FAREWELL TO TERRY FOX HALL OF FAME

Hello To Canadian Disability Hall Of Fame

Five wonderful Canadians have just been inducted into the new Canadian Disability Hall of Fame at the 16th annual dinner.
You don't have to be a veteran editor like me to spot the contradiction in that first paragraph. If it's a new hall, how come it was the 16th induction?
The reason is that thanks to the obstinate Fox family, who agreed to the start of the Terry Fox Hall of Fame - that honoured disabled athletes, others who triumphed over physical disabilities, and those who helped them - we on the selection committee have had to drop the iconic Terry Fox name.
Too bad! Since the Hall began 16 years ago, with David Crombie as chair and a dozen reps from the community, including me, as committee members, we have honoured some of the most famous people in the country. The great leaders who started the CNIB (Edwin Baker) or headed paralympic games (Dr. Robert Jackson) or were noted athletes (Rick Hansen) were honoured each year with induction into the Hall of Fame. Their accomplishments are remembered in the hall on the ground floor of the old headquarters for the Metro regional government.
Even though Betty Fox, mother of Terry, agreed to our original rules and criteria, and even though the Fox family was often at the induction dinner, at our expense, and even though the Foxes received more money and publicity from the Toronto hall than any other organization, the Fox family threatened legal action against the selection committee and the Canadian Foundation for Physically Disabled Persons (which is the foundation for the hall.)
Betty Fox, and Terry's brother Darrell, were firm. We could no longer use the honourable Fox name. Betty argued that we had sold out to corporations because banks and other Canadian companies helped with the costs of the induction dinner. She objected too that a magazine featuring the latest recipients also contained ads. So we renamed the dinner and the magazine, dropping the Fox name at her request because she said Terry would have been embarrassed.
But we kept the hall's name. After all, more than 60 Canadians were members, from Mona Winberg and Cliff Chadderton to Jack Donohue, Linc Alexander and Vicki Keith Munro. Names that most Canadians know and respect.
As a subcommittee of Crombie, Senator Con Di Nino and me argued when we met with a Toronto lawyer for advice on how to deal with the Fox demands, any corporate contributions and ads went to cover expenses and to subsidize many at the dinner. The disabled community of the Greater Toronto Area, which includes many with modest means, found the induction dinner a great place for networking. Any suggestion it was a monied affair for the glory of corporate Canada was ridiculous. Even though premiers like Mike Harris and Dalton McGuinty have often spoken at the dinner, speakers have also included the Lieutenant Governor (and David Only is in a wheelchair) and famous disabled athletes like this year's speaker Chantal Petitclerc. Chantal is one of the most successful Canadian athletes ever on the international stage, and I'm including athletes who aren't operating out of wheelchairs.
Vim Kochhar, the inspiration for the hall, explained again and again to the Foxes that any fund-raising went to the operation of the hall and the dinner. We thought that Betty Fox and her son Darrell were worried that the hall operations somehow interfered with the Fox Foundation's enormous fund-raising through the world. But even after Darrell Fox and the foundation separated, there was no change in attitude from the family.
So we debated other names at great length and finally came up with Canadian Disability Hall of Fame, which sadly doesn't have the instant mystique when it was called after the great Canadian whose stubborn bravery electrified a nation.
The 2009 recipients on Oct. 26 were the late Jeff Healey, the legendary jazz guitarist, Diane Roy, a world champion at the Beijing Paralympic Games, David Hingsburger a famous therapist, advocate and writer in the disabled world, and Gary and Jill Taylor, tireless volunteers who spend all their time working for others.
Terry Fox would have thought they were wonderful people, even if his family no longer want his name to be associated with such great Canadians.

