Michael J. Fox - Leo & Me 1978

Brent Carver 7 Leo & Me group photograph - 1978

As I look back on my life, something that in those early days of January, is one of my customs, I think that somehow I have always been there to record the passing of mankind through my personal life.

My Rosemary, our two daughters Alexandra and Hilary left Mexico City with the idea of a brighter future in Canada. For a while it seemed it was not going to happen. The only job I was able to find (even though I thought I was God’s gift to man as a photographer) was to wash cars on Tilden-Rent-a-Car on Alberni Street. I was soon promoted to counter clerk.

I don’t know exactly how this happened but sometime around 1977 the French CBC in Vancouver inaugurated their TV station. In those days while there was no wall between the French and English side of the CBC building on Hamilton Street there was a demarcation line of sorts. The folks on the French side needed what was the called the station ID slide. They were offered some by the English side. The offer was rejected.

When we had arrived to Vancouver we had quickly decided to live in Burnaby so that our daughters could go to French Immersion schools in Maillardville in nearby Coquitlam. And Burnaby was not that far from Vancouver. It was in one of those schools where I met a now legendary French Canadian called Jacques Bayou who told me to go to the French CBC and offer my services.

I was quickly dispatched to take photographic slides of Vancouver. By some strange and lucky-for-me coincidence the English side hired me to take still photographs of their then very popular variety shows and programs that were called drama like Leo & Me that featured Brent Carver and Michael J. Fox.

It was because of the CBC that I eventually became a magazine photographer in Vancouver and my career took off.

I remember one day around 1977 when I went home and told Rosemary, “Today at the CBC I found out that the province is pronounced New-fun-land. I feel a bit Canadian today.”

A few years later I became a Canadian Citizen and I have pride in being one. And most important I am proud of my CBC and what it does to unify our sprawling country.

The CBC must survive all the cost cutting and be what it was once a beacon for good TV programs and CBC Radio stations with more culture to enlighten us on how lucky we are to live in this country.