George Garrett: Intrepid Reporter

George Garrett is one of the most remarkable reporters of news that I have ever known. George has always had the ability to smell a good story and to report on it honestly and accurately. George is well respected for his work and also for his knowledge of the subjects or activities that he reported on. — Jim Pattison

Some reporters are excellent to deal with and over the years may form professional and personal relationships with officers. I know a well-respected reporter by the name of George Garrett who worked in the Vancouver area for many years. He was so well liked and respected by police officers that he is still invited to many police functions in spite of the fact he is retired. George Garrett always did his job and reported the good with the bad. If a police officer or department made a mistake, he reported it fairly and accurately without personal bias. I think that is what garnered him the respect. He was a professional and reported all of the facts and all of the story. — Constable Wayne Ryan , author of Souls Behind the Badge

During my tenure with Vancouver’s Major Crime Squad, the floor was strictly off-limits to civilian personnel. The only exception to the rule was a crime reporter named George Garrett who was given full access to the Homicide Unit. (Personally … I think he had his own key.) Garrett reported with insight, colour and accuracy and could be trusted with information that was ‘off the record.’ He acted as an invaluable liaison between the police and the media. — Wayne Cope , author of Vancouver Blue

A must-read for anyone interested in BC history. [George is] one of the most significant figures in the history of BC journalism. —Harold Munro , Vancouver Sun editor

George Garrett

George Garrett

Intrepid Reporter

George Garrett

Copyright © 2019 George Garrett

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Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd.

P.O. Box 219, Madeira Park, BC, V0N 2H0

www.harbourpublishing.com

All photos are from the author’s collection except where otherwise noted

Edited by Arlene Prunkl

Cover design by Anna Comfort O’Keeffe

Text design by Shed Simas / Onça Design

Printed and bound in Canada

Printed on 30% recycled paper

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Harbour Publishing Co. Ltd. acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.

We also gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Government of Canada and from the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Garrett, George, 1934-, author

  George Garrett : intrepid reporter / George Garrett.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-55017-866-1 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-55017-867-8 (HTML)

  1. Garrett, George, 1934–. 2. Radio journalists—British Columbia—Biography. 3. Reporters and reporting—British Columbia—Biography. 4. CKNW (Radio station : New Westminster, B.C.)—Employees—Biography. 5. Investigative reporting. 6. Autobiographies. I. Title.

PN4913.G364A3 2019    070.4’3092    C2018-905970-2

C2018-905971-0

For Warren Barker, long-time CKNW News Director, my boss, mentor and friend.

At age eighty-three I returned to what had been my grandmother’s farm, where I spent my summers as a kid. All that’s left is Grandma’s old cook stove, rusting on the range. Photo by Darwin Glass

Gary Hanney (left) and I were covering a serious story, one of many logging protests by environmentalists, this one on King Island, but it’s obvious from our smiles we loved our work. Photo courtesy the Hanney collection

Table of Contents

Foreword 11

Introduction 15

Chapter 1 – Curiosity 19

Chapter 2 – The Big City 28

Chapter 3 – The Hustler 36

Chapter 4 – A Radio Career 49

Chapter 5 – My Career Moves On 53

Chapter 6 – Family Life 58

Chapter 7 – Radio During the Wartime Years and Beyond 65

Chapter 8 – My News Career and the Cop Shop 80

Chapter 9 – From Scandal to Discipline 94

Chapter 10 – Hail to Nearly All the Chiefs! 102

Chapter 11 – The Mounties, Then and Now 111

Chapter 12 – From the Skids to the Supreme Court 119

Chapter 13 – Sex in the Seamy City 137

Chapter 14 – The Reporter Goes Undercover 145

Chapter 15 – More Colourful Stories and Characters 161

Chapter 16 – Contacts 173

Chapter 17 – Take Me to Jail 183

Chapter 18 – The Tough Streets of LA189

Chapter 19 – The Monster, Clifford Olson 198

Chapter 20 – The Tragic Toll 203

Chapter 21 – Standoff at Gustafsen Lake 217

Chapter 22 – The Squamish Five and Terrorism in Canada 229

Chapter 23 – Kidnappings and Murder 234

Chapter 24 – The Politicians 238

Chapter 25 – The Passing of Eras 257

Chapter 26 – A Rewarding Life 264

Epilogue 283

Acknowledgements 285

As a young reporter I covered everything, including the armed robbery of two ladies at the now-defunct Pines Café on the Fraser Highway in Surrey in the 1950s. Note my dark hair and the cheap little microphone that was connected to my wind-up tape recorder (not shown). Photo courtesy Top Dog! A History of CKNW. Canada Wide Magazines Ltd.

