Posts with the CBC tag

Barris Beat

So what, if it’s only the first round!

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Joe Bowen never holds back his emotions during Leafs play-by-play.

For me, Saturday night was one of those “Where were you?” moments. I’d spent the day travelling to and from Brantford and made it home just in time to plunk myself down in front of the TV for part of game six of the Leafs-Lightning first-round Stanley Cup playoff.

I caught the end of regulation time with the score tied 1-1. Finally (because I sometimes watch games on CBC and listen to them on radio simultaneously), I heard Joe Bowen’s call as John Tavares’s shot trickled past Tampa netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy at 4:35 of overtime:

“They scored! They scored! Holy Mackinaw, they scored!” he shouted. “The Leafs are going to the second round!” (more…)

Barris Beat

Bed blockers are not the problem

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Public health kept a lid on SARS at Scarborough Grace Hospital in 2003, despite Health Ministry incompetence. Global News.

The news nearly killed my mother. I believe that it hastened my father’s death. In February 2003, my father suffered a debilitating stroke that stole his two most precious faculties – speech and memory. Because my parents lived in Agincourt, paramedics rushed him to Scarborough Grace Hospital.

Days later SARS struck the same floor of the hospital where my father was recovering. Nevertheless, nurses told us they could isolate Dad sufficiently so that Mom could still suit up with PPE and see him. But then the Conservative provincial government, thinking it knew better than the health-care specialists, intervened.

“For his safety,” they told my mother, “we’re isolating your father in the new PPP (public-private partnership) hospital in Brampton.”

“How is my mother, living in Agincourt, going to be able to see my father in Brampton?” I asked the office of then health minister Tony Clement.

“She can communicate with him by fax,” they recommended. (more…)

Barris Beat

Line in the sand

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Carolyn Dunn felt the pressure of convoy demonstrators’ threats.

Until last weekend, I’d become kind of blasé to the words of protest and counter-protest. Every day, I’d read the latest on the demonstrations at Parliament Hill and the border crossings and winced at the deadlock and rhetoric. And, as I pointed out last week, I feared for wider freedom being trampled.

But a TV news story the other night stopped me in my tracks. Carolyn Dunn, CBC’s Alberta reporter, stood adjacent to flashing police cruiser lights, and parked semi-trailer trucks near Coutts, Alta., reporting but also looking over her shoulder anxiously.

Some Freedom Convoy truckers at Coutts, Alta., putting limits on freedom with their taunts.

“Things remain tense for citizens and the media,” Dunn said in her report. She went on to say that some of the demonstrators had directed abusive language at her and other reporters. In other words, in a weirdly Trumpian way, media not just mandates, had become the enemy. And Dunn said she felt uncomfortable having to hide who she was from strangers. “We’ve been told to be careful.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Corporate profits versus union protection

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Among the best eateries in Baltimore, Maryland – the Double-T Diner.

Most evenings you’d see her as you entered the restaurant. Six or seven nights a week, my aunt met customers at the front door of the Double-T Diner in Baltimore, Md., with the warmest, most genuine smile ever. On the job, Virginia always dressed appropriately – hair neat as a pin, makeup just right and clothing not a thread out of place. She was the best restaurant hostess (she preferred that title herself) I ever knew.

“You never know who might arrive,” she told me. “Best to be prepared.” (more…)

Barris Beat

The heart. Not the quick hit.

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It is arguably the most difficult issue Canadians have had to face since Confederation. It has divided Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada since initial European contact. And it came into sharpest focus this spring when hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children were discovered around several former residential schools.

But when the issue of “Reconciliation with First Nations” was introduced last Thursday night during the Leaders’ Debate – after some introductory remarks from the five leaders, one of them, Justin Trudeau, got this curt instruction from the moderator.

“You have five seconds, Mr. Trudeau,” said Shachi Kurl, the moderator. “Five seconds, sir.”

“We have lots more to do,” Trudeau said. “And we are going to do it.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Give a cable. Take a mile.

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Thanks to  corporate communications servers, such as Rogers and Bell, we’ll soon be going retro with a rooftop antenna a la 1956.

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…)

Barris Beat

Merge at our peril

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John Cleghorn, in 1989 Chair of Royal Bank of Canada. torontopubliclibrary.ca

The meeting happened on a November afternoon in 1998. A big merger was in the wind. Rumour of “Yea” or “Nay” ran rampant across the country. One man in the room at a Montreal home argued his industry needed to grow bigger in order to compete globally. The other feared that sector’s customers, Canadian consumers, might not be well served. The industry man got riled.

“You’re not listening to me!” complained John Cleghorn, chairman of the Royal Bank of Canada.

Paul Martin, in 1989 Finance Minister. National Post.

“Mergers … are not in the best interest of Canadians,” said Paul Martin, the MP and cabinet member.

This exchange, described by the Canadian Encyclopedia, recreated the meeting between banker Cleghorn and then finance minister Martin at the latter’s Montreal home. (more…)

Barris Beat

Without a word from our sponsor

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J. Frank Willis, interviews miner involved in rescue of men underground. April 1936.

He didn’t look much like a pioneer. But J. Frank Willis sure was. Dressed in tall boots, a long coat and scarf, wearing a fedora – typical of the 1930s – he was a reporter. Hearing news of a coal-mine rescue underway in a remote corner of Nova Scotia, he made his way to a place called Moose River.

There, he found the only available land telephone line and got permission to broadcast from the mouth of the mine. Miners were trapped 50 metres underground and their would-be rescuers had been digging for days to reach them. Willis held his primitive microphone in front of one of the rescuers.

“Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the captain of the rescue team from Stellerton, Nova Scotia,” Willis said.

“Hello Stellerton,” the captain said. “We’re getting’ along fine. We’ll have those men up in a couple of hours.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Rights tested half a century ago

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PM Pierre Trudeau answers questions from reporter Tim Ralphe on Parliament Hill during the October Crisis, 1970.

It was a moment on live television – something considered rare then. The Prime Minister, Justin’s father, moved up the steps to his office on Parliament Hill. Reporters converged and questioned, one of them, Tim Ralphe, more aggressively than the rest. He poked his microphone at Pierre Trudeau and pressed the concern of many in Canada at that moment.

“Sir, what is it with all these men with guns around?” he asked.

The day before, Oct. 12, Trudeau had called for the Canadian Armed Forces to deploy armed troops to protect high-profile locations and individuals in Ottawa and Quebec City.

“Well, there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don’t like to see people in helmets and guns,” Trudeau said. “But it is more important to keep law and order in society than to be worried about weak-kneed people.” (more…)

Barris Beat

So the story goes…

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Alex Barris, my father, told stories as a career – via his typewriter or at a microphone.

He had a knack. Whenever he launched into an introduction, even if we were familiar with every word that followed, we knew we were in for a treat. My father, Alex Barris, had a unique talent for telling stories. And even if we knew it was a shaggy-dog story (one artificially stretched-out to build the suspense), we never tired of his telling it.

“Ever heard the story about the famous piano tuner?” he might begin. (more…)