Representation at City Hall

“In Canada there is no Portuguese Act, no Italian, French, Ukrainian, Jewish or German Act.”  But there is, indeed, an Indian Act.”

That was part of the message delivered by NaWalka Geeshy Meegwun (aka Lyndon George) to the General Issues Committee of Hamilton City Council on June 19th.

One of the many negative outcomes resulting from that Act, passed in 1876, was the creation of Indian Residential Schools.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission addressed the impacts of these schools with 94 Calls to Action. Establishing Indigenous representation on local municipal councils is the next logical step in addressing Reconciliation, George, representing Hamilton’s Circle of Beads group, stated.  Circle of Beads, an Indigenous consultation circle made up of 37 members now officially speaks for Hamilton’s Indigenous Community.

In the meeting, Circle of Beads’ speakers reminded the 16-member Council that many of them had committed to investigating the idea when campaigning in the 2022 municipal elections.

“It is time to walk your talk,” said George. 

At least one Councillor missed the point.  What if other special interest groups came asking for the same thing, he queried?

But Circle of Beads is not a special interest group.  They are speaking for First Nations people who have status as a sovereign nation confirmed in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution, Section 25 of the Canadian Charter of Human Rights, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Wasn’t this clear? 

Halifax

Hamilton isn’t the only municipality to be exploring Indigenous representation on Councils. 

Last fall Halifax took initial steps toward designating a Mi'kmaw seat on its municipal council. The members of Halifax's executive standing committee recommended that regional council ask the province for the power to consider the reform. 

According to CBC Radio, Councillor Waye Mason of Halifax South Downtown, a common theme emerged from Mi'kmaw groups during consultation on Halifax's new culture and heritage priorities plan.

"What we heard, over and over again, was 'we think there should be a Mi'kmaw seat in Halifax,'" Mason said during the meeting. (Mason is a declared candidate for mayor in this year’s election.)

In fact, in 1992, Nova Scotia amended legislation to provide a designated seat in their legislature for Mi'kmaw representation.  That seat has never been filled. Instead, Mi’kmaw leaders hold regular meetings with the government.  The most recent one in June was the tenth such meeting. This arrangement appears to be satisfactory, for the time being at least.

“It is important that as leaders in this province, we do our part to uphold the nation-to-nation relationship established centuries ago by our ancestors. It is vital to discuss important items to help us better understand the vision of where we want to go in the future and how we can do so together as treaty partners,“ Chief Sidney Peters, Co-Chair of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaw Chiefs, stated in a press release following this year’s gathering. 

At Hamilton’s General Issues Committee, Audrey Davis, Executive Director of the Hamilton Regional Indian Centre, told committee that 85% of Indigenous people in Canada now live off reserve in towns, cities and rural areas. 

In Hamilton, census data indicates there are approximately 14,000 Indigenous residents although the number is probably higher.  Mi'kmaw residents of Halifax number about 6,000.   These population figures are small in comparison to other cities. Winnipeg counts 102,080 First Nation, Inuit and Metis (12.4% of its total population). Saskatoon at 34,890 (15%) Indigenous residents and Regina at 24,525 (13%) Indigenous residents are just two examples of denser Indigenous populaces.  

The City of Hamilton has made considerable progress in relations between City Hall and Indigenous residents. An Urban Indigenous Strategy and an Implementation Plan have been developed.  Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Friendship Centre and the City has been delayed by excessive bureaucracy.   But Audrey Davis is optimistic as “the city has committed itself to build a relationship.” 

What’s next?

A seat at council does not put the Indigenous voice first.  It includes and provides “opportunities for change that will improve outcomes of the indigenous people who call Hamilton home,” stated Ms. Davis.

A Motion for the city to ask the province to have changes made to the Municipal Act to permit a member of the Indigenous community to be a voting member of City Council gained support.

Hamilton’s urban Indigenous community may not get provincial support for an Indigenous specific seat in the foreseeable future. In the interim, a temporary non-voting seat at the Council table would be “a step forward, but a small step,” stated Audrey Davis. Whether such a position will be elected or appointed is open to discussion.

At the meeting, Lyndon George spoke to “the-send-them-back-to-their-reserves” racism promoted by nameless Keyboard Warriors. You can expect that they will continue to oppose Indigenous representation. 

