Peter Gzowski Memorial

Peter Gzowski died Thursday afternoon, and a piece of Canada died with him. He is best known for the radio program Morningside, a three hour current affairs and interview format, but he was also a writer and had his own television program. In his own way he showed us who we are, by letting us talk and listen to one another. The "national conversation" he hosted was like Canadians themselves, warm, friendly, decent, and caring, with occasional sharp bits.

My best connection to him was listening to Morningside between late 1990 and late 1992. I was taking university courses at home and usually had the radio on, especially Tuesday for the political commentary panel. Gzowski introduced me to parts of Canada I'd never heard of, and talked to all kinds of people that were more interesting than most people think of Canadians as being.

There were parts of his program I didn't care for, and parts that rivetted my attention. Almost all of it was interesting, in a peculiar Canadian way that's hard to explain. I can't be the only person who sat in the car waiting until the interview was over because I didn't want to miss anything. He interviewed Prime Minsters, which was fine and good, but other people interviewed them too. The interviews that I thought were important were with people who had accomplished something in their little corner of Canada. He exposed them to a wider world, and exposed us to that person, what was neat about them, and that part of the country. Such things may seem minor or unimportant, but such threads are what bind a country together.

He didn't get people angry or riled up as a way of getting a response from them, as seems to be the norm with today's talk radio hosts. He simply talked to them. Not down to them, but simply to them as one decent human to another. And they responded! They poured out their interests, their passions, and made us understand a little of what made them tick.

It's easy to put down other people if you know very little of them. Canada is not one monolithic culture, or even two of them. There are at least 8, and if you get into any detail at all there are probably dozens. Some of these cultures don't understand some of the others very well, and tend to think of them in stereotypical ways, if at all. But when you've listened to someone talk about the first sign of spring in their area, or their struggles with some bureaucracy, or one of life's little triumphs, you realize you have something in common with these people. It becomes harder to talk of "them," which is a good thing.

Literacy was one of his passions; perhaps it will be his most important gift to Canada. In 1986 he vowed to raise $1 million to benefit community based literacy programs. The Peter Gzowski invitational golf tournaments have raised about $6 million, and have been held in every province and territory in Canada.

One of my favourite things to do is read. Books, newspapers, magazines, the internet, it doesn't matter. I also like to write. These are fundamental skills necessary to function in our society, and it's a shame every single Canadian doesn't at least have a basic understanding of them. To his credit, Gzowski did something about it.

Nobody will ever know the sum of the contributions made to Canada by newly literate people. Only the people involved in the literacy programs, and their families will understand the difference literacy has made in their lives. While important in the economic sense, in that these new readers are far more likely to contribute to Canadian society than being a drag on it, the real measure is the hope and joy reading has added to individual lives. Every new reader makes Canada a better nation.

There are some voices that are inherently pleasant to listen to, and Gzowski's is one of them. I liked listening to him talk, to slowly work his way around to whatever it was that he wanted to say. It wasn't slick or polished, but it was a very human delivery. One could sense his curiosity, his interest, and warmth just by the way he spoke.

Canadians live in a sometimes brutal environment. We get it all, snow, rain, and all possible combinations of those two, drought, intense cold, heat, wind, humidity, and who knows what's coming next. It's no surprise that Canadians like comfortable homes, and many of them have that lived in look. Whenever outside is horrible, most of us like to snuggle in with family and comfort food to pretend outside isn't happening. We don't much care how that snuggle looks to others as long as it makes us happy. Gzowski's voice was like that, warm, comfortable, with a growl or rasp that made it unique. Many people think it was Canada's voice, and it will be missed.