Underdog (3 page)

I flourished in the journalism program at Ottawa's Carleton University. It was the perfect place to explore my newfound interest in politics. I threw myself into the federal political scene – both writing about ground-breaking female politicians like Flora MacDonald and Barbara McDougall and working behind the scenes on Progressive Conservative Joe Clark's leadership campaign. My uncle, Jeff Lyons, a long-time member of the Conservative backroom, had encouraged
me to get involved in his friend's campaign, believing it would be good experience for a journalism student. Jeff had known Joe Clark from his student days when they were both part of the federal Progressive Conservative Student Federation. They remained close friends all their lives until, sadly, my dear uncle died of a massive heart attack while jogging on a hot July day in the summer of 2015. But back in my student days, my uncle unwittingly, or perhaps knowingly, set in motion my passion for politics, which I would indulge both as a journalist covering the municipal, provincial, and federal scene, and as a one-time provincial candidate.

To the envy of my classmates, I was able to experience the thrill of a leadership convention right on the floor with the Joe Clark delegates. The position also led to an opportunity I never anticipated while a journalism student. Exactly one year after I'd finished my journalism degree at Carleton and was already living and working in Toronto – when Mr. Clark defeated Pierre Trudeau to become prime minister of a minority government – I was invited back to Ottawa by Allan Lawrence to serve as his press secretary. Mr. Lawrence, ever the gentleman with his staff, had dual responsibilities as solicitor general and minister of consumer and corporate affairs. I was hired to assist him with the latter portfolio. It was a dream job and truly a heady experience for a twenty-two-year-old budding journalist. During my nine months on the job – before the government fell on a non-confidence vote – I spoke to media across Canada on the issue of exploding 1.5-litre glass pop bottles (which were banned) and on a variety of highly technical corporate issues involving the banks and oil companies. I had only been out of journalism school for a year, but I learned phenomenally fast. I had to
since Mr. Lawrence, often busy with his other demanding portfolio, let his staff take care of many issues on his behalf. I learned very quickly, when the government fell – and the moving van took my worldly possessions back to Toronto once again – that politics is indeed a fickle game: that you can be on top of the world one day and out of a job the next. I would have never traded those nine months for anything, however, and think it was during this time that I started to trust my political instincts, as young as I was.

After returning to Toronto from that brief sojourn in federal politics in Ottawa, I spent the next five years immersed in the rigours of part-time MBA studies while working full-time in a communications job at Queen's Park. Between toiling at my day job, studying at night, and trying to have a romantic life, I had a good excuse not to tackle my worsening psychological problems.

Acquiring an MBA at night, especially when one's undergraduate is in the arts, is arduous and certainly not for the faint of heart. But it was a perfect way of keeping myself busily distracted. Although I dated a series of very decent young men during my university days and throughout my twenties, my attraction to women forever haunted me, as much as I tried to suppress it. I believe it may have started as early as the age of thirteen, when I found myself having crushes on my female teachers and on some classmates. I wasn't to act on it for years – in fact I was afraid to do so – but I found myself forever confused throughout my university years, thinking at the very least I was bisexual. I simply pushed those feelings away, resolving to be the best I could on the heterosexual dating scene as in all other areas of my life.

My confusion was no doubt exacerbated by my unwillingness to deal with the torment of a vicious assault at the hands of a stranger during my final three months at Carleton University. The stranger – who came to my apartment on the pretext of subletting it once I finished my university year – beat me over the head several times with a lead pipe and tried to strangle me. He came within inches of murdering me. After that traumatic assault, my life went into auto-pilot. I was not encouraged to seek counselling. The message I got from my family was to put it all behind me. In fairness, it was a different era back then, and it was the norm to sweep many psychological and emotional issues under the carpet. My only choice was to keep moving and try to forget, or at least deny, the trauma. I felt that if the figurative treadmill onto which I'd forced myself ever stopped, I'd fall off and shatter into a million pieces. But the ordeal haunted me, no matter how much I tried to forget it.

