Research Trippin'

This past week I had the opportunity to conduct interviews with Monte Hummel (President Emeritus at World Wildlife Fund Canada and co-founder of Pollution Probe), Merle Chant (wife of the late Dr. Donald Chant, former Provost of the University of Toronto and co-founder of Pollution Probe), and Stanley Burke (former anchor of the CBC television national news and host of "The Air of Death" television documentary). All provided me with considerable insight regarding the early days of environmentalism in Canada.

There is much I could relay from these interviews but, alas, a blog is hardly an appropriate venue to go into detail about this. Some thoughts will no doubt work their way into upcoming posts. Otherwise, hopefully some of you will take a gander at my forthcoming dissertation (a guy can dream, no?) and subsequent publications.

In the meantime, I leave you with the wonderful photograph that adorns this post. Given to me by Merle Chant, it features the key members of Pollution Probe in High Park circa 1970. (Dr. Chant is the gentleman standing at the base of the tree, while Monte Hummel is the mustachioed man sitting to the right of generalissimo Tony Barrett.)

I stand corrected

In an earlier post I made an erroneous statement. It went like this:

"Here are some facts. The first modern-day environmentalist organization to emerge in Canada was Pollution Probe...."

Turns out that Pollution Probe WASN'T Canada's first environmentalist organization. It was predated by Toronto's Group Action to Stop Pollution, better known as GASP, which held its initial meeting in December 1967. Led by city alderman Tony O'Donohue, GASP tried to raise public awareness about environmental issues. They reached the apex of their short career in 1969 when they co-sponsored a public hearing on the mysterious death of a number of ducks off of the Toronto Islands. Shortly thereafter, they seem to have disappeared. I'm not exactly sure why, but I intend to find out.

The Committee of a Thousand is another citizen-based environmental group that emerged in Ontario during the period in question. Formed in Niagara in 1968, the Committee made it their modus operandi to spot polluters and raise a ruckus. Again, I'm not quite sure whatever happened to this group, and would be very interested to find out.

So, what's the lesson in all this? As historians, we only know something is the "first" until we find something that predates it. So be careful what you say.

P.S. I acknowledge that the research that went into identifying these groups was (southern) Ontario-centric. If you happen to know about similar groups outside of this area, please feel free to let me know.