In spite of such opposition, it is clear that Indigenous knowledge and expertise on issues of land, water and air should be welcomed at local tables across the country.

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This story was written in June 2024. In early July, Hamilton councillors voted not to explore the addition of a new seat designated for a representative of the urban Indigenous population. See Hamilton councillors vote down Indigenous seat proposal | CBC News

Rum-Running and the Decanter*

Many years ago, my great-aunt passed on a decanter to me.  It was a small, rather unremarkable vessel.  She made a somewhat odd comment to me that suggested the decanter had been purposefully hidden away for years.  

This recollection struck me while listening recently to Ian Bell’s presentation Prohibition & Rum Running on Lake Erie in Port Rowan.

“Talking to people in Port Rowan about rum -running is a little like going to Ayrshire Scotland and telling the folks there about Robbie Burns,” said Bell.

Bell a folksinger, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, storyteller, historian and visual artist originally put together his presentation when he was curator of the Port Dover Harbour Museum.

“It is not hard history, but more folklore,” the Waterford resident told an engaged crowd of about 100 gathered at Neal Memorial Church.

A brief outline of the story Bell told would begin in the 1870’s. That is when the Port Dover & Lake Huron Railway Company arrived in Dover replacing schooners and expanding the fishery. Now fish caught by Dover fishermen could be shipped to big cities across North America.

But there was an economic downturn around 1920 and about the same time American fisherman had pretty much fished out the Lake.  These events paralleled the passage of the Volstead Act in the United States which enforced prohibition of alcoholic drinks. 

An opportunity presented itself for Canadian fishermen in what came to be called the “midnight herring” business.  That was because Canadian law said that you could make alcohol but you couldn’t sell it in Canada.  It could be exported though.  Much of what was exported through Norfolk was destined for Cuba.  That’s a long way from Lake Erie but somehow the boats made it home from the other side the next day. 

Of course, there was hardly any rum involved in those nighttime shipments across the lake to nearby Erie Pennsylvania.  The cargo was primarily whisky and some beer. 

According to Bell a case that cost $32.00 here would sell in the States for about $100.00

By the time Bell began to document the story of rum-running those who had been directly involved had passed away.  Bell depended on “small boys” named Harry (Harry Barrett, Harry Waddle and Harry Gamble) to put the tale together.

Those “small boys” had been young kids of around 10 years of age when the events took place. They reminisced about patching up bullet holes in the tugs and watching big fires on the pier when boxes carrying whisky were burned as boats departed for Erie.  They could evoke memories of fast bullet-proofed boats with powerful airplane engines zipping across the waves under cover of darkness. 

Of course, no story of prohibition times would be complete without our local tale regarding the wreck of the wooden schooner City of Dresden off Long Point in November 1922.

Like the authorities Bell always wondered why none of the Old Crow Bourbon Whiskey turned up. Some time ago he went looking and found an Old Crow Bottle (circa 1928) online.  No, it wasn’t from the Port Rowan wreck and salvage but that beverage was pretty close to the real thing.

That bourbon cost Ian Bell $100 in American dollars. Some time later he twisted the cap on that bottle, popped the cork, slowly took a sip and cast his mind back to those American bound fast boats with airplane engines speeding across Long Point Bay a century ago. 

As Bell points out relatively few locals were involved in the rum running business.  They got into the business out of economic necessity and because Prohibition created an opportunity.

The story was a different one at other spots on the Great Lakes. In Erie PA., for example, rum running, initially a small-time operation, was suddenly producing revenues of $800,000 – $900,000 a night according to historian Dr. David Frew.**  Crime families in Buffalo, Cleveland and Detroit took notice and moved in on the action. 

In fact, historians claim that Prohibition created organized crime.  Sure, there was crime previously in the big cities but enormous potential profits forced people like Al Capone to become more organized.  

Rum-running was dangerous.  Across North America more than 20 U.S. Coast Guard personnel died in pursuit of rum runners.  Exactly how many rum-runners perished is unknown. 

Prohibition came about due to intense lobbying by Temperance groups that started as far back as the 1830’s.