EXPLORING NOOKS OF ONTARIO AND JOURNALISM

An Easy Guide To Memories

I just visited my past. And Harvey Currell's book Byways and Bylines also gave me some ideas for weekend jaunts. which he did for many Torontonians for 49 years.
Of course I'm prejudiced, having worked and yarned with Harvey since 1958 when I was a kid reporter and he was the Suburban Editor of the Toronto Telegram who didn't think I had done that great a job transcribing a story from one of his staffers.
Let me give you a snapshot of Harvey that I wrote in 2003 when he and I were still columnist colleagues on the Toronto Sun. You can find it now on the back cover of his book.
I wrote: "If you poke around the province's back roads and dusty parts, you've likely been turning every Wednesday, since The Sun rose like a phoenix from the Tely's ashes, to the Country Trips column by a great Ontarian, Harvey Currell, the explorer and story-teller.
"This month marks the 45th anniversary of his column since they began in The Telegram in 1958. Fans know that if you read Harvey you get to the pretty nooks before the crowds.
"He's a true scout, anxious to see what's over the next hill, happy to report back. He started as a Tely office boy in 1939 but a century before he would have signed on as a cabin boy to sail the Seven Seas and sing about their mysteries.
"His first column revealed Rattlesnake Point before it became the conservation area outside Milton. He hiked the Bruce Trail with Robert Bateman before it was the Bruce Trail and Bateman was a world-famous wildlife artist. And he wrote about unknown petroglyphs near Stoney Lake that are now the heart of a park that draws visitors from around the world...
Harvey has the kind of easy writing style that flows from the keyboard if you've been writing your facts and thoughts for eight decades. (He's 87 and sold his first story at 8.)
Lean prose, the kind you develop when as a teenager trying to make the city staff you rode streetcars daily from service clubs to courts to council meetings to Legions, tirelessly gathering a few paras from each for next day's paper.
Harvey doesn't dwell on the changes in newspaper coverage but it really hit home for me. After all, 25 years later I was the Tely's Suburban Editor, his post for many years. Some reporters mentioned in this book still worked for me. But the Tely no longer had the space or inclination to cover all the meetings that big newspapers routinely did up to the 1960s. Smaller newspapers may still cover most community events but a service club today couldn't expect a big city reporter to show up for lunch unless they have a rare and major speaker. (When I started, this is how we ate for free.)
I enjoyed Harvey's book because for 13 years our work history intertwined. And it was during the death knell of one of the country's best newspapers, a real innovator in one of North America's toughest news towns. Yet younger journalists will appreciate his description of his apprenticeship in the journalism school of the streets. Then there's his description of army life in World War Two. And finally, 32 updated trip columns.
They're the icing on the cake for readers who really don't care about Harvey's life in newspapers or the army. Anyone who wants to go on one of those valuable family traditions, the weekend afternoon drive, will get enough ideas from this book to justify the humble $20 cost. In fact, I suspect some readers would have wanted more on trips and less on his journalism.
Harvey had a second career after his "life-time" job at the Tely ended. He became a thoughtful PR "flack" for the Etobicoke school board. And I imagine that older teachers and politicians in the west-end will be interested in his view of the school brass of the giant borough who were not exactly shy individuals.
You can buy Harvey's book at the excellent west-end store, The Bookmark, 2964 Bloor St. W. (416 233-2191) or you can phone Harvey at 416 621 2451. He may actually be there. He hasn't written the trips column for several years but he does spend a lot of time at his beloved Lake Josephine, which is still a retreat so private there's no electricity. Which suits him just fine.

