loyalists, he had few real friends toward the end of his life. He came to national politics as a Conservative but, more than that, as a genuine Prairie populist. He could have achieved so much with the gifts he undoubtedly possessed if not for his inability to rise above the flaws in his character.
Increasingly I found myself working less for the Outside Broadcasts Department and more for various national news programs, in those days small operations with few resources of their own outside of Montreal and Toronto. I was also starting to have qualms about the soft and fluffy nature of the OB stories I was assigned. Our Toronto bosses were largely veterans of wartime radio, a league of gentlemen who did not approach their jobs as journalists or even as serious news executives. Their preferred story was the uplifting, positive event; their ideal correspondent, the man who reported it in a way that reflected the best interests of the country. The folly of this old guard philosophy was fully revealed during coverage of the one event that delighted them above all others, a royal tour.
In 1964 the Queen visited Atlantic Canada to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the series of conferences that had led to Confederation. From Atlantic Canada she would travel to Quebec, and I was given a plum assignment as commentator for her arrival in Quebec City. Premier Jean Lesage had launched Quebecâs Quiet Revolution, but the separatist movement he had unwittingly unleashed was anything but subdued. The arrival of a British monarch at the Anse au Foulon and thence to the Plains of Abraham was to the separatists a red flag. The Queenâs route followed the footsteps of General James Wolfe, a humiliation intolerable to Quebec nationalists, who announced that if the monarch went ahead with this plan, they would stage a massive protest. British security meanwhile demanded reassurances from the RCMP regarding the Queenâs safety.
In advance of the tour, at least a hundred CBC personnel were brought to Ottawa for a week of special training in the art of covering royalty. We joked about classes in Hushed Voices 101. We were told never to refer to âthe Queen,â only to âHer Majesty.â We were instructed in the differences between half-mast and halfstaff, as well as how to recognize military rank insignia and thevarieties of horse-drawn carriages. Bill Herbert, the executive producer, took aside those of us who were to do live commentary and gave us a stern and unequivocal order. If the Queen was attacked or, even worse, injured, we were not to mention it and our camera crews were under similar orders to cut away from such a shot. No royal blood would ever appear on the CBC. Moreover, we were not to give exposure to the separatist protesters.
On the day of the Queenâs Quebec City appearance, the crowds were huge, noisy, and emotional. They were kept under tight control until the Queen alighted from her carriage for a walk across the lawn and into the National Assembly. Hundreds of demonstrators rushed police lines, and just as many Quebec provincial police stormed into the crowds with truncheons swinging. The scene was a full-blown riot, but television viewers saw only a tight close-up of Her Majesty making her way serenely along the roped-off walkway, gracious and unperturbed. In my earphones the director was shouting instructions to stay with the shot. The sound engineers did their best to muffle the tumult, though some ugly noise surely leaked through. Just out of camera range, a furious melee was threatening to spread, but I followed the prescribed script.
The true nature of the event could not be suppressed, of course, and Canadians soon knew the essential dishonesty of the CBCâs coverage. My own role in the mess convinced me it was time to make a change to the news side.
Mom had not been out of Rupert for years, so in 1962 I invited her for a prairie visit. From the moment she arrived, she was
Increasingly I found myself working less for the Outside Broadcasts Department and more for various national news programs, in those days small operations with few resources of their own outside of Montreal and Toronto. I was also starting to have qualms about the soft and fluffy nature of the OB stories I was assigned. Our Toronto bosses were largely veterans of wartime radio, a league of gentlemen who did not approach their jobs as journalists or even as serious news executives. Their preferred story was the uplifting, positive event; their ideal correspondent, the man who reported it in a way that reflected the best interests of the country. The folly of this old guard philosophy was fully revealed during coverage of the one event that delighted them above all others, a royal tour.
In 1964 the Queen visited Atlantic Canada to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of the series of conferences that had led to Confederation. From Atlantic Canada she would travel to Quebec, and I was given a plum assignment as commentator for her arrival in Quebec City. Premier Jean Lesage had launched Quebecâs Quiet Revolution, but the separatist movement he had unwittingly unleashed was anything but subdued. The arrival of a British monarch at the Anse au Foulon and thence to the Plains of Abraham was to the separatists a red flag. The Queenâs route followed the footsteps of General James Wolfe, a humiliation intolerable to Quebec nationalists, who announced that if the monarch went ahead with this plan, they would stage a massive protest. British security meanwhile demanded reassurances from the RCMP regarding the Queenâs safety.
In advance of the tour, at least a hundred CBC personnel were brought to Ottawa for a week of special training in the art of covering royalty. We joked about classes in Hushed Voices 101. We were told never to refer to âthe Queen,â only to âHer Majesty.â We were instructed in the differences between half-mast and halfstaff, as well as how to recognize military rank insignia and thevarieties of horse-drawn carriages. Bill Herbert, the executive producer, took aside those of us who were to do live commentary and gave us a stern and unequivocal order. If the Queen was attacked or, even worse, injured, we were not to mention it and our camera crews were under similar orders to cut away from such a shot. No royal blood would ever appear on the CBC. Moreover, we were not to give exposure to the separatist protesters.
On the day of the Queenâs Quebec City appearance, the crowds were huge, noisy, and emotional. They were kept under tight control until the Queen alighted from her carriage for a walk across the lawn and into the National Assembly. Hundreds of demonstrators rushed police lines, and just as many Quebec provincial police stormed into the crowds with truncheons swinging. The scene was a full-blown riot, but television viewers saw only a tight close-up of Her Majesty making her way serenely along the roped-off walkway, gracious and unperturbed. In my earphones the director was shouting instructions to stay with the shot. The sound engineers did their best to muffle the tumult, though some ugly noise surely leaked through. Just out of camera range, a furious melee was threatening to spread, but I followed the prescribed script.
The true nature of the event could not be suppressed, of course, and Canadians soon knew the essential dishonesty of the CBCâs coverage. My own role in the mess convinced me it was time to make a change to the news side.
Mom had not been out of Rupert for years, so in 1962 I invited her for a prairie visit. From the moment she arrived, she was
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