Don McGillivray, longtime Southam correspondent and former CAJ president, passed away yesterday [Tuesday, June 24, 2003] in Victoria. I will miss him dearly, CAJ must do something in his memory. Anyone have recollections?

Stephen Bindman

What everyone seems to remember about Don McGillivray was his character rather than his prodigious and enlightening professional output. This is completely accurate. About 1957, the late Eric Wells, then managing-editor of the Winnipeg Tribune, decided that I should become a political journalist rather than a feckless feature writer with no special interest in politics or anything else except for some naive literary pretensions. So he dispatched me to the Manitoba Legislature where Don McGillivray was the Trib's senior reporter.

What a stroke of luck for me. Don soon transferred to me his own appreciation of politics as the most interesting and meaningful game on earth, and I was hooked. He also showed me that being competitive didn't mean being nasty. In a profession noted sometimes for unbridled egotism (this writer not excepted), Don was always modest, approachable, intelligent and funny. He is one of the few journalists I know who literally didn't have an enemy in the world. And he had many, many friends who like myself felt a real pang when they learned of his death.

Peter Desbarats

I remember Don well, in the press gallery and at Carleton. He was a gentle man, in both senses, and a devout Tory. During the 1965 election campaign there was a big debate in the press car on Diefenbaker's campaign train about how to report the fact that not all his statements were not true. Don among others argued that it was our job to report what he said and then report Pearson's denials. I took the other view, indicating in the Globe that Dief was not always accurate, and as the debate among journalists continued I wrote a piece for the Globe explaining the quandary.

In those days, one was not supposed to write about the media, and Don was quite annoyed. Days later, we were still going at it hammer and tongs in his roomette when the train drew into Union Station in Toronto and we disembarked to fly to Montreal. But Don was missing, until he caught up with us some hours later. It transpired that he sat fuming in his roomette until it was too late and the train was on its way to the yards, where he finally managed to get off and walk back across miles of tracks. The point is that still fires burned deep in Don. I'm sorry to hear of his passing.

Tony Westell

One of Don's first jobs was at the Regina Leader-Post and he retained a interest in what was going on in the city long after he left. When a journalism school started up in the Regina in the early '80s (I was in the second class - class of '83) he was delighted and he came out a number of times to see us (he might have been a visiting prof. at one time, but I'm not sure). I remember him lecturing us, a bunch of wide-eyed first year students, about how he was "on the graft" when he was at the paper in the '50s. One of his first beats was city hall and he remembers the other city hall reporters in the press gallery that used to exist there seeming unusually cheerful around Christmas time. They were nattering with each other about "the graft." He didn't get it until the city clerk came around with envelopes, containing $50 for each city hall reporter to thank them for a "good job" in the past year.

By the next year, he'd been promoted to the Legislature and at Christmas a guy came around from the speaker's office with envelopes containing $200! So, the graft was better with province....Don hastened to add that he didn't condone that sort of the thing and that, besides, the graft thing had faded away in press galleries across the country as ethics-trained j-school grads started to turn up...anyway, Don was great was us students, very candid, patient and willing to answer any kind of question. I'll miss him

Sean Prpick

I have occasionally been asked about my achievements as president of CIJ (the Centre for Investigative Journalism, the forerunner to CAJ). I have always told people that the most effective thing I did was recruit Don onto the board. I remember standing over a slightly reluctant Don, getting his signature on his first nomination papers, minutes before the deadline.

Once on the board, Don gave our fledgling group a credibility with mainstream journalists that we desperately needed. He also gave us hours and hours of his time and talent, not to mention timely infusions of cash. But his seal of approval at a very sensitive time in our development may well have meant the difference between surviving and withering away. Don brought wisdom, humour and perspective to the board, at a time when we took ourselves all too seriously. May this legacy live on!

Wendy Jackson Burton (President, CIJ, 1983-85)

I was fortunate to inherit someone else's very bright decision of years earlier - hiring Don - when I came to Southam News in 1995. Don was in semi-retirement by then, but semi-retirement for him was about as active as full duty for most columnists. He was still creating a national economics column and one on language, but mainly he was a bit of a roving tutor, encyclopedia and counsellor for the staff.

I had come to understand in the 1980s and 1990s in my years in Ottawa the difference between Don and most of his columnist counterparts.

First, Don read documents, not executive summaries or the spin releases from the departments. He had the tirelessness to find data in the haunches of a report and create lucid, relevant content. Over at his competitor, we often wondered how Don had found a story in something we'd dismissed. Usually it was somewhere in the three hundredth-plus page of a thick report. He had a knack for revisiting documents, too - weeks after everyone had moved on, Don would find another gem and revitalize debate.

Second, Don actually showed up at news events, committee hearings, scrums, and the Commons and Senate galleries to report - particularly to ask those insightful questions that made most of us pay as much attention to him as to the minister under interrogation, and to demonstrate his belief that a great columnist is first and foremost an explorer. Where many of his colleagues waited for issues to materialize so they could then editorialize, Don broke the news and provided the analysis in that first cycle. It made him unbeatable.