HAZEL MCCALLION'S CONFLICTS OF INTEREST CHARGES

Here We Go Again

A veteran Toronto politician/observer emailed me as soon as the latest conflict-of-interest charges hit Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion. He was not surprised. Apparently he is one of the few to remember that it had happened to Hazel before, and she was found guilty in two courts.
I was the columnist who broke that story nearly 30 years ago, and still remember with amazement how little attention the Globe and Star paid to it because it was a "Sun" scoop.
I had spent weeks researching it. And when you are a columnist running like a hamster on a treadmill with deadlines five days a week, time is precious and such investigations loom large in your life. But I have never understood the pass that Hazel got from the media and the Mississauga voters. It can be summed up in one of the few headlines in the Globe on this subject, on March 5, 1983. It read "Accused of political opportunism, convicted of conflict of interest, she's still a hit in McCallion country."
People love a maverick, and Hazel certainly appeared to be a maverick even though she had power, was a certified member of the Establishment, and was well off. After all, the votes that got her into trouble all those years ago increased the value of the land around the family home enormously. She participated in what I called the Mississauga gold rush when I wrote about it, for example in a column on April 23, 1982, which I quote below.
Hazel always has been one step ahead of everyone when it comes to life. She is bright and determined. She rode over troubles because she may be small in stature but she is large in self-confidence. She doesn't really give a damn for opposition. She benefitted too in that the media watch on Mississauga politics has never been as rigorous as in Toronto. For example, I was at a party that the late and lamented airline, Wardair, threw at a downtown Toronto hotel. The door prize was an airline pass for two to any city on earth. Hazel was the gleeful winner even though the airport is a significant factor in her city's politics. That would have sparked a controversy at Toronto City Hall if the politician hadn't immediately declined.
The newspapers always lovingly refer to her leadership in the Mississauga train derailment of 1979 shortly after she, the former operator of small newspapers, had risen through minor area council positions to be mayor of the coming giant. It sparked her nickname of Hurricane Hazel. What isn't known is that she was seen by Attorney General Roy McMurtry. head of the central control group dealing with the crisis, as an infuriating mouthy roadblock in that evacuation crisis. McMurtry later became Ontario's chief justice precisely because he could tolerate egomaniacs like Hazel who was determined to appear in the media as the saviour. However, his aides daydreamed to me about how nice it would be to isolate her out of the whole process. No doubt other journalists were also consulted. Our advice was we didn't think he could get away with it.
Ironically, it was that same AG's department which leaked to me a copy of the letter that Hazel wrote McMurtry after she had been convicted in Peel county court of violating the municipal conflict of interest act in four ways. Since she had appealed, a letter to the AG was highly improper. She also wrote a letter to a senior judge, and the scandalized authorities made sure I got a copy. The letters boasted of her success in helping to free the courts by moving time-consuming assessment appeals to the Municipal Board. She didn't mention her case but the AG and judge felt she was trying to score Brownie points with them.
A myth was created by Hazel and supporters that nothing really had happened to her because, after all, the first judge didn't remove her from office because he ruled the incidents had been an "error in judgement." But conveniently forgotten is that she appealed and lost, indeed lost to such an extent that the appeals court ruled she had to pay court costs. (The costs could have been $35,000 but it was said they totalled around $31,000, a major sum three decades ago. Friends took up a collection.)
Hazel has never condemned me to my face about my columns that pushed her into the courts. She has said vaguely that it was just her enemies and an old foe, former council colleague Jack Graham. Except the reality is that it was more than just old feuds, and the lawyer hurling the facts at her on behalf of Graham was John Laskin, now an Ontario Court of Appeal justice. The case concerned just when Hazel declared a conflict of interest in crucial development issues and just how much did she participate in meetings on these issues when she or her family were affected. Does that not sound familiar when you read about the latest controversy? Three decades is an eternity in politics but should we forget history?
Here is my April 23, 1982 column that gave some of the issues. You might be surprised at how lean it is. After all, I was an experienced columnist and readily produced more robust sentences. But I had to run a publication gauntlet and material was stripped, even though the Sun's libel lawyer said he had never seen columns backed by so much information. Ed Monteith, then the Sun's managing editor, refused to run them and I had to appeal to the Sun founder and publisher, Doug Creighton, who said "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."

The column:

The weeks slip away before the next municipal elections but a judge has yet to deal with the conflict of interest charge that could bring dramatic change to the Mississauga election.

It will be June at least before Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion gets her day in county court to answer the complaint of former council colleague Jack Graham that she may have contravened the municipal conflict of interest act when her council started the approval process last November for 26,000 houses and apartment units.

Graham, a Mississauga lawyer, asks the judge to throw McCallion out of office and disqualify her from holding a position on any council or urban agency for up to seven years.

On Nov. 2, council approved 10 areas in five neighborhoods for development after a long, costly study by two task forces, the last one composed of officials from the city, region, school board and hydro commission.

However, council didn’t follow all the recommendations of these officials. There was controversy surrounding the report since the officials worried about the city’s ability to finance the services such enormous growth requires.

One area given approval by council but not by the last task force is East Credit. This is also the area where McCallion and her husband Samuel have owned a house and five acres since 1951, purchased for $14,000.

