FOR montreal '65 I WROTE ABOUT RADIO CANADA International, founded in 1944 to communicate with people affected by World War II, which caused millions of refugees to migrate, all over the world. (Records weren't kept in those days, so accurate numbers aren't available.) The excerpt below gives some idea of the magazine's quality.
"VOL. 2 No 12 montreal DÉCEMBRE DECEMBER DICIEMBRE DICEMBRE DEZEMBER '65
"the voice of Canada speaks eleven languages
"Somewhere in the world, around the clock, someone is listening to Canada's shortwave voice, the International Service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After the first four notes of O Canada are played on a piano and celeste, an announcer says Tu mówi Kanada or A Radio Canada transmite para o Brasil or Говорит Канада.
"In Polish, Portuguese or Russian; in Canada's own French and English; in German, Spanish, Czech, Hungarian, Ukrainian and Slovak, the Service broadcasts live about 100 hours a week. Some programs are retransmitted simultaneously through rented facilities in Europe, some are rebroadcast for the convenience of listeners in other time zones.
"Regular programs are beamed to Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Australia and New Zealand through three variable-direction 50,000-watt transmitters near Sackville in the Atlantic province of New Brunswick. A 600-mile landline connects the transmitters with IS headquarters, which occupy three floors of the Radio-Canada Building in downtown Montreal. There are small offices in Toronto and Ottawa, and receiving stations near Ottawa and at Point Grey in Vancouver, British Columbia."
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In 2016 the five languages of the IS were English, French, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic. Successive federal governments have cut its budget and personnel. They don't seem to have a clear vision for it.
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In 1966 I wrote
"behind the scenes at the national theatre school
"The National Theatre School of Canada was established in 1960 to provide training in all aspects of theatrical work for young people of both language groups, and thus to supply the fast-growing theatrical movement in this country with personnel of top caliber....
"Located in Montreal because of the city's bilingual nature and diverse cultural facilities, the NTS offers a three-year course in acting and a two-year production course. The former is not bilingual but rather 'colingual' — a word coined by the School's directors and inspired by the fact that the vehicle of the theatre, language, remains forever distinct, even in a bilingual country."
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My love for Montreal began in my late 'teens, when I spent six hours there en route to a summer hotel job in Nova Scotia. I kept going back as often as possible, usually by train. Studying details of its fantastic underground system for a long article in Montreal '66 (which turned out to be my last of 12 for the magazine) was pure fun. Words can't convey the before-and-after of how categorically and dramatically the creation of that underground world altered the city's core, as well as its self-esteem.
"the city beneath montreal
"Two structures on the Expo 67 site suggest possible shapes of things to come in urban development. The United States' skybreak bubble and Germany's tent-like pavilion are exciting examples of what man may one day do to provide buildings or even entire cities with transparent weatherproof coverings in the finest science-fiction tradition. But downtown Montreal itself already plays a variation on this futuristic theme—land in the city's core is used not only for surface transportation and high rise buildings but underground as well.
YOU ARE READING
GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.
Non-FictionDuring the first 30 years of my journalistic career in the second half of the 20th century, good jobs of all kinds were available all over Canada. Those of us born in the 1930s and early '40s were in great demand because our generation was very smal...