That brings me back to my great-aunt’s decanter.  Her father (George H. Lees) was heavily involved in the temperance movement. Lees, a one-time president of the Hamilton Prohibition Union, involved himself in local politics where he reportedly “prowled the streets” visiting many Hamilton saloons, cigar stores and pool halls.  His visits meant these businesses were often shut down.  (Yes, it wasn’t just River City that had trouble with pool halls.). The decanter was probably not a featured adornment in whatever Lees’ family household it resided in.  

Later in 1927 Lees founded the radio station CHML likely because the existing station CKOC had pulled a sermon off the air dealing with prohibition.  My great grandfather kept a radio on his desk. One day, according to the Dictionary of Hamilton Biography, he was outraged to hear the song Roll out the Barrel being played on the station.  

“Lees immediately pushed himself away from his work angrily stomped down to CHML headquarters, demanded to be presented the record then proceeded to split it into pieces over his knee.” 

Remarkably the family decanter has survived over the years.

The advocacy work of the temperance movement was undoubtedly well intentioned but at the end of the day created new problems before prohibition was lifted in 1933.

The Women’s Christian Temperance movement is still active in Canada, but seems to have moderated its views.

But check social media and you’ll find many individuals and numerous groups interested in regulating the behaviour of others.

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*A shorter version of this story originally appeared in the Port Rowan Good News.

**David Frew's book Midnight Herring : Prohibition and Rum Running on Lake Erie is a narrated history that will take you back 100 years and put you on board a fast boat dashing speeding across the lake from Dover to Erie.

What is Doug Getting Done?

This story originally appeared in March 2024 at “What is Doug Getting Done?” by Bob Wood | Seniors for Climate Action Now As of today Bill 162 is being considered by the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I must have been the only one who never heard it. 

I’m talking about The Get it Done song that was a feature of Doug Ford election rallies back in 2022.   

“It's poppy. It's got a good vibe to it. It sounds very positive," Chris Beck told CBC reporter Lucas Powers on a sidewalk in downtown Toronto. "It's very catchy." 

Here’s a bit:

“Nobody said it was an easy road / And we won't stop, we don't ever fold."

So, I shouldn’t be surprised that the Get it Done song is now followed up 
with the Get it Done Act.

Get it Done is an Omnibus Bill. An omnibus bill is a single document that covers a number of diverse or unrelated topics. Such bills are intended to pass in a single vote by a legislature, avoiding scrutiny. The Ford government likes to use such bills. We have written about the problem with omnibus bills before (see SCAN-Climate-Crime-19-2022-12Update.pdf (seniorsforclimateactionnow.org).

Bill 162 was introduced on February 20, 2024

It amends the -Environmental Assessment Act 

-Highway Traffic Act 
-Official Plan Adjustment Act 2023  
-Photo Card Act 2008
-Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act 

It enacts the Protection Against Carbon Taxes Act. 

The government says it is creating the conditions to rebuild Ontario’s economy and. 
is helping to get shovels in the ground sooner on new roads, highways and public transit. This will reduce gridlock; help ensure housing for a growing population and move the province’s economy forward.  We’ve heard all this before.

As is often the case the devil is in the details in such legislation so one needs to look at how it will change various regulations. Let’s look at what critics and experts have to say. 

On Streamlining Environmental Regulations

According to the municipal and land use planning group of Aird and Berlis, Ontario is changing the current environmental assessment process (EA) for municipal infrastructure projects. To do this Ford government is proposing to revoke certain regulations to create a streamlined EA regulation that focuses on certain higher-risk water, shoreline and sewage projects.

Only projects listed in the regulation would have Environmental Assessment Act requirements. It is proposed that some projects deemed to be low risk, which are currently subject to the Municipal Class Environmental Assessment, would no longer be subject to it. 

This would include: 
• all projects currently subject to Schedule B of the MCEA, 
• all municipal roads or new parking lots, 
• all private sector infrastructure projects for residents of a municipality, regardless of  size, including a new sewage treatment plant of any size. 

On Expropriations

The Narwhal is a Canadian investigative online magazine that focuses on environmental issues. It writes that the Ontario’s government is vulnerable to court challenges if it wants to expropriate land.

To block such challenges that could come up related to Greenbelt and Highway 413, the Get It Done Act would amend the Environmental Assessment Act to explicitly allow both provincial and municipal governments to expropriate land before environmental approvals. 

