Rupert Hotel Fire - 32 Years Ago

Thursday December 23rd marks the thirty-second anniversary of the Rupert Hotel fire and the loss of ten lives.

The Rupert was located at 182 Parliament Street close to Queen Street East. Once an upscale hotel, the Rupert, while licensed, was overcrowded and badly maintained.

A plaque erected at the site notes that the fire "sparked action by municipal and provincial governments and community organizations to improve conditions in rooming houses."

It did, for a time. In the years following the tragedy, about 500 units of Toronto housing were created or upgraded to meet or exceed the already existing standards. Not long after the plaque was installed, though, the funding that supported the upgrades and advocacy ended.

What has happened since then?

Not much.

Since amalgamation Toronto has had two rules on rooming houses. They are legal in the old City of Toronto and in parts of Etobicoke and East York. Being legal means they are subject to all kinds of regulations.

But in Scarborough, North York and York, rooming houses are strictly illegal. Those living illegally in these parts of Toronto can be evicted.

City staff say there are about 1,000 rooming houses in the city. According to a recent article in Now Magazine there are likely many more.

“Legalizing them across the city would protect vulnerable tenants and create a housing solution that can be put into place now, without large investments in infrastructure.”*

There were fires at 69 illegal rooming houses in the Toronto area between 2013 and 2017 according to the Fire Marshal. At a meeting in October 2021 as City Council delayed once again taking action on licensing, it was reported that there have been 16 fatal rooming housing fires in Toronto between 2010 and 2020 and 14 fatalities were in unlicensed rooming houses.

All that is needed is political will to create and sustain more safe affordable housing.

*Jin Huh, Douglas Kwan, and Sean Meagher @nowtoronto October 4, 2021

-------------------------- 

Rupert Hotel December 1989 

Gordon was sorry 
but it was tough keeping warm 
and he’d had some to drink 
so setting fire to those papers 
on the floor in the middle 
of his second-floor room 
made some kind of sense. 

At the Rupert Hotel, 
a three-storey brick walk up 
in a licensed city rooming house 
off Queen Street East 
at Parliament 
those with few options 
and few dollars could exist, 
in a way. 

Gordon’s warming fire soon leapt out of control 
flames and choking smoke filling the corridors. 
As the fire gained full possession of the hallways 
that license pinned to the wall 
wasn’t worth the paper 
it was printed on 
as far as the protection it afforded 
those 31 tenants 
at the Rupert 
that wintry December night. 

A sprinkler system might have helped; 
could have halted the fire’s progress. 
And the tenants could have taken some action 
if the alarm system had been operable 
or if fire extinguishers 
stored in the basement were reachable. 

Seventeen long minutes passed 
before someone called 911. 
When firefighters arrived 
the whole building was enveloped. 
Flames leapt out of top floor windows. 
Fearless firefighters using ladders forced their way 
into the searing heat of the second floor. 

Later a witness called it 
“A Vision out of Hell.” 
As the fire raged people screamed, 
cried out for friends. 
It took six hours and eighteen crews 
to subdue the blaze. 
Thankfully, some tenants were saved 
and many escaped. 

For days crews chopped through ice 
and sifted through debris to locate bodies. 
They found nine men 
and a woman who had returned to the building 
to help a friend. 
Donna Marie Cann died, 
as the others had 
from heavy smoke inhalation. 

Soon an inquest was held. 
Recommendations were made 
new rules created 
regulations established 
housing planned. 

After a while all was forgotten. 
Rules and regulations lapsed, 
were ignored or opposed 
and the programs ended. 

In the city today austerity policies 
compel people to rent rooms 
in perilous and dangerous buildings. 
Many flee the downtown 
to illegal suburban homes 
where life is cheaper. 

Bob Wood, 2020

Some Grey Cup Memories #2

Several years ago, I was asked to do a couple of stories related to the 100th Grey Cup. TSN had commissioned a series of eight documentaries on the Grey Cup and to my delight I was asked to write on the 1972 Cup and specifically one of the heroes of that game, Chuck Ealey.  This Sunday’s Grey Cup is the first one played in Hamilton with the Tiger Cats playing since that 1972 game. So it seemed somewhat appropriate  to print a lightly edited version of my earlier story.  Here it is.

-----

The 1972 Grey Cup held Dec. 3 at Hamilton’s Ivor Wynne Stadium was decided by a last-second field goal. The Hamilton Tiger Cats won an exciting match 13-10 over the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Rookie quarterback Chuck Ealey was the star of that game and most of that season for the Cats.

The game represented much more than the typical east-west Cup contest 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 recalls.

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.

I talked with Charles Officer who directed the movie 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 ’51, he was moved to halfback the next season.

“It’s the same story,” says 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.

Jael and Chuck on the way to
Portsmouth Ohio

Meanwhile, Jael Richardson, Chuck’s daughter, has 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 story of how I got here.”