A classy thing about him was that he never boasted about his prowess. He helped his colleagues and his competitors. He viewed every good story as an advance of the cause of journalism. Nor did he lord over ministers of the day the unstated truth that he knew more than they did about their portfolios.

The last few years of his Southam News career brought about his column on words, and it was fitting that someone who valued precision in expression could share his ideas with many of the country's papers. We often turn to American or British sources for examination of our language, but we had a great teacher in our midst. In a way, the column was another of Don's gestures - the incessant help and billeting and financing were among others - to give back some of his wisdom to a craft that had given him so many opportunities. In that respect, it is a great lesson for all of us.

Kirk LaPointe

Kirk, what a great tribute to a great reporter. Thanks for sharing those observations. I had Don as a prof at Carleton 25 years ago and every one of your words rang true in that setting as well.

He was a great guy and indeed a gentle man. He gave his all to the work and it showed in the superior material he produced. The industry should mourn his passing - there are few of his calibre left.

Wayne Macdonald

On my first CAJ board meeting in Ottawa, I stayed, along with two other board members, at Don's house for the weekend to save costs. He routinely opened up his home to those of us who came from out of town to do CAJ business. I was blessed to have been put in his famous Mountie room - a second-floor bedroom decked out with tons of Mountie items including a life-sized officer standing at attention.

Don's contributions to journalism are legendary, including giving thousands of dollars of his own money to keep the CAJ breathing during dire financial times when it looked like the organization could fold. The fact that the CAJ continues to survive - and thrive - today is attributable in no small part to his gracious kindness and his passion for our craft. It's hard to imagine the CAJ will ever again have such a devoted supporter. It's a tremendous loss.

Rob Cribb

I, too, stayed with Don when I was on the CAJ board. He regularly put up - and put up with - CAJ board members. One night Brian Brennan played the piano into the raucous wee hours; the next morning Don roused us all in time for the meeting. "Eat your bananas," he said, handing them out as we went out the door. "They're full of potassium, and good for your heart." I read and admired Don's column over many years. What I'll most miss about him, though, was his rare kindnesses and generosity of spirit - his heart.

Deborah Jones

When I was Executive Director of the CAJ from 1994-1998, one of the first people to whom I was introduced was Don. Until then, as a laymen in terms of journalism and simply a news consumer to that point, I was familiar (and a fan) only of Don's work. I soon learned of the respect he had garnered in the industry and his reputation as the "grandfather" of Southam columnists.

However, what I was most struck by in getting to know him was his quiet wisdom and intelligence and the incredible history that he shared with with CAJ, practically from its creation. It is not an understatement, as many already know, that had it not been for Don's involvement and support both fiscal and otherwise, the CAJ would not exist today.

As a voracious reader and book enthusiast, I learned a great deal from Don and I appreciated his quiet and thoughtful approach to his involvement in the CAJ. When he finally left Ottawa and the Board of the CAJ to take up residence in Victoria in 1998, Don chose to look at it as a next Chapter in his life as opposed to a conclusion of a previous one. That was also part of his character, being more phlegmatic and pragmatic in his outlook.

For my part, I know I shall forever be grateful for having known him, the kindness and generosity he showed to me and so many of those around him, and his resolute support of the profession he so loved.

Canadian journalists have few left who were as personally committed to the advancement of the profession.

Rob Henderson

I met Don several times, all through the CAJ. I loved reading his column, which we picked up in syndication at the late Sunday Express here in St. John's. I was impressed that the person behind the sharp pen was so great to chat with. He lived up to his reputation(s) - his generosity of time but even more of spirit, his gentle demeanour, his polite way of directing things to a point, and his offbeat side (I'm tempted to say wacky, only because he had a pretty conservative appearance), which definitely thrived in his Mountie paraphernalia. Rob's point of Don's dedication to the CAJ is quite true. Apart from years of volunteer labour, he stepped up to the plate with his chequebook when the organization was running on fumes, and even they were getting thin. An amazing thing to do.

John Gushue

During my four years as a Southam News editor in the early '80s, many an evening Magoo and I were the only ones left in the office. He stuck around to research and putter, not to mention offer helpful advice as I handled and moved stories from correspondents elsewhere. Don was welcome company in "The Cursory," as the tiny editing office was called, not only because of his exhaustive news experience, but also because of the helpfulness and kindness he showed this junior editor.

In a business fraught with huge egos, Don was a breath of fresh air. Most copy editors would cringe at the prospect of a writer watching over your shoulder as you edited his work. Don made it an exercise in generosity, humour and humility. Good as we was, he was as quick with thanks for even small improvements as he was to gently correct you when you missed the mark.

His greatest lesson was sharing his passion for making the workings of the economy interesting and understandable to the average reader. Anyone can make sense of M1, he would say. And we took wicked pleasure in programming the hot keys on Alan Fotheringham's "Teleram Portabubble," a forerunner of modern laptops, to spew out stock Fotheringham expressions when certain key combinations were pressed.

Steve St-Laurent