Foreword

I remember George Garrett’s last day in the newsroom. I was scheduled for the evening shift and was in my car on the way to work when Trevor Pancoust opened the 2 p.m. newscast with Well, what would George Garrett’s last day at CKNW be without a scoop.

George actually broke the story three hours previous on the 11 a.m. newscast with Terry Schintz—when he shocked the public (and many members of his newsroom) by revealing Gordon Wilson was leaving the political party he founded to cross the floor, and become the NDP minister responsible for the troubled BC Ferries, then mired in the so-called fast ferries fiasco.

The Trevor Pancoust quote is based only on my memory, but you can find a piece of amazing video on YouTube documenting George’s last day, and specifically the minutes leading up to his 11 a.m. scoop.

The video shows George at his best. Relentlessly—but politely—working a source to confirm information he received as a tip. People loved giving George a tip. Why? Because they could trust him to be discreet and dogged in his pursuit of a story. And because they liked him. George finally got the confirmation he required by telling his contact he was going to broadcast the details in less than ten minutes, and then saying as a friend, I wouldn’t be making a fool of myself, would I? George had earned the right to ask that question because of forty-three years of breaking stories without burning contacts, and he got his answer, and his last big scoop.

In the video you also see brief glimpses of George’s beloved Casio electronic day-timer. This was George’s bible. A treasure of home numbers, addresses and private cell phones of the province’s most influential people. This was long before social media made finding people much easier for journalists. These numbers were earned. And they weren’t shared with just anyone.

I’ll never forget getting a tip about Indigenous grandparents devastated by the death of their young granddaughter. They were traumatized upon learning the little girl’s eyes had been removed during an autopsy—against their wishes and cultural practice. The chief coroner at the time (now Senator Larry Campbell) hadn’t returned messages I’d left with his office staff, and I was stumped. But I couldn’t let go of the story after speaking to the girl’s grandfather. They took the best part of her, I remember him telling me, his voice trembling. I was so moved by his words, and, it turns out, so was George, who gave me Campbell’s home number. Tell him George Garrett gave you the number, and I said you can be trusted. Campbell gave me the interview, I channelled George and asked tough questions politely, and I was able to tell an important story. All thanks to George.

Though I’ve not worked with George for twenty years, I think of his advice often. Share your tape was one of George’s oft-repeated mantras. Specifically it meant if a competitor is late to a news conference—an event where multiple reporters were all gathering the same quotes—you should share your tape, because one day it will be you who is late. But I have always taken it to mean when there is no reason not to share information with colleagues or competitors—no reason for exclusivity or secrecy—one should always share information as we as journalists all share the same goal: to represent the public, and to educate the public. George understood this, and never let his competitiveness harm relationships with journalists, or anyone else.

George may have been the intrepid reporter to Rafe Mair and many members of the CKNW audience, but I’ve worked with many intrepid reporters over the years. I haven’t, however, worked with anyone else like George. Someone feared by ne’er do wells, and liked and respected in equal measure by colleagues, competitors, newsmakers and his audience.

— Steve Lus

Executive Producer, News, CBC British Columbia

I was invited to board one of two Vancouver Police boats to learn more about their function. Now the story can be told. Our boat ran out of gas just as we sailed under the Lions Gate Bridge, headed to False Creek. That little incident did not make the news. (I might have been thrown overboard!) Alex Waterhouse-Hayward photo

Introduction

I’ve always been insatiably curious. As a kid growing up in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, which was known as the Friendly City, I kept tabs on everything. I knew the voices of all the announcers on local radio station CHAB. I listened to the news and knew that local boys had gone off to war. For some reason unknown to me then, I kept track of all the taxis in town, as well as the delivery trucks.

I rode my bike everywhere, including to high school, except in the winter. We lived on the edge of town in the last house before the open prairie with a faraway view of a government grain elevator a mile to the west and the revolving beacon of light from a wartime airport to the north, which shone in my bedroom window at night. I loved my time in high school at Moose Jaw Tech, but I was very young compared to the other kids. I had started Grade 1 at age five because of my November birthday and then I did well, skipping Grade 7 because of school overcrowding and my good marks. I finished school at age sixteen, but my marks faltered toward the end because of my sudden interest in girls. I failed some of my final exams and cannot really claim to have passed Grade 11, the final year of a three-year commercial course. Thus I did not graduate, although I did not consider myself to be a high school dropout.