It is hard today to appreciate fully 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. 

Charles Officer, Director
The Stone Thrower

As Officer told me of his movie:

“It is a significant African American story that has everything to do about being Canadian.”

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

*You can find Officer’s movie these days on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmL1EvtQy3E

**The Stone Thrower – A Daughter’s Lessons. A Father’s Life. A Memoir is available at https://www.dundurn.com/books_/t22117/a9781771022057-the-stone-thrower

 

The Stone Thrower an illustrated children’s book by Jael Ealey Richardson was published in  2016.

https://houseofanansi.com/products/the-stone-thrower

Some Grey Cup Memories #1

My hometown team is in the Grey Cup this year.

As a kid, when I first became interested in the Canadian Football League, I thought the Hamilton Tiger Cats were in the “Annual Classic” every year.   

That was because from my earliest memory of the CFL they were.  I’m pretty sure the first game I watched was the ‘57 affair- the first of three where the Cats tangled with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.  Cats took this one but the Bombers won the next two.

This seven year old watched the Ti-Cat victory from my grandparents’ home, as my parents were out at a Grey Cup party.  Weren’t all parents out at a Grey Cup parties in those days?

Of course, the Tiger Cats weren’t, in fact, in the game every year missing out with a feeble 4-10 record in 1960. They returned in 1961, though, where they lost to Winnipeg again.  Strangely, perhaps, I remember less of this one than the Eastern Final conference played over two games in the lead up to the championship.  (Memory is assisted with my well-thumbed copy of Football Today and Yesterday penned by Tony Allan, former Sports Editor of the Winnipeg Tribune.)   

Bernie Faloney #92

In front of a record crowd of 33,161 fans at the Canadian Exhibition, my team had been badly beaten in the first game by the hated Argos.  In those days, the Eastern Championship was decided in a two game total point home and home series.  The Cats needed to overcome this 18-point deficit in the second match.  They had actually done that by the third quarter.

But then, with one minute to go the Argos tied it up.  Hamilton was stuck deep in its own end.  Bernie Faloney (a first round draft choice of the San Francisco 49ers who had come to Canada for better pay) was intercepted.

“All the Argos had to do was boot the ball to the dead-line, which was in with easy range for a kicker like Dave Mann –and it is was in the bag,” wrote Allen. 

Instead, the Argos chose to kill time and actually lost fifteen yards.

Mann, who had a punting average of 48 yards that season, then put the ball into the end zone.  It was returned by Ti-Cats kicker Don Sutherin.  Mann kicked it back and Bernie Faloney had the ball in his hands.  

“This time Faloney brought it out to safety and then with illegal blocks being thrown all over the place (blocks on punts were illegal in those days) raced the length of the field with it,” wrote Allen in 1962.

At this point, my family was startled as our neighbour, in excitement and inebriation, ran out of his house and discharged his shotgun.  Such behaviour was not a regular occurrence in the evolving suburban, semi-rural Burlington of 1961.

It  was all sorted out, at the game, that is.  Faloney’s run didn’t count. The Ti-Cats prevailed in overtime.  You can imagine that the Grey Cup was a bit of an anti-climax for me this year. 

Ian Sunter kicks game
winning field goal
in 1972 Grey Cup

The 1972 game in Hamilton (Ti-Cats 13 - Saskatchewan 10) was the most memorable from my perspective.  I was at this one. One of the game’s stars, Ti-Cat QB Chuck Ealey was 22 that year as was your blogger.  

My keen interest, however,  waned after this game partly as a result of an unnerving incident when my, then, young girlfriend (now, long suffering, wife of nearly forty-six years) and I were leaving Ivor Wynne  Stadium.  A bottle,  hurled irresponsibly from the north stands struck and injured someone on the street quite close to us.  From then on, football spectating seemed like less fun.

I was “back” again in 1989 though.  Tony Champion had a terrific game in the Hamilton’s 43-40 loss to the Green Riders.  You’ll remember this  catch.                                      https://www.facebook.com/watch/?                                                                             v=627010781143924

I had a minor involvement in the post-game “near victory” parade.  At the time, I was working in a small feminist oriented social service agency in downtown Hamilton.  I was the only male staff on duty the day of the parade.  Earlier, my female colleagues had been clear about their lack of interest in the game in particular and North American professional sports more generally. 

The parade  was being marshalled  a short block from our office when I returned from visiting a client at his home.   My  K-car was stuck behind the last float - Tony Champion’s open convertible.  I followed slowly,  immediately behind the Champion car.  

As the end of the motorcade passed in front of the office,  I was surprised to see my previously disinterested colleagues lined up at the window.  Pretending to be part of the parade, I waved, as heroes do.  They laughed.