I made sure I filled every waking hour to avoid dealing head-on with the trauma of the assault, together with the pain of living in the closet. I had a hard time being alone with myself. No matter how hard I tried, I had trouble sleeping through the night, often being startled awake at 4 a.m. by a full-blown anxiety attack. To get a proper night's rest, I took sedatives. Although I was careful never to get addicted to the drugs, for years I'd start my day in a groggy, hungover state. I always said I was not a morning person. But most often it was because I had such trouble getting a decent night's sleep or was battling the after-effects of the drugs. To the world, I presented a brave front, always in control, always highly driven. Privately, if I'd stopped to think about it, I'd have realized I was both a mess and a mass of contradictions. It was a very
long twenty-five years before I recognized that I needed help and sought counselling.

At each family gathering, as I watched distant family members making a big deal of getting married and having children, I forever felt the outsider, which was nothing new for me. Jews have a long and complicated relationship with guilt, and I take some pride in the fact that I was able to put a special twist of my own on it. Ironically, my overachieving side made me feel guilty that I was letting my family down. Unlike many closeted lesbians, I did not end up marrying the men I dated throughout my twenties, thirties, and even forties – despite the ever increasing pressure from my family to do so. But my maternal grandfather, Irwin's, third wife – with whom I had a very close relationship – didn't stop trying to fix me up well into my forties. I loved her dearly for her efforts.

I had a special intellectual connection with my grandfather Irwin, a self-made man who created and operated the first chain of grocery stores in Hamilton. We enjoyed long discussions about politics, government waste, our Jewish heritage, and many other issues. I respected his wisdom, his work ethic, his refusal to succumb to the ravages of old age, his mastery of the game of golf, and his entrepreneurial spirit, especially considering he was forced to survive and raise a family during the Depression. He, in turn, respected me as a journalist. But being from a different, far more chauvinistic era, he couldn't understand why I had not followed the traditional route of marriage and children. I never really felt I lived up to his expectations, a point always left unstated until about a year before he passed away. While at my parents' home for dinner and well into his nineties, he let the martinis do the talking. Made even more unedited than normal
due to the early stages of dementia, he told me he thought I was a good journalist but that he plainly didn't agree with my “lifestyle.” It was amazing to me that he even knew the word
lifestyle
or that he even had some inkling that I was gay. I was upset for days by what he had said, although it didn't surprise me. But in hindsight, it was likely his disapproval that kept my family from speaking about the subject and that contributed to keeping me in the closet for so many years.

While I clearly had a tendency to say what was on my mind, I didn't find a platform or the confidence to champion others like me until I made my mind up to ditch a twelve-year well-paying career in public and government relations and pursue my real calling in journalism. To the shock of my friends, family, and work colleagues, I decided to start my career all over again at the age of thirty-two. It was a calculated risk. I figured I had more to gain than lose and that I had to do it before I became far too comfortable with the much higher salaries in what we journalists quasi-affectionately call “the dark side.” I ended up at the
Bracebridge Examiner,
a weekly in Muskoka, where my ex had a summer home. The public relations agency I left, probably not quite believing or trusting my decision to join a small-town newspaper, told me they'd keep the door open for three months, in case I discovered the error of my ways. I never looked back. Within a month, I knew I was right. Although I had taken a circuitous route, at long last I was fulfilling my late grandmother's prophecy.

I did everything but deliver the paper. I asked to help lay out each weekly edition and to learn to write headlines on production day, on top of my writing and reporting duties. Within three months I was working for the
Gravenhurst Banner,
covering town council and trying to effect change with
critical editorials. Again, I figured I had nothing to lose, considering I was only getting my journalistic feet wet. Boy, was I naive. The town councillors, not used to having the spotlight shone on them, didn't much appreciate an outsider, particularly one who knew a number of cottagers from Toronto, writing editorials about what I believed to be their poorly thought out and wasteful decisions. One councillor, who later became Gravenhurst's mayor (after I left town), called me one day crying after I criticized him in an editorial. He informed me he'd never been treated that way. (That was in 1989. He should ask politicians in Toronto what they think of me now.) My cottager friends from Toronto loved what I wrote. The town councillors obviously felt differently. They were so upset, I joked that I'd better find a job in Toronto before I was run out of town. Lucky for me, the owner and publisher of the papers, Ted Britton, supported my efforts 100 per cent. He was as irreverent as me. I would often hear him telling off some local politician or another on the phone. He did not seem to care if the powers that be threatened to withdraw their advertising dollars, and he owned enough papers in Muskoka to have a powerful presence. He, too, felt it important that the truth get out, and had the integrity not to be bullied into backing down from his convictions. Sadly for the citizens of Gravenhurst and Bracebridge, and for freedom of the press, he sold the papers to Metroland, a subsidiary of the Toronto Star conglomerate, in 2005.