Under the motion approved by council, 2,918 detached houses, 92 townhouses and 338 apartment units can be built in East Credit.

Mississauga is no stranger to development pressures which have caused the price of serviced land there to soar.

The value of the 1,013 acres released by council for development in East Credit - the area not recommended by staff - is at least $50 million.

Mississauga has boomed from an expanse of sleepy farms and quiet dormitory communities to the fastest-growing city in the country.

It has grown 26% in the last five years to become ninth among Canada’s cities. Its 315,056 people make it larger than Ottawa and Hamilton.

And McCallion has been very much part of this explosion, gaining a national reputation as a stubborn, formidable leader who always does her own thing whether the problem was the derailment crisis, heading a province-wide urban lobby or the seven days a week work running Mississauga.

She is a veteran councillor, having served since the 1960's. She had no opposition when she ran for a second mayoralty term in the last election.

As proof of the support she enjoys in her community, eight councillors and three senior officials rallied to her in this case by filing affidavits with the Peel County Court.

The court also has a number of examinations for discovery, including a cross examination of McCallion by John Laskin acting for Graham.

The mayor was asked if she had an interest in any company or partnership that has any interest in Mississauga property, whether she was familiar with Macran Associates Ltd., whether she was a Macran director, whether she knew a “Mr. Randles”, whether “Randles” was a Macran director, whether Macran has Mississauga property and whether she owned property outside Mississauga?

Her lawyer, J.L. Finlay, instructed her not to answer.

The latest record on Macran filed with the consumer and commercial relations ministry shows it is a company with a Mississauga address formed for the purpose of “development and property management”.

McCallion, her husband, and Allan and Agnes Randles are listed as directors of the company from the date of incorporation on March 14, 1974.

Allan Randles was appointed in 1974 by Mississauga council to its committee of adjustment and the Peel land division committee. He was reappointed for two terms.

On Dec. 23, 1981, he was reappointed to the committee of adjustment, a body that deals with minor zoning changes, with McCallion declaring a conflict of interest.

Records in the Peel Registry Office show that Markborough Properties Ltd., sold 2.6 acres of vacant industrial land in Mississauga on Jan. 30, 1974, to Peter McCallion-in-trust, the mayor’s son.

The price was $79,740.

According to the same records, the land was conveyed to Macran on April 9, 1974, for $2.
Macran sold the parcel for $212,640 on Sept. 13, 1974, to Tleg Investments Ltd., Elto Investments Ltd., and Strongway Construction Ltd.

The price had increased $132,900 in seven months in Mississauga’s giddy gold rush for real estate.

