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Authors: Craig Oliver
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respective news departments when required. I intended to ensure that I would be required, and often.
Making television programs in those years felt very like showbiz, and we imagined ourselves as a snowbound Hollywood North. Certainly, many did their best to imitate the frenetic lifestyle, with booze, sex, and, infrequently, drugs. Producers were kings, constantly orbited by talented writers, editors, technicians, make-up artists, and an endless stream of female script assistants. The bar next door was named the âRivieraâ and anxious callers were told their spouses were in Studio R, unable to return calls. The cityâs print and broadcast journalists imbibed daily at the Winnipeg Press Club, conveniently located in the basement of a comfortable hotel. It was not a milieu to sustain marriages, and mine was no exception. My son, Murray, was born in November 1967, but I almost missed the event, caught running between the hospital and live coverage of the Conservative convention that elected the hapless Walter Weir premier of Manitoba.
Linda deserved better than the short marriage we had, which ended amicably after five years. It is a tribute to her kind nature that she allowed me unlimited access to my son, and I workedhard to have time with him. Mercifully, we have built a close and enduring friendship.
Almost as soon as I had joined the three-person OB staff, it became clear that the airtime assigned to it by the network was being squeezed. We still had jobs and salaries, but we were broadcast orphans. Fortunately, one of the greatest of the CBCâs broadcasters, Harry Boyle, had come up with an idea for a daily half-hour news and public affairs show he called Across Canada . Each region of the country produced one show a week, and every show had its own anchor. The young Lloyd Robertson, like me a refugee from the OB Department, fronted the Toronto version.
One of my first items for the show caused something of a furor. I learned that German troops and tanks would soon be training in Canada for the first time since the end of the war. They would be rehearsing mock battles at the vast military training ground at Shilo near Winnipeg. When I relayed this information to Winnipegâs feisty Jewish community, seeking comment, they organized a protest rally at the site. Germany was our NATO ally, but many members of the cityâs large Jewish community were either Holocaust survivors or the children of survivors. Almost everyone had lost someone and the Canadian government had not considered the affront that this represented.
The story broadcast that week on Across Canada highlighted the striking similarities between the uniforms worn by presentday Wehrmacht soldiers and those of the Nazis. Perhaps unwisely, I interlaced pictures of their training routines with archival World War II footage. Only the swastika was missing. I was accused of provoking an incident, a charge I could not deny, and the corporationâs bosses felt it necessary to issue an apology. I was given a verbal dressing-down, but the producer who workedwith me was demoted. He was assigned to the religious program that opened the station each morning and, ever after, when I ran into him in the hallway, he greeted me with hands clasped in prayer.
I spent most of the following year writing and producing programs around the countryâs centennial celebrations. If there was a small town on the Prairies I did not visit, I would like to know its name. I will never know who recommended me for it, but at yearâs end I was presented with a Centennial Medal by the federal government. I was so chuffed that I wore it on my pyjamas for a week.
Set against the pure pride and joy of that memorable year was the reality that these were tumultuous times. Both the war in Vietnam and the U.S. civil rights struggle had radicalized the left, and the effects were felt around the world. Closer to home, Quebecâs Quiet Revolution was percolating,
Making television programs in those years felt very like showbiz, and we imagined ourselves as a snowbound Hollywood North. Certainly, many did their best to imitate the frenetic lifestyle, with booze, sex, and, infrequently, drugs. Producers were kings, constantly orbited by talented writers, editors, technicians, make-up artists, and an endless stream of female script assistants. The bar next door was named the âRivieraâ and anxious callers were told their spouses were in Studio R, unable to return calls. The cityâs print and broadcast journalists imbibed daily at the Winnipeg Press Club, conveniently located in the basement of a comfortable hotel. It was not a milieu to sustain marriages, and mine was no exception. My son, Murray, was born in November 1967, but I almost missed the event, caught running between the hospital and live coverage of the Conservative convention that elected the hapless Walter Weir premier of Manitoba.
Linda deserved better than the short marriage we had, which ended amicably after five years. It is a tribute to her kind nature that she allowed me unlimited access to my son, and I workedhard to have time with him. Mercifully, we have built a close and enduring friendship.
Almost as soon as I had joined the three-person OB staff, it became clear that the airtime assigned to it by the network was being squeezed. We still had jobs and salaries, but we were broadcast orphans. Fortunately, one of the greatest of the CBCâs broadcasters, Harry Boyle, had come up with an idea for a daily half-hour news and public affairs show he called Across Canada . Each region of the country produced one show a week, and every show had its own anchor. The young Lloyd Robertson, like me a refugee from the OB Department, fronted the Toronto version.
One of my first items for the show caused something of a furor. I learned that German troops and tanks would soon be training in Canada for the first time since the end of the war. They would be rehearsing mock battles at the vast military training ground at Shilo near Winnipeg. When I relayed this information to Winnipegâs feisty Jewish community, seeking comment, they organized a protest rally at the site. Germany was our NATO ally, but many members of the cityâs large Jewish community were either Holocaust survivors or the children of survivors. Almost everyone had lost someone and the Canadian government had not considered the affront that this represented.
The story broadcast that week on Across Canada highlighted the striking similarities between the uniforms worn by presentday Wehrmacht soldiers and those of the Nazis. Perhaps unwisely, I interlaced pictures of their training routines with archival World War II footage. Only the swastika was missing. I was accused of provoking an incident, a charge I could not deny, and the corporationâs bosses felt it necessary to issue an apology. I was given a verbal dressing-down, but the producer who workedwith me was demoted. He was assigned to the religious program that opened the station each morning and, ever after, when I ran into him in the hallway, he greeted me with hands clasped in prayer.
I spent most of the following year writing and producing programs around the countryâs centennial celebrations. If there was a small town on the Prairies I did not visit, I would like to know its name. I will never know who recommended me for it, but at yearâs end I was presented with a Centennial Medal by the federal government. I was so chuffed that I wore it on my pyjamas for a week.
Set against the pure pride and joy of that memorable year was the reality that these were tumultuous times. Both the war in Vietnam and the U.S. civil rights struggle had radicalized the left, and the effects were felt around the world. Closer to home, Quebecâs Quiet Revolution was percolating,
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