No Grey Cup Party this year for this parent.  I’ll be potatoing on the couch,  witnessing a certain Ti-Cat victory while sharing the experience with my Twitter friends.

Sarah's Journey is Back

Simcoe writer David Beasley has produced many well-researched books of fiction and of non-fiction.

An early work, A Hamilton Romance, took a critical look at Canadian society as it was in 1945.

Beasley “discovered” Canada’s first great novelist Major John Richardson in The Canadian Don Quixote: the Life and Works of Major John Richardson. 

He took on the role of his ancestor Richard Beasley, first settler in Hamilton Ontario, in From Bloody Beginnings.

Beasley even delved into the crime fiction genre in three books wherein a library detective who carries a gun chases down a missing stamp collection and  kidnappers while finding his way through the shadowy world of big city politics.

I have read a fair number of David’s works.

Sarah’s Journey, soon to be re- released, is probably my favourite.

It is the story of Sarah Lewis,  born a slave In Virginia.  Sarah found her way to freedom to Upper Canada in 1822 where her children make their way among Simcoe’s growing black community made up of escaped slaves and prominent 19th century Simconians.

Here is some information on the book signing and release coming up soon in Simcoe.

                                                 ----------

                           SARAH’ S JOURNEY IS BACK 

                                    Price: $25.00 Cdn. & US 

                         Sponsored by Firefly and Fox Books 

                                Thursday December 9th 

                                8.30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. 

                                     Sabor Espresso,     

                            11 Norfolk Street North, Simcoe ON.,  

                            (Next door to Firefly and Fox) 

                                             ----------

More on David Beasley at http://www.davuspublishing.com/EN/about.php

CPP Investments Should Divest from Fossil Fuels

Lately I have become involved in a senior’s climate action group called SCAN! https://seniorsforclimateactionnow.org/

We are building a seniors’ group that is democratic, accountable, equitable and participatory. 

SCAN! believes we need decisive action to:

*rapidly drive down carbon emissions and eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels and petrochemicals;

*support those whose jobs have been destroyed by the climate crisis and those whose jobs are  threatened by dramatically reducing carbon emissions;

*begin to restore the ecological damage caused by economic growth; and

*transition from an economy:

        -of accumulation to an economy of sustainability

-of extraction to an economy of stewardship

        -of exploitation and inequality to an economy of fairness. 

One of the initiatives SCAN has undertaken is in the area of Pension Divestment.  Here is a piece that the Chair of our Pension Divestment Working Group penned for the Toronto Star. https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2021/10/04/seniors-are-calling-on-cpp-investments-to-divest-from-fossil-fuels.html

Recently, I wrote to John Graham, President and CEO of CPP Investments.  CPP Investments is a global investment management organisation that invests the assets of the Canada Pension Plan.  Incredibly, they have actually been increasing investments in fossil fuels, especially the tar sands fuelling the climate crisis! CPP Investments should be showing leadership by investing heavily in renewable energy. 

A copy of my letter is below.  

Please consider sending a similar letter.

Thanks,

Bob Wood

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

John Graham, President and CEO 
and Heather Munro-Blum, Chairperson, Board of Directors
CPP Investments
One Queen Street East, Suite 2500
Toronto, ON, M5C 2W5
contact@cppib.com

Dear Mr. Graham and Ms. Munro-Blum,

I am a senior and a beneficiary of the Canada Pension Plan. As I have grown older, I’ve experienced the growing strength of climate change. I am concerned with the force and severity of the weather we now experience. I am devastated at the destruction of our forests and wildlife from forest fires. I am horrified at so many needless, climate-related deaths. I have become increasingly aware of how marginalized and Indigenous communities are disproportionally affected. I worry about the world my loved ones will inherit.

A recent report from United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes it clear that we must keep fossil fuels in the ground and move quickly to clean, renewable energy. This same body warned us all in 2018 that “limiting global warming to 1.5⁰C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society.” Three years later, but with still little action from the world’s leaders on the climate crisis, the head of the UN has declared that humanity is in a Code Red situation. 

I am very concerned at what I have learned about CPP Investments’ fossil fuel holdings:

• nearly 20 per cent of its Canadian holdings in Alberta, in fossil fuels;

• extensive holdings in U.S. fracking companies;

• coal investments in China, in spite of Canada’s international campaign to transition from coal;

• a major offshore natural gas investment in Ireland.

But most distressing is that that CPP Investments has actually been increasing investments in fossil fuels, especially the tar sands. You are fuelling the climate crisis! You should be showing leadership by investing heavily in renewable energy.

As someone who has contributed to the CPP I am, effectively, a shareholder. My children are contributors and are therefore future beneficiaries. We insist that our money be used to help solve the climate crisis, not contribute to it.

I try to make environmentally and socially aware decisions, whether about purchases, or household energy conservation, for example. I therefore want to ensure the investments that fund my retirement don’t further endanger our children, future generations, and our planet.