THE WRONG NUMBERS OF BELL

The Bell Does Not Toll For Me

It was called Ma Bell in the old days. Not because its service was so great. It was just seen as a good investment for widows.
Today, people are wondering whether they should still have land lines from companies like Bell or go completely with their cell phones. Ma Bell lost her charms years ago.
Occasionally I wonder why Bell still survives when you consider how inept they are when there's trouble on the line or no dial tone at all.
I've just spent nearly two weeks without phone service at home despite the $6.95 I pay monthly for something called Wire Care Maintenance Plan. Since Bell started to charge horrendously for when its personnel had to come inside your house to repair the latest problem, I thought it would be a good idea to protect myself since I seem to be calling Bell several times a year. This way there's no squabble about where the problem is.
The latest problem began with a wind storm that ripped roofs off houses north of Toronto and dropped the neighbour's tree branch on his line. It sagged near the ground and I thought logically that was the reason we had no service too.
We phoned and when nothing happened, figured it was due to an overload of calls due to the storm.
Three days later, I called again. Oh yes, a woman assured me (from India I think), Bell did have a record of the original service call. So why did nothing happen? Seems they weren't too sure what the problem was. And they couldn't come for two days.
I have done you a favour by translating what was said in atrocious English. I had to ask her to repeat every sentence..
Nothing happened again. My son called for the second time after I called for the second time and was told that my trouble calls hadn't been completed.
Funny. Bell had the name, the address, the phone number, my cell phone etc. Wotinhell else did they need?
Nothing. happened. Again.
My wife called and got a nice man who spoke English and knew all about the previous calls and a serviceman would be coming the next day. My son waited and waited but he didn't show. So my son went out, the chap showed (was he watching around the corner?) but unfortunately for him, the cleaning lady was there.
He told my son later by cell phone that he fixed a problem inside the house, which had nothing to do with the storm. Now that seems strange.
Unfortunately we didn't have full service back. So we called again. We also found a battered service call sheet in the driveway from the first repairman, which was unintelligible. The next chap showed, of course a few days later, with a trainee. He says he fixed the problem permanently. (If I could get that in writing, I would cancel the repair insurance.)
I have too many shares of BCE, which is of course is Bell in the parental guise, and we are reassured that the stock price will go up because of all the cost cutting they are doing. That must include service personnel and people who actually can speak English in a rudimentary way.
At the cottage, where I have had continual problems, partially due to the repair chaps showing up on the day I said I would be in the city, the latest service men have given me their home phones because they want me to call them first and then they will book the call with Bell. Why? Because they're afraid that Bell is going to pay them per service call, so they want to build up a private inventory before that strikes.
Not having service for almost two weeks means no answering machine, which is vital when you're away a lot, and a lot of extra charges on our cell phones, especially for my son Mark who is visiting from China and whose cell phone is still hooked there.
I'm not a fan of Rogers cell phones but if this keeps up, I'll cancel Bell land lines, sell my BCE stock and not have one moment of nostalgia for the good old days of Ma Bell. It's a wonder in this day of computer voices, inept service from call centres on the other side of the world, and repairmen who never seem to be able to come at the right time, that Bell hasn't gone bust.
It seems "sorry wrong number" is now its way of life.

ERICH KUNZEL'S AMAZING MEMORY

What A Musical Delight

It's not every day you get to conduct the Toronto Symphony.
And it's not every day you get to witness a startling memory.
Both happened to me in the 1980s when the Toronto Sun got tired of being dubbed a blue-collar tab and decided to go upscale at least for one promotion.
So the Sun partnered with Labatts and did a Jeans and Classics concert where everyone got a free beer as well as a delightful pops program.
And since I was the Editor, the idea was to get me involved with the concert.
Now I've been going to listen to the TSO all my life and can currently be found eight concerts a year in the front row centre, thanks to the great tickets my son Mark received when he talked about cancelling his subscription.
I've sung in choirs and glee clubs but play no instrument. No matter, the symphony folk said, we'll find something to bang or tootle.
I showed up for the afternoon rehearsal to find a dressing room with my name on it and Erich Kunzel waving in a sea of musicians.
He explained that I was to play the nightingale, sort of a giant whistle, in the Toy Symphony. "I'll point to you and you blow as long as you can," Erich explained.
I said I had a lot of wind, or so the family told me, and I could blow for a long time if only someone warned me before Kunzel pointed at me. For some reason the nightingale came out of the percussion section so I suggested some percussionist who wasn't busy could stand behind me and poke me just before the wand pointed.
Kunzel laughed and said:"You don't understand, John, the point is to make you look ridiculous."
It all went well, or so people said to my face. During the beer-and-pizza party afterwards, I introduced my son Mark to Kunzel and said he played the trumpet.
The Sun decided to do another Jeans-and-Classics concert a year later.
It was wonderful because all of Kunzel's pop concerts, and I've been to a few, were wonderful. His joy in music shone through, and he had a marvelous rapport with the audience.
The star in this concert was Art Eggleton. He conducted the orchestra briefly and waved his mayoral bum at the audience. They roared with laughter, because Eggs had a stuffy reputation. (He he had successfully hidden his horny side that finally cost him a federal ministry.)
Kunzel handed me his baton after I again played some tiny bit on some forgettable instrument and I stared down at the musicians, wondering would they stop playing if I stopped waving. But there was a glint in some eyes, particularly from the concert master, which suggested that I better not push this conducting bit too far.
So I swooped the baton a few times and everyone applauded and I got out of there.
Afterwards, at the beer-and-pizza session where the players come down from their performance high, I pushed Mark towards Kunzel and introduced him again.
"Oh yes," Kunzel said, "you play the trumpet. And how is that going?"
Just imagine! Since he had last met Mark, there had been thousands of introductions, hundreds of musical scores, dozens of cities, and the turmoil of busy life that conductors at the top of their game experience.
But he remembered Mark's instrument.
That is why when I heard of Erich Kunzel's death at 74, I drank a toast to him in my favourite Grolsch beer, Classic not being available. A toast to a man who brought pleasure to millions but could still care enough to remember what a high school kid played.

