It was a trying time when my friend Toronto Free Press columnist Jeff Goodall asked me what I had to show for my life after 10 years of publishing TFP. The question came on a Saturday night when mop-up operations were underway at the Elm St. office following the abrupt departure of an eight-year employee.
Jeff's question, which stayed with me long after I left the office, is difficult to contemplate, let alone answer. What is there to show after a decade in publishing? There are, of course, no castles in Spain, nor condos in Florida. No chandeliers or cadillacs come with that feisty little publication known as TFP. Our ship, like most little people's, is always just around the bend. But surely more than assets and riches should be counted when tallying up the worth of one's life on earth.
Most of the assets that come from running a newspaper are of the intangible kind. Intangible assets cannot be deposited at the bank, but they often linger longer than accumulated wealth. They are still there to remember on the longest of dark nights, long after the sparkle has worn off the prisms of the chandelier.
You can take your diamonds and pearls to bed with you each night, but can't count on them to comfort you when worries come to wake you.
In their own way, assets of the intangible kind can be just as complex as the ones that have you worrying about getting the best market price in the unhappy event of forced liquidation. Last Christmas, Charles McVety, principal at Canada Christian College, credited TFP with saving his school when the provincial government seemed intent on closing it. It was one of those intangible assets that warmed Christmas 1999. Of course, there will always be those who see no ideal in saving a Christian school, and those, too, who see nothing to hold up, let alone save when it comes to the notion of Christianity.
Counting up what I have to show for the last decade includes stories written in this newspaper that would never have been written by any other. While it's true that not all of the subjects of the stories had their problems erased overnight, they all believed in letting us try. Trying. That's a concept, Jeff, that people seem to be running out of these days. It's discouraging to see how people don’t seem to be so willing to try anymore. A problem comes knocking, and some give up without even bothering to try and do something about it.
Where would Afghan Maleeha Karim have been if the Toronto Sun editors hadn't let me try to help her? Coming to this country as a little girl who could barely stand, bureaucracy was already intending to send her back to war-torn Afghanistan, when the extent of her injuries were realized. American doctors at Andrew's Air Force base wrote Maleeha off as a human vegetable, and said she would never be able to rise above the injuries caused by the shrapnel in her left brain. The same little girl they wrote off is now a young woman, who although, coming into this country without being able to stand erect and not knowing a single word in English, graduated at the top of her class from a Scarborough high school. The last time we saw Maleeha, she was not allowing her pronounced limp or spastic hand keep her from trying to find a job.
It’s too easy to wish to be the entrepreneur you read about in the newspapers. Much easier than getting out there and trying to make the best of things for yourself.
Sure, it's tough publishing a newspaper in modern-day Toronto, which the experts all say "boasts the most highly-developed newspaper market in North America". To some, that makes it all the more worth trying.
Perhaps wanting to keep trying came from the nuns at St. Joseph's Orphanage in Halifax, who taught all their charges, 'Hard work never killed anybody.'
The well-meaning Jeff Goodall wants me to contemplate things like security, "to come in out of the cold," as people our age need to think about things like that.
For most, there is no such thing as security because there are no guarantees in life, except perhaps joining already departed friends and relatives or getting older.
Jeff Goodall, above all others, should know about that. After 20 years of servitude to Toronto City Hall, he was called in and given a letter of dismissal last June 8. When he asked the director of accounting if there was anything to talk about, the director answered, 'No.'
In the May 9 issue of TFP, courageous Jeff had written about his correspondence with CFO and Treasurer Wanda Liczyk and her senior staff regarding problems with Finance Department operations, and how no action was taken. The second story in the series was scheduled to come out May 30, and by 10 a.m. that morning Jeff had been called to a disciplinary hearing, at which he was told that he had been overheard making �racial slurs� while speaking with someone on the telephone.
The accusers behind the so-called racial slurs remain anonymous.
Jeff is right on the money when he says that the 'chronology of events invites suspicion', particularly knowing that the original story he wrote about Liczyk stemmed from the finance department sitting on uncashed stale cheques in amounts of up to $1-million.
In my books, Jeff should see how much teeth are in new legislation meant to protect whistle blowers.
The fact that Mayor Mel Lastman and not one city councillor tried to intervene on his behalf is incredible.
So Jeff, even after 20 years of honest work at Toronto City Hall, there is no such thing as security. As for me, there is the comfort of knowing that for 10 years I had to answer to nobody but myself. The wolf is still panting at the door and there are no condos in Florida to which to run and relax.
The main difference is that even so, I’m still here.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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