Environmental Defence (ED), a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization, believes the bill is designed to prevent landowners who aren’t in on the Highway 413 scheme from legally challenging the seizure of their land. 

“This appears to be designed to help the Ontario government move quickly to destroy habitats, waterways and Indigenous sites that fall within federal jurisdiction.”

The Federal government needs to introduce an updated federal Impact Assessment Act soon before the province takes advantage of the gap in protection. 

On a Referendum
  
Much of the Bill deals with a potential vote on any future carbon pricing plan.
The Narwhal says the bill empowers the province’s chief electoral officer to hold a vote on any future carbon pricing plan, which would only be put in place if more than 50 per cent of Ontarians vote in favour of it. 

“It's performative politics at its worst, distracting from the Ford government's failure in addressing the housing crisis and the fact that they've made access to health care worse," says Mike Schreiner, leader of the Ontario Green Party.

Municipal Official Plans 

Many municipal official plans are changed by the legislation. For better or worse? It is hard to say how the changes will impact farmland or green space.

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) has been asking for more collaboration by the province with local governments. Right now, AMO “is pleased that the government is making these changes in consultation with municipalities.” 

On the other hand, Environmental Defence (ED) claims that so-called “special building zones appear calculated to let the provincial government take over local decision-making power in order to accelerate hand-picked projects.”  ED argues that this government favours spawl subdivisions rather than building more labour and cost-efficient housing in existing neighbourhoods.
 
On Tolls 

The legislation proposes to block the possibility of new tolls on new and existing provincial highways. In 2022, the Ford government dropped tolls on Highways 412 and 418 which, according to CBC, meant foregoing about $38.2 million in annual revenue. 

There is a good argument to be made that tolls on the relatively empty Highway 407 could be reduced for trucks making Highway #413 unnecessary.  There is no good argument to be made for building the Highway 413. 

What Now?

Upon receiving royal assent, the changes proposed by Bill 162 will be deemed to have come info force on December 6, 2023.

The province is currently seeking feedback on the proposed amendments for various dates in March. Comments may be submitted through the Environmental Registry of Ontario.

In spite of these short timelines I believe opposition will begin to coalesce to the impacts Bill 162 will have as it did last year around the Greenbelt.

Let’s start by rewriting the Get it Done Song.

How about a new tune?  We could call it Do it Right Doug!  

Nobody ever said we need more roads/ Let’s fight that idea and stop it cold.

Sources:

CBC NewsCBC - What's in a song? For Doug Ford's campaign, a whole lot | CBC News

Aird and Berlis - Ontario Introduces Bill 162: The Get It Done Act, 2024 (airdberlis.com)

The Narwhal - Ontario’s Get It Done Act: faster road building, fewer environmental guardrails | The Narwhal

Environmental Defence - Statement: The Ontario Government’s So-Called “Get It Done” 

Bill Would Revive the Sprawl and Land Speculation Scandal - Environmental Defence

AMO - Get It Done Act, Keeping Energy Costs Down Act, CMHC Housing Data, Seniors Active Living Centres Regulations | AMO

The Budget

On a long ago budget day, a procedural quirk

put a simple regional ward councillor

in a position to freeze the police budget.

Ward councillors don’t obstruct police budgets

because, as we all learned as kids,

the police(man) is our friend

does important and dangerous work

protects and keep us safe and

for all of this deserves to be well paid.

These are things that ward councillors,

even simple ones, should understand.

But since the common sense drumbeat

set the revolution in motion

we have come to know that the best government is

to have practically no government at all

and respect for hard earned taxpayer’s dollars

is the order of the day.

Others are compelled to run their ship tightly

while the law and order liner sails unimpeded

through the calm waters of political indifference.

On that budget day, the simple ward councillor

Having, for a time, ascended

to the lofty heights of budget committee member

advanced what was (by his own humble admission)

a particularly persuasive presentation

convincing the one colleague who needed convincing

that police spending should be apprehended and

it was a great day for local democracy

or at least it seemed that way.

But the votes aren’t counted

until the politicians raise their hands

and when they did

the police got their money, as they always do.

No media or public witnessed the sad event though

police brass made time in otherwise busy days

to behold the councillor’s misbegotten manoeuvre.

Following his 15 minutes of small town fame

our councillor drove his car like an undertaker.

