Posts with the anniversary tag

Barris Beat

Who’s teaching whom?

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
In full flight, getting a point across while hiding the nerves.
In full flight, getting a point across while hiding the nerves.

I remember the fear most of all. I was supposed to be the picture of calm. I was supposed to deliver Plato-like wisdom in bite-sized pieces. It was my first actual moment in front of a classroom. Then, I remember the faces. In fact, the make-believe students were professors, the dean of the college and, as I recall, a few graduate students. I stepped from behind the lectern and all my notes, looked up and addressed the class.

“Good morning,” I said, keeping the fear as deep down inside as I possibly could. “And here’s what I’ll be teaching you this semester…”

That was the fall of 1999, when I led my very first class, teaching the art and craft of news reporting. (more…)

Barris Beat

Pre-Christmas dedication

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
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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