When the CBC began to tout its search for “the greatest Canadian” for a television series of that name in 2004, I was interviewed on radio and asked what I thought about the idea. I scoffed at the notion that it meant anything. Greatest what? Greatest crook, moneymaker, athlete, looker, writer? Besides, how can we select one person out of millions who are Canadians and conclude that one individual is the greatest. My mother, for example, never made the newspapers or a television report, but she finished high school, worked hard all her life, brought forth four children, and raised them to be responsible, contributing citizens of the country, and to me, she was the greatest. I feel the same about my father.
I now realize that the exercise of trying to define the greatest Canadian was not a wasted or even frivolous effort. I was astonished to watch and listen to conversations, often quite heated, about Canada and Canadians. It was great to hear the talk and feel the passion — it got us thinking about this country, its values, and what makes us special. I was surprised and CBC management was delighted when the project took off. According to Slawko Klimkiw, the man then in charge of television programming, 60 percent of the votes in the first round were submitted by women. I don't know how he got that statistic, because not one woman appeared among the top ten nominees. I felt there should have been four categories — men, living and dead, and women, living and dead. But as an exercise to get people involved and thinking, it worked.
As not only a scientist but also an environmental activist, I had no idea that I would be anywhere on the list, so when the names were first announced, I was surprised to be placed among the top ten. As I said later in an interview, I would have been honored to be in the top one thousand. What a remarkable list — not a single businessperson or, sadly, woman, but three scientists (Sir Frederick Banting, Alexander Graham Bell, and me).
The United States dominates Canada in so many ways. I kept thinking about people on the Canadian list in comparison with any Americans might select. Ultimately Canadians chose as number 1 Tommy Douglas, a socialist preacher and politician who championed national medicare and many other social causes — would such a person have even appeared among the top one hundred Americans? I felt our list alone indicated how Canada is different from the U.S.
It is funny to look at the list of “greatest Americans” as voted by Britons in an Internet poll before a BBC program titled What the World Thinks of America. Of 37,102 votes cast, the top ten were: 1. Homer Simpson (47.2 percent), 2. Abraham Lincoln (9.7), 3. Martin Luther King (8.5), 4. Mr. T (7.8), 5. Thomas Jefferson (5.7), 6. George Washington (5.1), 7. Bob Dylan (4.7), 8. Benjamin Franklin (4.1), 9. Franklin D. Roosevelt (3.7), and 10. Bill Clinton (3.5).
Among 2.4 million votes cast by Americans for the “greatest American” poll, the results were: 1. Ronald Reagan, 2. Abraham Lincoln, 3. Martin Luther King, 4. George Washington, 5. Benjamin Franklin, 6. George W. Bush, 7. Bill Clinton, 8. Elvis Presley, 9. Oprah Winfrey, and 10. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Interesting. Six presidents, including two (Reagan and Bush) I am sure historians will judge harshly, two blacks (King, Winfrey), one scientist (Franklin), and one woman (Winfrey).
The original search for the “greatest” was launched by the BBC, and over a million votes were cast for the top ten Britons, who were: 1. Winston Churchill (28.1 percent), 2. Isambard Kingdom Brunel (24.6), 3. Diana, Princess of Wales (13.9), 4. Charles Darwin (6.9), 5. William Shakespeare (6.8), 6. Isaac Newton (5.2), 7. Queen Elizabeth I (4.4), 8. John Lennon (4.2), 9. Horatio Nelson (3), and 10. Oliver Cromwell (2.8). Two women, but really, is Diana one of the ten greatest Britons? And I had to look up engineer Brunel.
The CBC was extremely discreet in its handling of the list of nominees for its The Greatest Canadian program. For one thing, though working for the corporation, I never had even the tiniest hint that I was on the list. CBC staff must have been contacting people I'd worked with in the past to locate film footage, as well as friends and family for personal photos, yet no one leaked the information to me. When the list was announced, I was floored. How I wished my parents were still alive, because they would have savored it the most. After going through the rejection implicit in the expulsion of Japanese Canadians from British Columbia and the hardships they endured in this country of their birth, Mom and Dad would have been thrilled to see their child held in such high esteem.
ON THE NIGHT OF the final results of the contest, we got a call from our Gitga'at friend Art Sterritt in remote Hartley Bay. “Congratulations on coming in fifth,” he said. “Since everyone ahead of you is dead, that makes you the greatest living Canadian!”
“But Art,” Tara protested, “the program comes on three hours from now, so how do you know?”
“Oh, we have a satellite dish,” he replied. “We watched it from Newfoundland!” Hartley Bay is a tiny village in northern B.C. that can only be reached by plane or boat and is thousands of miles from Newfoundland, but thanks to technology, it is more plugged in than we are in the big city.
Only a few weeks later, Maclean's magazine in Toronto published the results of a poll in which women across Canada were asked with whom they would most like to be stranded on a desert island. They were asked to select from a small list that included me; CBC Television newsreader Peter Mansbridge; Canadian prime minister Paul Martin; Canadian Idol TV series host Ben Mulroney; and Calgary Flames ice-hockey superstar Jarome Iginla. I was flabbergasted when a writer with the magazine called to tell me I had been selected first, by 46 percent of the women (55 percent in Alberta), while the runner-up was young Mulroney at 16 percent!
“Where were all those women when I was young and single?” I sputtered. Later, when I did a little strutting and suggested to Tara that I must be hot, she replied matter-of-factly, “David, women aren't stupid. They know you can fish. You were a meal ticket.” Ah, reality.
EIGHTEEN
THOUGHTS AS I GROW OLD
ON MY BRIEF VISITS to Cuba, I have been impressed by the contrast between Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the public eye. Posters and T-shirts with pictures of Che and slogans from his writings before the Cuban Revolution leader was killed in Bolivia in 1967 are ubiquitous, but I have never seen a sign, statue, or picture of President Castro in the streets. The absence of his image is in keeping with his reputed attitude that nothing is permanent — even the sun will die in a few billion years — so why should people care about their legacy after they're gone?
I have never sought honors or fame, though one honor I received brought pleasure for what it enabled me to do. In 1986, I received the Royal Bank Award, which was presented in an elaborate ceremony in Vancouver before a tuxedo-wearing crowd that included my in-laws and my father and his companion, Fumiko. The award was a tax-free $100,000, and the pleasure it gave was the purchase of our beloved Tangwyn, a small piece of paradise on Quadra Island. When we finally purchased Kingfisher, a small cabin cruiser, in 2003, Tara proclaimed, “David, we've got everything we need in life. We don't need any more stuff.” If I ever receive another award of money, it will go straight to the David Suzuki Foundation's endowment fund.