Remembering a legendary journalist

Stevie Cameron, an investigative reporting legend in this country, had her funeral service in her beloved St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church earlier this month in Toronto on Sept. 8.

She was 80 and author of blockbuster books looking at the seedier side of Canadian politics, such as On The Take and The Last Amigo.

Hers was a rich, full and very admirable life. In the end, she suffered from Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

Cameron was a reporter whose career carries many lessons about the importance of dogged determination to get to the truth; a quality we should celebrate in an age of disinformation, misinformation and political spin. 

Back in the eighties when she plied her trade in Ottawa, many political reporters and pundits there didn't want to concern themselves with digging into the dirty side of politics -- graft, corruption, patronage. They would rather write about more elevated topics making headlines at that time. Stevie saw herself as a crime reporter, not a political reporter.

One reason Stevie got her dander up over political crime in particular was, I believe, directly related to her Christian faith. She was a staunch Presbyterian, and I think that gave her a moral framework for how people, especially elected officials, should conduct themselves.

And she was capable of righteous anger if they did not do so.

Brian Mulroney found that out the hard way.

Canada's 18th prime minister, who held the office from 1984 to 1993, and Cameron's careers overlapped. While many were impressed by Mulroney's Irish-like charm, Cameron thought he was a creep and parvenu.

Mulroney did some bold things while in office -- free trade, opposing apartheid, the GST -- but remember, his party had been largely out of power for 16 years, so there was some catching up to do on the graft and patronage front.

In other words, he was running a government whose underbelly was tailor-made for Stevie's talents.

This culminated in 1994's subtly titled book, On The Take: Crime, Corruption and Greed in the Mulroney Years.

That book touched a nerve in Canada and became a massive bestseller.

Mulroney and his allies attacked the book. I remember his Brian-ness saying there were too many mistakes to count. But Mulroney never sued Cameron over the book. Actually, I can't remember her being sued for any of her investigative work.

She did get in trouble when researching The Last Amigo: Karlheinz Schreiber and the Anatomy of a Scandal. She traded information with RCMP officers about the case involving German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber and rumoured millions in bribes paid out by Airbus Industrie to get Air Canada, then a Canadian Crown corporation, to buy its jets. 

The police started to lean more and more on Cameron. A senior officer saw what was going on and told them to register Cameron as a confidential informant.

Cameron said the RCMP interviewed many other journalists, and she only gave them publicly available information. “... I was blissfully ignorant. I can’t tell you how many times I wished I hadn’t talked to them,” Cameron told The Globe and Mail.

Being an investigative reporter is not the best profession for work-life balance.  Yet somehow, Stevie raised two girls (Tassie and Amy) with husband David and helped found an "Out of the Cold" program at her church to help the homeless with a hot supper and a warm place to sleep for the night.

For that and her other humanitarian work, plus her contributions to Canadian society through her journalism, Stevie was awarded the Order of Canada in 2012 and invested in 2013.

Journalist Stevie Cameron had a rich, full and very admirable life. In the end, she suffered from Parkinson’s disease and dementia. Photo by Angela Fama/Penguin Random House

Had I been able to attend the funeral service (I live in Edmonton), I would probably have told this story:

We first met in Regina in the early 1990s. Our Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) chapter had invited her to give us a pep talk, which was done over brunch. I had to give her a ride to CBC Regina. 

She noted a peculiar odour in the cab of my truck. 

What had happened was I had gone ice fishing and taken some frozen smelt for bait. However, I forgot them in the truck when I returned home. The weather warmed up, the smelts melted and then did what unrefrigerated smelts do -- they rotted and stank up the joint.

Stevie rolled with this faux pas (she had a slight grin on her face), and I was left thinking this wasn't one of those snooty Torontonians you hear so much about.

She helped me get a job at The Globe and Mail in 2000, gave me some good leads on apartments and a doctor. We also had some great lunches as I explored eateries in my new city.

I’m sorry there will be no more books. No more lunches. 

Bill Doskoch is a retired journalist living in Edmonton with a strong interest in climate issues.