Even now, my lane changes are by-the-book perfect

and inviolable police budgets escalate still.

This piece was originally published in the Dream, the Glory and 

the Strife edited by Raymond Fenech, Hidden Brook Press, 2018.

Facts, Democracy and Alternatives

Years ago, I attended a training session that included a workshop on negative political campaigning.

The workshop was a “how-to” and there was a resource person, I think.  

It was a long time ago. I really only remember two things about the session. One detail I recall was that only a few of us questioned the ethics of such campaigns.   And looking back I sure was naïve.  I mean it was a “how-to” workshop, wasn’t it?   

The other thing I remember is that it was emphasized that if you were doing such advertising in our democracies you had to have your facts right.   That was because if you didn’t you would lose credibility.  And that meant losing votes.

Well things have changed. Today it seems that political campaigns and politics in general are all about saying negative things about your opponent.   And it doesn’t matter if those utterances are factual or bogus.

I thought about that long ago training session while reading Martin Baron’s excellent book Collision of Power Trump, Bezos and the Washington Post.  Baron was the top editor at the Post from 2013-2021.

The book shows the difficult decisions those in newsrooms have to make.  What to publish?  What to leave out?  What to include?

The work became more difficult beginning June 16, 2015 when a blustering, big-headed reality show host rode down a golden escalator in New York’s Trump Tower and announced that he was running for president.  From then on Donald Trump was relentless in attacks on any media that had the audacity to publish anything negative about him.

The issue of calling out a public figure by saying s/he is telling a lie was a controversial one for Baron and his colleagues.  It seems that getting a handle on the concept of truth is about as difficult as getting a hold of a Lake Erie Eel. 

Early in his presidency Trump advisor Kelly Ann Conway introduced the idea of “alternative facts” to a bewildered public. But Ms. Conway went one better when she claimed that “if you don't know what's true, you can say whatever you want and it's not a lie."

Baron believes that the role of papers like the Washington Post is to hold people who are in power accountable.  That’s becoming harder as resources for traditional reporting dwindle.  

Maybe it doesn’t matter?  Is anyone really paying attention?  Baron quotes New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada from his 2020 book, What Were we Thinking.

“First, we are asked to believe specific lies.  Then bend the truth to our preferred politics. Next, to accept only what the president certifies to be true, no matter the subject or how often his positions shifts. After that, to hold that there is really no knowable, agreed-upon truth. Finally, to conclude that even if there is truth, it is inconsequential.  Lies don’t matter, only the man uttering them does." 

There is no room for traditional Upper Canadian smugness, however.  “Alternative facts” practitioners are alive and well in Ontario.  Take Doug Ford, for example.  Here’s what he said recently about the health-care system: 

“I want to be clear — Ontarians continue to have access to the care they need, when they need it.”

Check that “fact” out with the residents of Clinton or Minden or Fort Erie.  Last month the Ontario Health Coalition reported 868 temporary or permanent emergency department closures; and 316 urgent care centre closures in 2023. That is, in fact, a fact.

Our democracy seems to be coming apart. We need to find a way to agree on facts and come together to address what matters in our communities.

Different Alternatives

Baron writes about national media but there is a role for our local media which unfortunately is diminished and in danger of disappearing.   Two hundred years ago William Lyon Mackenzie, revolutionary, first mayor of Toronto began publishing a paper called the Colonial Advocate.  To be sure Mackenzie had his own views front and centre but the paper would also provide verbatim reports on meetings, proceedings of the legislature etc... so people could form opinions of their own.  

John McKnight has other ideas for local media. McKnight, is a community organizer and co-founder of the Asset Based Community Development Institute.  He has championed the idea that communities are places of strength; that solutions to some of our issues can be found by seeing the assets of our communities and neighbourhoods rather than the deficiencies. 

John McKnight

McKnight believes that our local newspapers should be “servants of citizenship.”  Big papers can’t do it as they “act on the hidden assumption that the large institutions of government, corporations and agencies provide the important news.”   The big papers hold up “a kind of mirror that promotes a disabling culture where citizens pull back from public life and grow cynical about their society,” he writes. *

Local media, on the other hand has the potential to engage citizens around real issues that matter in a way that can bring people together. Check out your local paper and you’ll notice the focus on citizen initiatives and community.