After seven months in Muskoka, I was eager to get back to Toronto. I put out feelers and was offered a job at the
Canadian Jewish News.
That would get me back to the city, but my real ambition was to work at a daily newspaper. I called my old friend from journalism school, Peter Howell, for advice. He
had been at the
Toronto Sun
for years and had just moved to the
Toronto Star
when I contacted him. He told me to use my connections – namely then publisher Paul Godfrey, a close friend of my uncle. As much as I abhorred the thought, having prided myself on doing it on my own, I wasn't too proud to realize that the connection would get me a foot in the door. I soon realized the rest was up to me. Les Pyette, the
Toronto Sun
's colourful editor-in-chief at the time, agreed to meet with me, but he wasn't going to make it easy. I marched into the interview with Mr. Pyette full of bravado, claiming that despite my lack of journalism experience, I was not afraid to tell it like it is. I waved my editorials from Gravenhurst in Mr. Pyette's face as what I hoped would be proof of my irreverence. He agreed to give me a tryout in the business section, but with no guarantees I'd get hired. I grabbed the opportunity, thanking the
Canadian Jewish News
for their kind offer but telling them I couldn't take their job. A month later, I was moved over to news as a general assignment reporter, and I never looked back. My ballsy efforts earned me the nickname “The Feisty Girl from Gravenhurst” – a name that has stuck to this day, at least for Les, and despite the fact I'm not from Gravenhurst.

By then, I was several years into what was to be a twenty-year relationship with my ex, and I remained deeply closeted for the first sixteen years of my career at the
Toronto Sun.
I was as much, if not more, married to my job at the newspaper. I threw my energy and passion into it with abandon, which helped me cope with my deteriorating personal life. The years flew by, all becoming a blur of shift work, fascinating assignments, and a willingness to work overtime. Early in my career at the
Sun
, in 1991, I was assigned to cover the
funeral of Dr. Carolyn Warrick, who was viciously stomped to death in the underground parking lot of her downtown condo by two druggies looking for cocaine money. The story struck too close to home. I hadn't told anyone about my 1978 near-death experience because I had convinced myself that it was far behind me and that I was better off than most victims of such heinous crimes for having been able to get on with my life. But Dr. Warrick's vicious killing haunted and nagged at me for days after. I'm not sure I even understood or cared to examine why at the time because I had buried the trauma so deeply. A consummate perfectionist and highly driven, I was determined to be the best at keeping up a tough facade. While I clearly chose to remain in the dark and ignore my own personal hell, something inside me motivated me to start my journey to expose the truth and advocate for others who didn't have a voice. The more I worked those brutally long hours, the less time and energy I had to think about, or rather acknowledge, my personal issues – until 4 a.m., when the anxiety attacks would hit. But even those were attributed to relatively minor worries at the time.

MY PERFECTIONISM LIKELY GOT NOTICED
at the paper. But it was only a few years later that I realized the way it was recognized was perhaps not the way I would have preferred. After eighteen months as a general assignment reporter, I was put on the city desk as assistant city editor, which meant that, depending on the shift, I'd either be assigning stories to reporters or batting cleanup – that is, helping to put the paper to bed. For the three years I was on the “desk” – as we called it – I worked with a terrific team (we actually had a team of editors and reporters
in those days). Assigning stories helped me develop a sound sense of news judgment, and I did enjoy working with our team of reporters, even the prima donnas. But it took me away from what I had grown to love so much: writing and digging for stories. I wanted very badly to show my stuff by developing a “beat.” For months, I pleaded with my bosses to let me leave the city desk to develop contacts and hopefully get breaking stories as the new education beat reporter. It took some convincing, but they finally agreed. Even though I had no kids of my own in the school system, I sensed from the few stories we'd been covering that the system badly needed a wake-up call, and no one at our paper was calling them on it. It was in this same system that Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne got her political feet wet, first as an activist for an organization called the Toronto Parent Network and subsequently as a trustee with the Toronto District School Board.