TORONTO COUNCIL LOVES UNIONISTS NOT TAXPAYERS

No Wonder We Hate Politicians

I haven't met a Toronto taxpayer who isn't furious about how the civic strike turned out.
I haven't met a Toronto taxpayer who doesn't want David Miller gone as mayor.
And they want the Miller Lites, his clutch-and-grab of socialists and gliberals, gone with him into the garbage can of life.
I know the civic unionists are happy with the Miller Gang but most of them can't afford to live in the city because of the taxes.
Because of the way the unionists can put together days off and long shifts, we even have some living in other provinces and then there's the one who commutes from North Carolina.
This is my post mortem on the strike after the smell has gone away. It's also an update on my July 23 column titled Picketing By Thuggery....
The amnesty that the majority of councillors and the mayor gave the picketers for their misbehaviour and mischief-making, which descended into criminal activity when the usual hotheads forgot that they're supposed to be CIVIL servants, must be galling to all of us. So it didn't matter what they did. They're forgiven.
So behaviour that wouldn't be tolerated in a kindergarten is OK because the council majority says so.I'm not surprised. There was a strike at Exhibition Place some years ago where the unions tried to barricade the public from a crafts show. Traffic was lined up dangerously on Lake Shore Blvd. for 30 or 40 minutes. It took longer than that to actually get into the show. I know because one councillor was caught in the picketers' web.
An emergency meeting of the Exhibition Place board of governors was held. I chaired the meeting as vice-chair of the board (the chair, a councillor, was off touring Brazil) and did my damndest to get the police to enforce the laws regarding passage and safety etc.
The board that is mainly councillors and city appointees gave me no support. Neither did the staff. So the strike continued, The show organizers said it was unfortunate that people were harassed getting into the show but the good side was that there was less theft and a cleaner building because non-union personnel were doing the chores.
Yes, you read that right. Less theft and a cleaner building.
So let's not forget as the strike is no longer as ripe as the smell that hung over our parks that what complained about on July 23 has come true....again.
The civic unions robbed us again. And spit in our faces as they picked our pockets. And unless the politicians get tougher and order the police not to be so accommodating, the thefts will continue because they will be allowed to break the law so shamelessly when they picket.
Now we must make them pay and throw them into outer darkness where kid reporter no longer hang on every word.
I was at a small function recently where people met Bill Clinton, the former president, and were photographed with him. Miller stayed at the door, not mingling. And only a few toadies went over. After the next election, he should be out the door completely.
This is the mayor who told the CNE he would open one of the largest annual fairs in the world and then went to Connecticut instead. He only showed for Clinton because maybe he would get mentioned, and Clinton did refer to him by position but not by namer. After all, ex-presidents are careful about being associated with losers and Miller certainly has become one of the biggest losers among major Canadian politicians

