eastern Canada against Métis communities defending their land rights in the Saskatchewan territory. That spring of 1885, it became known as the Battle of Batoche.
In my book, Fire Canoe, I referred to the stand that Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont made at Batoche as “the Riel rebellion.” (more…)
It was the end of our shift. The boss, the owner of the restaurant, called a staff meeting. There were waiters, waitresses, cooks and the busboy staff – about a dozen of us. For several weeks we’d known that the head busboy was leaving the diner. So, we were looking to the boss for some kind of announcement about who would become the next head busboy. His decision was not unexpected. He gave the job to Denny.
“Denny’s been with us the longest,” the boss said. “He has the most experience. He has the trust of everybody on staff and all our customers. He’s the right choice for the position.”
Nobody, not a single person on our staff, disagreed. Everybody could see that the promotion had gone to exactly the right person. Denny met all criteria. So, he got the job. That’s the way it was done at a restaurant staff meeting I attended in the summer of 1966. (more…)
The session bells were ringing Monday afternoon at Queen’s Park, calling Members of the Provincial Parliament into the chamber. The halls outside buzzed with MPPs and their minions. Suddenly, the Premier emerged. He’d seen reporters with cameras. A reporter asked if Opposition debate would delay passage of Bill 307, the one that used the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution to reintroduce parts of a law overruled by a judge last week.
“No,” Doug Ford said defiantly from behind his COVID mask. “We’re fighting for democracy.”
For the record, last Tuesday (June 8) Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Morgan reached the conclusion that it was unconstitutional for the Ontario government to double the restricted pre-election spending period for third-party advertisements to 12 months before an election call. (more…)
It started with registration and Frosh Week in September 1968. I was so eager to attend the school I even lined up at the bookstore to buy a jacket with his name “Ryerson” arched across the back. Three years later, I reached a milestone there when I received the certificate signifying that I had completed all my courses in broadcast journalism. But I returned a few years later, when Ryerson had become a degree-granting institution, completed the makeup courses, and stood in line again to receive my BA in 1976.
“By virtue of the authority granted by the province of Ontario under the Polytechnical Act, 1962, Ryerson has awarded the degree Bachelor of Applied Arts to Theodore Barris,” the document said. Next to my name, a seal with the bust of Egerton Ryerson embossed on the degree.
I thought of that seal, and that bust, Monday morning, as I learned that demonstrators in front of the main gates of Ryerson University in downtown Toronto had toppled the statue of the institution’s namesake. (more…)
It was a Friday afternoon ritual. In the mid-1960s, when everybody’s definition of “hip” was knowing which rock ’n’ roll songs were the best in the land, we all raced downtown after school. We disembarked from the relatively new Yonge Street subway line at St. Clair and ran a block south to the window adjacent the front door at 1050 CHUM Radio. There, we each grabbed our own personal copy of CHUM’s Weekly Hit Parade.
“Who’s tops on the CHUM Chart this week?” was the first question blurted out. “The Beatles? Leslie Gore? Bobby Vinton? Jan and Dean?” (more…)
Jonathan Wilson will graduate in about a year. He’ll complete the Journalism and Mass Media program at Durham College. Despite having to adapt to online learning for the past year from his home in Uxbridge, he’s getting A’s in his grades, and earning praise for his portfolio of stories.
Once he graduates, Jonathan will start beating the bushes for full-time work as a professional journalist. His mom, Lisa Wilson, is proud of her son’s accomplishments. She’s also thankful for the charity of others.
“If it wasn’t for the Lions Foundation and Dog Guides Canada,” Lisa told a handful of us this week, “none of this would’ve been possible.” (more…)
We met because of COVID. Having retired from a surgical practice just before the pandemic struck, Dr. Ian Anderson found that he had a bit more time on his hands. Consequently, he began to read more of the non-fiction books on his shelf, in particular writings about Canadian military medical personnel. During the Alberta lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, he found time to read my book Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire. That’s when he corresponded.
“I read history and biography,” Anderson wrote in a letter to me in 2020. “The truth is always better than the imagination.”
Thus began a correspondence that has continued through the pandemic. (more…)