We need to find ways to support it.  Our Democracy requires it.

*Servants of Citizenship: Understanding the Basic Function of Newspapers in a Democracy (Learning Twenty-three) | John L McKnight (johnmcknight.org)

Reports on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Finally Released

The Ford government has kept secret a series of reports it commissioned on climate change impacts and the government action needed to protect us.

A group I belong to, Seniors for Climate Action Now (SCAN!), worked tirelessly to get these reports released.

SCAN!’s months-long Freedom of Information campaign finally achieved the release of these documents on December 8th. You can find the reports at https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/ontario-adaptation-campaign/

Earlier in the year I wrote about efforts to get the reports. See the following.

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Looking for the Reports

I have just submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Ontario government. This is a first for me.

The origin of the legislation that put FOIs in place goes back many years. It was part of the Accord adopted following the 1985 election when the NDP agreed to support David Peterson’s Liberals for two years.

The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) legislates access to information held by public institutions in Ontario subject to specific requirements to safeguard the personal information of individuals

Adapting to Climate Change

All governments brag about transparency. The current Ontario government is no exception. In fact, Premier Doug Ford, a chronic embellisher, claims there has never been a government as transparent as his.

So, you could say that my FOI request is a test of that assertion. My interest is getting information on Ontario’s climate change plans. With the country burning this summer, people losing their homes, firefighters being killed and extreme weather events now common one has to wonder what government has planned to respond to such conditions in the future. So that is what my FOI request is about. How does the government plan to adapt to climate change?

There is a bit of a story to this.

A group I’m involved with took some initiative. The Ontario Project of SCAN! (Seniors for Climate Action Now) has members knowledgeable about adaptation strategies. They were aware that the Ford government had done some work on this matter.

In fact, the Ford government has put together major reports on the urgent task of anticipating and reducing the impacts of climate change. In November 2019, the Ontario government appointed an Advisory Panel on Climate Change led by Paul Kovacs, a professor at Western University and an expert in the field of disaster risk reduction. The creation of this panel was no secret. It was announced publicly.

It seems most of the reporting was completed nearly two years ago. But the reports were kept secret until recently. One of them is now available likely because of public pressure.

This past January, Jennifer Penny, one of our members who previously worked as a climate change adaptation researcher, submitted a FOI request to find out what had happened to this reporting.

“Ontarians want to see these reports! But even more, we want to know what the government is doing to protect us,” says SCAN!’s Jennifer Penney.

She got a response of sorts.

FIPPA: “What is the name of the report?”
Jennifer: “We don’t know. It is being kept secret.”
FIPPA: “What was the date of the report?”
Jennifer: “Don’t know that either. It’s a secret.”

This seems to be how the FOI process works - transparent government in action, much like looking for light through a brick wall.

So, an open letter and petition entitled Release the Report was prepared and circulated. Over a few weeks in the summer more than 1,300 people signed the petition.

Then on a Friday afternoon in late August with no fanfare the Provincial Climate Change
Impact Assessment appeared on the Government of Ontario’s website.

Its 530 pages are filled with what the CBC called “grim details about the expected effects of climate change in Ontario.” We’ll have a soaring number of days with extreme heat, more extreme flooding and more frequent wildfires. The agriculture sector faces risks of declining productivity, Climate risks will be highest for Ontario's most vulnerable populations and this will “continue to amplify existing disparities and inequities."

In some ways the report tells us what we already suspected. But such suspicions are confirmed by experts.

The report does "the best job that's been done to date describing the impacts of climate change and extreme weather," Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo told the CBC.

SCAN! had been looking for two reports. One was released. Imagine our surprise. Turns out there are actually four reports. Three companion reports, including one on Best Adaptation Practices, are still hidden by the government.

Those reports are what I’m asking to see in my FOI request.

Bob Wood
October 6, 2023

Up North

There is no doubt that some projects we work on are more memorable than others.   

As I clean up old files (so I’ll have room for new files) I stumble on ones I barely recall. But here is one well remembered completed project that calls out for an update. 