PICKETING BY THUGGERY, INTIMIDATION AND FRUSTRATION

Cops, Courts And Politicians Ignore Public's Rights

It is plain from the way judges, politicians and police brass ignore the public's right to safe and immediate passage through picket lines and native barricades that the present "system" doesn't work.
It may never have. And since strikes are only to get longer and more bitter, and the natives have run amuck in thumbing their noses and guns at Canada, you and I must insist through our votes and our voices that we intend by every legal means, including law suits and the withholding of taxes, not to accept this spitting in our faces.
There's nothing civil about our servants when they strike. As for blue collar workers, they are so traumatized by firings, layoffs and huge working factories disappearing in just months that they may return to the labour strife of yesteryear.
For a couple of decades, I have talked about this to every top cop around, including one of the most famous in Canada. They are frustrated too about the "deals" they have to make, often broken, by which picketers can block us for five or 10 minutes, which expands with their anger.
As I've written, a major judge ruled in a bitter postal strike that strikers could not stop us for even a second for the purpose of communicating their demands. Except, the cops say, rulings by judges since then have turned that decision into Swiss cheese. They also say, to be fair, that they have less trouble when strikers can block the public for a short period. Except that period always grows.
Toronto council, Queen's Park and the federal government have tolerated the intimidation, even when it grows to assaults or damage to cars, because they want everyone to be friends afterwards.
Except that is BS. When the politicians and police go along with the strikers, they side against their bosses, the public. Let's be clear about that. The purpose of a picket line is not to communicate with the public but to harass the public and any colleague who dares think of being a scab. You think when they import thugs from the industrial unions that they want them to serve tea and cookies to the elderly waiting in the heat.
The Toronto police used to have a squad of their biggest cops who went into bitter strikes determined to break as many heads as possible. Now we've gone to the other extreme. It's a wonder we don't see deputy chiefs playing patty cake with the jerks who have just stopped a 75-year-old woman from getting rid of her smelly garbage because she has always kept a clean house. We shouldn't go back to that squad but there has to be a middle, not a sell out.
I learned from my first week as a kid reporter in 1958 that the best picket lines, as far as unions are concerned, is one where you fears for your life.
I was sent with a burly photographer named Don Grant to a Teamster strike. I thought naively that I was to take notes. Turned out I was the biggest reporter at the Telegram and I was to be bodyguard. The Teamsters cursed and came towards us. Don flourished his Speed Graphic, all sharp metal edges and knobs, and said he would shove it in their faces. Then he announced that I had played university and Argonaut football and could handle their best beer-bellied jerk. (I had played very briefly for the junior Argos and Ryerson but every lie helps when you're facing bullies.) And so we escaped with pictures.
In case you think I'm anti-union, I benefitted from improvements the Guild got at the Tely, was a union steward, served on the city Guild executive and was a delegate to the international convention. I was in line to be chair of the Tely bargaining union but I got promoted out of the union. I had 13 reporter-photographers working for me. They weren't covered by the union but I acted as if they were and they responded magnificently. I've never forgotten that lesson that most people respond to fair treatment.
The three Toronto dailies endured a long and bitter strike by the printers. And they won. I remember the night I sent a small reporter, Ray Biggart, to an inquest. The picketers claimed he touched them with his VW and ripped him out of his seat. I heard this on the police radio and went roaring through the line to the rescue, sending picketers flying like duck pins. Biggart kept his calm (he was later Metro parks commissioner) and it helped when Charles Dubin, later chief justice of Ontario, volunteered to go to the police station.
Unfortunately many nice men and women get so poisoned by their cause when they go on strike that they routinely do things that must embarrass them later. Think of the strikes at Queen's Park where police horses were shot with ball bearings and there was even a bomb (it was kept secret) set off in a flower bed beside the Legislature. My oldest son, John Henry, was working in the trade ministry, and daily went out to escort a very pregnant woman through the pickets who tried to block her for 30 minutes. I wrote a column about the laws regarding picketing and my son showed it to police and security who thought it quaint that anyone would think anyone should be able to cross without waiting.
So what should be done? Companies and governments now have to apply for injunctions to limit the action of picketers when the deals with the police don't work.
This is the way it must work with strikers and protesters. Any union who blocks anyone for even one day is fined, and the daily fine increases each week. After several weeks, the public gets a refund of taxes.
As for native protesters blocking highways, every protester must be arrested and fined immediately. If this takes place in or beside the reserve, the government grants going to that band will be reduced. There must be an end to governments tolerating this civil disobedience which borders on insurrection. Obviously police must be granted some leeway in how they keep the peace but in any strike or protest that lasts more than a few days, any deals the police make with strikers must be approved in the courts where the public can object.
Silly, you say! Unenforceable? It is intolerable that we allow picketers to try to win their strike through interference with our lives. And that's what picket lines are. If the strikers want to withdraw their services, fine. Since many are suffering and would love to have these jobs - and we now have extensive labour protection to protect us against employer abuse - strikes should no longer be won through thuggery, intimidation and frustration.
In 2009, such strikes as Toronto's are anachronisms. They have allowed uncivil servants to have better salaries and working conditions than many taxpayers.