As you are responsible for the largest pension fund in Canada, you must ensure that the CPP is funded in keeping with a 1.5⁰C degree of warming. It is imperative that you not make new investments in fossil fuels and that you divest from existing ones by 2025. You must invest ambitiously in renewable energy – which is extremely profitable – and other climate solutions. You must respect the sovereignty of Indigenous people and invest in a just transition for energy workers and their communities. You must stop betting on dubious technologies like carbon capture and storage.

Finally, in keeping with your biannual public meeting’s emphasis on transparency, I want improved disclosure, so that contributors and beneficiaries can see how you invest our money. 

I look forward to your response.

Bob Wood

Copy: divestmentproject@seniorsforclimateactionnow.org

Rupert Hotel December 1989*

In light of Toronto City Council further delaying making necessary reforms to rooming house regulations I've updated my poem Rupert Hotel December 1989*.  To learn more see John Michael McGrath's piece at https://www.tvo.org/article/why-does-toronto-exist-and-what-is-it-for

 

         Gordon was sorry
        but it was tough keeping warm
and he’d had some to drink
so setting fire to those papers
on the floor in the middle
of his second-floor room
made some kind of sense.

thestar.com

At the Rupert Hotel,
a three-storey brick walk up
in a licensed city rooming house
off Queen Street East
at Parliament
those with few options
and few dollars could exist,
in a way.

Gordon’s warming fire soon leapt out of control
flames and choking smoke filling the corridors.
        As the fire gained full possession of the hallways
that license pinned to the wall
wasn’t worth the paper
it was printed on
as far as the protection it afforded
those 31 tenants
at the Rupert
that wintry December night.

A sprinkler system might have helped;
could have halted the fire’s progress.
And the tenants could have taken some action
if the alarm system had been operable
or if fire extinguishers 
stored in the basement were reachable.

Seventeen long minutes passed 
before someone called 911.
When firefighters arrived 
the whole building was enveloped.
Flames leapt out of top floor windows.
Fearless firefighters using ladders forced their way
into the searing heat of the second floor.

Later a witness called it
“A Vision out of Hell.”
As the fire raged people screamed, 
cried out for friends.
It took six hours and eighteen crews 
to subdue the blaze.
Thankfully, some tenants were saved 
and many escaped.

For days crews chopped through ice 
and sifted through debris to locate bodies.
They found nine men
and a woman who had returned to the building 
to help a friend.
Donna Marie Cann died, 
as the others had
from heavy smoke inhalation.

Soon an inquest was held.
Recommendations were made
new rules created
regulations established
housing planned.

After a while all was forgotten.
Rules and regulations lapsed,
were ignored or opposed
and the programs ended.

In the city today austerity policies
compel people to rent rooms
in perilous and dangerous buildings.
Many flee the downtown
to illegal suburban homes
where life is cheaper.

*There were fires at 69 illegal rooming houses in the Toronto area between 2013 and 2017 according to the Fire Marshal. At a meeting in October 2012 as City Council delayed once again taking action on licensing, it was reported that there have been 16 fatal rooming housing fires in Toronto between 2010 and 2020 and 14 fatalities were in unlicensed rooming houses. 

Not Much Has Changed

(This story was originally published June 07, 2010 on the Hamilton Spectator Poverty Project - No Excuse https://poverty.thespec.com/page/2/ 

A "SHIFT" TO SIDEWALKS FROM SOCIAL SERVICES

The Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) assists municipalities with their social program costs. Recently OMPF reconciled the 2008 allocations against real expenditures and costs and as a result many municipalities received more money. Hamilton got about $3.1 million dollars; the Region of Niagara got $2.1 million.

I became aware of this today when reading a bulletin from CATCH (Citizens at City Hall). CATCH is a volunteer community group that encourages civic participation in Hamilton. The CATCH story focused on the fact that Hamilton councillors were all going to be getting about $250,000 each to spend in their wards on sidewalk repairs. "In a shift from normal practice," they apparently decided not to follow the usual priority setting process for allocating funds. 

This is indeed a shift but it is an election year and you'll see more shifts and other silliness before October 25.

The CATCH story went on to note that $3.1 million of the $3.6 million fund being divvied up by the councillors came from the OMPF reconciliation dollars. 

But shouldn't that money be going back into social services? That suggestion was rejected by council.

I mentioned Niagara. It took its monies and put $600,000 into Emergency Medical Services and the remaining $1.5 million into an account to offset the Community Services net deficit. That makes sense; seems logical.   

Up in Thunder Bay, the city got $1.3 million back. Government member Michael Gravelle, the MPP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, was "absolutely delighted about this additional funding for social programs and other services."

Hamilton politicians seem to be marching to a different drummer here. Or am I missing something?