Thirteen years ago, I was asked to do a story on Chuck Ealey, a Canadian Football player who played in the seventies.  There was a one-hour documentary coming out on him called The Stone Thrower and a book with the same title written by his daughter Jael Ealey Richardson. *  

The occasion for doing this was the 100th anniversary of the Grey Cup.  I like many sports, follow some, but really don’t like writing those typical “he shoots, he scores” stories.  My interest is in the sociological side of sports.  So, this assignment was perfect.  You’ll see why.           

The 1972 Grey Cup held December 3rd at Hamilton’s Ivor Wynne Stadium was decided by a last-second field goal with the Hamilton Tiger Cats winning an exciting match over the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Rookie quarterback Chuck Ealey was the star of that game and that season for the Cats.

The game represented much more than the typical east-west Cup Final and this is why: Ealey shouldn’t have been in a position to earn the game’s MVP award, because in a just world he would have been quarterbacking in the National Football League.

Bowl victories and an undefeated college record (35-0) at the University of Toledo weren’t enough to get Ealey drafted by an NFL team. Prior to the draft, his agent sent a “well-thought-out, professional, not harsh” letter to all NFL teams, Ealey recalled. 

The essence of the letter went like this: “The only position I’m interested in playing is quarterback. Thank you for your consideration.”

He wanted to play QB because clearly, that was the position where he excelled. But an Afro-American had no chance to compete for a quarterback position in the NFL of the seventies. There were no takers among NFL general managers.

“There was an overall stigma in the NFL at that time that African Americans were not to be playing quarterback,” recalled Ealey. And so, Ealey, the quarterback, moved on.

This story isn’t unique, of course.

Charles Officer directed the movie, The Stone Thrower.*  Officer had considered doing a “bigger picture” that would have looked at other Afro-American quarterbacks who came up here to play. Standouts like Warren Moon, Condredge Holloway, Damon Allen and Bernie Custis all had to come north for their opportunity.

In 1951, Custis, a star quarterback at Syracuse University, was drafted sixth overall by the Cleveland Browns. But the Browns had no intention of letting him play the pivot position so let him go to Hamilton. Custis became the first Afro-American regular starting quarterback in North America. Earning all-star recognition in 1951, he was moved to halfback the next season.

“It’s the same story,” said Officer. “Bernie Custis coming up here and then getting switched over. He had to come here for a reason.”

Officer, an Afro-Canadian actor, writer, director and former semi-pro hockey player, believed that by documenting Ealey’s journey he could tell the bigger story of what was going on in American society in the seventies.

Meanwhile, Jael Richardson, Chuck’s daughter, had been on a journey of her own, recounted in her 2012 book, similarly called The Stone Thrower: A Daughter's Lessons, a Father's Life.**  Richardson was born after her father’s football career had ended. As an adult, she would go to Ohio with her dad.

“When we went back to Toledo, people would start screaming ‘Oh there’s Chuck Ealey’ and ask for autographs,” Jael’s father recalls. “She’d go, so who are you? What did you do?”

Ealey acknowledges that he “never shared a lot of the story of how I got here.” 

It is hard today to fully appreciate the barriers Chuck Ealey faced growing up poor in the racially divided city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a typical American small town. Portsmouth was the kind of a place that valued football players but didn’t let black children swim in their public pools.  Located on the Ohio River and bordering Kentucky, the city was a significant pass-through point on the route of the Underground Railroad and the opportunity for freedom in Canada for fugitive slaves.

Ealey remembers the prejudices that held him and others back and contrasts that with the freedom “to do things a lot differently” that he found when he arrived in Hamilton.

“There were none of the issues that socially held you back or that seemed to hold you back in the States,” he stated. And so, Ealey was able to continue with his winning ways that memorable rookie season, 1972, in Hamilton, all the way to the Grey Cup win.

Director Officer documents how Ealey, denied the opportunity to play quarterback in his native land, essentially followed that same path that slaves had taken to get to Canada. As Officer told me of his movie: “It is a significant Africo-American story that has everything to do about being Canadian.”

Today nearly half of the starting quarterbacks in the NFL are Afro-American.  However current research shows that from 2010 to 2022, teams were chronically underrating Black quarterbacks in the draft and significantly underpaying them when they were signed. *** 

*Officer’s movie Stone Thrower can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmL1EvtQy3E

**Jael Richardson’s successful debut novel Gutter Child was published in 2020.  

*** https://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/nfl-draft-analysis-racial-bias-quarterbacks-18355172.php