On October 22, 2000, the myth that Canadians are uninterested in their history may have been put to rest forever. On that date, Canada: A People's History debuted on CBC television to unprecedented ratings. Averaging more than two million viewers per episode, it stands as the most watched Canadian documentary ever broadcast. Its web page is the second most frequently "hit" in Canada, and the companion book and video set are national bestsellers in both English and French.
With all the good news, there's still a "but," according to series creator and executive producer Mark Starowicz. "The boast 'the first history of Canada in the television age' is also an accusation," he says. He doesn't spare the CBC, the organization for which he has toiled for the past 30 years, from blame. Starowicz strongly believes that it is the responsibility of the country's public broadcaster - who else, after all, could possibly take it on - to present Canada to Canadians in such a way as to compel them to watch.
As experienced an interviewee as he is an interviewer, he seems remarkably unguarded as he speaks about the projects that are dear to his heart. The only furtiveness he exhibits is when he fires up the first of the cigarettes he would chain smoke through our conversation in a lounge in McGill's Tomlinson Fieldhouse. Starowicz was at McGill in June to deliver the convocation address and accept the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of his distinguished career in journalism and broadcasting.
Although cheered by the documentary's reception, he is dismayed at the mentality that fails to celebrate, and even dismisses, the grandeur and drama inherent in our past.
"You will never hear an Italian, German, American or Brit say, 'My history is boring.' But you will hear Canadians say it," he notes. "I think it's a remnant of a colonizing mythology. One of the ways you colonize a people is to tell them they don't have a history. We've inherited that and it's been perpetuated through American cultural colonialism."
 |
Artwork for Canada: A People's History |
|
|
But he's quick to add that "it's not the Americans who have done it, it's we who have done it to ourselves." Prior to A People's History, Canadians had never been given a carefully researched, high quality and eloquent television production that reflected who they are and the experiences out of which they've emerged. If it was a project long overdue, Starowicz made sure it lacked nothing in scope or ambition. In cooperation with Radio-Canada, he put together 14 production teams to create the 16-episode, 32-hour series which was broadcast simultaneously in English and French.
Starowicz dates the beginning of his impressive journalism career - accolades include six Gemini awards for Best Information Program and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Canadian Journalism Federation - to 1968-69, when he was editor of the McGill Daily. One of his successors as editor calls Starowicz's stint at the paper "one of its best years." He also wrote for the Montreal Gazette and the Toronto Star - both of which fired him. The Gazette didn't like a sympathetic portrayal he wrote of Quebec nationalist René Lévesque. While at McGill, Starowicz had been an anti-establishment activist and a prime force behind the movement to "francicize" the University and make it a pro-worker institution, leading to one of the biggest demonstrations ever to take place on campus.
Despite his firings and his reputation as a firebrand, the CBC hired him in 1970 as a radio producer. In a 1974 McGill News interview, Starowicz credits network supervisor Margaret Lyons for softening his abrasive style. "She left me alone, and therefore I behaved entirely differently. I didn't want to abuse the trust put in me, so I was more cautious and responsible."
In the same interview, he reflected rather harshly on his undergraduate activism: "We were a bunch of middle-class turds who thought the University was the centre of everything and tried to convince the students that they were workers, which, of course, is ridiculous. We fancied ourselves allies and equivalents of people fighting real battles."
But he didn't entirely mellow. In the course of producing Radio Free Friday, Five Nights and Commentary for the CBC, Starowicz perfected what he called "grouchy journalism" which operated on the premise that "something is wrong." In 1973 he took over As It Happens, bringing a harder edge - along with a huge jump in ratings - to the public affairs program.
