He almost could not speak, the response around him seemed overwhelming. But he finally raised his hands in gentle protest to the standing ovation and when the applauding stopped he offered these words:
“Today, I rise for the last time in this chamber,” MP Erin O’Toole said in the House of Commons on June 12. “It’s been the honour of a lifetime to serve Durham in Parliament.” (more…)
As we filed down the loading ramp toward the flight, there was one face in the group of passengers around me that looked familiar. Was he a TV host? Maybe a sports personality? Possibly a politician? As passengers began stowing their bags overhead, I realized he wasn’t any of those guesses I’d made on the ramp. Then, it hit me as I sat down beside him.
“You’re John Ralston Saul, aren’t you?” I said.
He nodded, smiled and said, “Or, as some call me, Mr. Adrienne Clarkson.” (more…)
The last time I spent time with Ted Arnold was in 1991. He had contacted me about his Second World War story. So, I travelled to Port Hope and interviewed him. We communicated again later in the year when he was holidaying in Florida. And while I thought of him often after that, I never actually saw him again. His son Rick contacted me some years later.
“We were wondering if you could help us?” he asked.
I said I would try and then Rick explained that his father had slipped through the cracks at Veterans Affairs Canada. Partly because he was born in Argentina, but mostly because he fell into an odd category as a veteran, the system had denied him veteran status, and therefore funds to cover the expenses at an assisted-living facility in Ontario.
“As you know,” Rick Arnold went on, “he’s not entitled to a veteran’s pension.” (more…)
I have listened to it. I have read it. I have asked my friends – both women and men – what they think of it. And because I have a sister, a wife, two daughters and a granddaughter and many female friends of various ages, cultural origins, linguistic backgrounds and religious faiths, in my life, I have agonized over its message.
“Why would Canadians, contrary to our own values, embrace a practice … that is not transparent, that is not open and frankly is rooted in a culture that is anti-women?” Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in Parliament earlier this year, “That is unacceptable to Canadians, unacceptable to Canadian women.” (more…)
One could see the man was about to pounce. One could see that it was a debater’s moment – maybe even one of those so-called knockout punches. And the punch was aimed at the prime minister. Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau wound up and let it fly at Conservative leader Stephen Harper.
“Mr. Harper on (Bill) C-51,” Trudeau said of the anti-terrorism bill passed into law in June of this year, “wants us to be afraid that there’s a terrorist under every leaf and rock in Canada.” (more…)
She started looking and listening from the moment she entered the room. Almost as if she were a bomb-sniffing canine, she was casing the space in which Olivia Chow was about to participate in a mayoral debate, Monday evening. I was the moderator and introduced myself. She had a raft of questions about where Ms. Chow would be sitting during the debate, and what the order of speaking would be. Then, just before her candidate entered the room, the handler approached me with one final question.
“How will Olivia know when her speaking time is up?” the woman asked me. “Have you got signs to count her down to the end of her time?”
“No.” I said. “I’ll just tell her she’s got 30 seconds left.”
“I really think you ought to have visual signs for her,” she insisted.
“Don’t worry. I’ve moderated a lot of debates. I don’t think we need visual signals. I’ll just find an appropriate moment, a breath pause in Olivia’s comments, and I’ll gently say, ‘Thirty seconds.’ It should work just fine.” (more…)
The morning the world changed, I had tumbled from my warm bed, found a cup of coffee to help me on my way and driven from the countryside to the old CBC Radio building on Jarvis Street, next to CBC corporate head offices in downtown Toronto. By 5 a.m. I had cleared my head and my throat to deliver one of my first newscasts for the CBC Network that morning. Little did I know within the first hours of my shift, I would be part of something momentous.
“Here is the CBC News,” I said at the top of each hour that morning to begin the five-minute hourly newscast. But that day I also got the chance to announce repeatedly as the top story, “Nelson Mandela, the black African leader imprisoned for treason since 1963, has this morning left notorious Robben Island prison, a free man.”
What’s with these guys? This week, Stephen Harper, the leader of the largest dominion in the 64-year-old, 53-member Commonwealth – covering a quarter of the world’s total land mass and including a third of the world’s total population – told fellow members he’d decided not to attend the upcoming meeting of the community in Sri Lanka. He said he wasn’t happy with the human rights record of the host nation’s president. So, in a desire to protect what he felt are the values of Canadians, he’s decided not to show up. It was the prime ministerial equivalent of a schoolyard child’s pout:
“Nya, nya, na-nya nya!”
It’s about 30 years ago now that I met Elmer. Born in 1947, he was about my age. Like me he’d grown up searching for a place in the world to make a difference. He’d gone to elementary school in the Canadian North, to college to become an engineer and to university to study anthropology and political science. In the 1960s, he poked around Europe hoping to figure things out. Then he found his calling.
“My dad had taken sick and nearly died,” he said. “I decided it was time I returned home to get to know my parents.”
About a year ago, I was invited to speak to the Writers’ Community of York Region. As the date of the talk approached – last Sunday, Dec. 9 – I began to prepare my presentation. Normally, for these kinds of talks, I rely on my collection of personal anecdotes, remembrances and war stories – literally and figuratively – to get me through the event. Then, I remembered why I had been invited.
“This is a group of writers,” the speaking convenor had said. “So they’ll be interested in your research and writing… You might want to address the challenges of being a journalist and non-fiction writer.”