My unquenchable curiosity and my passion for radio led me down a path of excitement that has never ended. It was a dream job to become a reporter through more than four decades of such a remarkable period in the history of British Columbia—from the mid-1950s through the 1990s. I have a box full of tapes from covering many stories, but I’ve never bothered to listen to them. This memoir is entirely from memory. I did not keep notes, but I’ve easily been able to recall incidents and the people involved.

I had been retired for more than a decade when it crossed my mind that my four grandchildren, then in their teens, might one day like to read about what their Papa had done in his life. As I began writing, I realized that indeed I had led an extraordinarily interesting life in what many considered to be the golden years of radio during an exciting time in BC’s colourful history. For forty-three years, from 1956 to 1999, I worked in Vancouver as CKNW radio’s senior news reporter. Over the years, I built up a list of contacts that was the envy of many of my colleagues.

In George Garrett: Intrepid Reporter, I write about some of the big stories that happened during my career at CKNW: Premier Bill Vander Zalm investigated by the RCMP, Premier Bill Bennett’s involvement in an insider trading scheme and an on-the-scene recording of a prominent judge telling police to go to hell. I reveal how I got the story on the questionable practices of a lawyer by posing as an accident victim, how I became a tow-truck driver to expose a forgery scheme, and how I posed as a security official to gain access to where securities are kept at the Vancouver Post Office. I once impersonated the friend of a hostage in a prison riot by offering her a gift of flowers when she was taken to the hospital. Another time, I took my dear wife, Joan, with me to get a story at a nudist colony. I had no choice but to strip. Joan refused.

Life as a reporter was exciting for me, but it was often stressful for Joan. I covered all types of crime, kidnappings, murders, plane crashes, earthquakes and riots—notably the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992 when I was assaulted.

These pages take you behind the scenes in the life of a news reporter, from a police party in a morgue, to the violent streets of Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside, to infiltrating a high-level meeting at Government House in Victoria. It’s all here, including some personal tragedies: a broken jaw, bruised face and missing a tooth, a serious accident on the Tsawwassen ferry dock, the loss of my son, Ken, in a canoeing accident, and my beloved wife Joan’s devastating diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Through it all, almost without exception, I was fortunate enough to be liked and respected among my peers. I reciprocated those feelings with gusto. I developed positive relationships with dozens of my colleagues, and many of those went on to become lifelong friends. Some of them provided memorable comments along the way.

The late Rafe Mair, one of Vancouver’s venerable radio hosts, wrote, George Garrett is the standard by which good reporting is judged. Of the news I broke daily on the Clifford Olson murders of children, Mair said, Garrett seemed to know details almost as soon as the police did. It was Rafe who gave me the title of the Intrepid Reporter. The dictionary defines intrepid as one who is fearless, dauntless and courageous—very brave. I don’t claim to have any of those qualities. Relentless, persistent and determined might be a more accurate description. In fact, I was recently given an Award of Excellence by the Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society. The inscription read, Presented to Founding Member and Intrepid Fund Raiser George Garrett.

I take my fundraising responsibilities seriously. I was not getting email responses from one of our donors when one day I happened to see their vehicle while driving in the pouring rain in Langley. I followed the car until two men emerged. I was immediately at their car door, saying, Remember me? I’m the guy seeking your support for the Volunteer Cancer Drivers. Rather than being taken aback, their response was positive. Yes, George. We are definitely supporting you again this year. My perseverance paid off once again.

In this memoir, it’s my hope to take readers on the often incredible journey that has been my life, from my days as a farm boy in Saskatchewan to the top echelons of journalism in British Columbia. I’m inviting readers to follow the path of my reporting career and come behind the scenes as I reveal the parts of my stories and escapades that my listeners never heard when I was on the air.

I hope you have as much fun reading about my life as I have had living it. Enjoy the journey!

Chapter 1

Curiosity

How does one go from being a poor kid on a Saskatchewan farm to a career in radio news in a metropolis like Vancouver—a career that spanned nearly half a century?

In a word—the answer is curiosity!

Since my early childhood, I have always wanted to know everything about virtually everything, often to the annoyance of others. I recall visiting my aunt, Lucille, when I was nine years old in the summer of 1944. She was a housekeeper for a cranky old farmer named Jack Douglas. One day, as he repaired farm equipment in the yard just outside the house, I peppered him with question after question about his work. Exasperated, he said, Lucille, come get this damn kid out of here. He asks too many questions.

Somewhat ironically, I owe my career in radio to that old farmer. It was wartime and he wanted to know daily what was happening to the Canadian boys overseas. Every day at the noon hour he would tune in to our local station—CHAB, Moose Jaw—to hear the news. He was hard of hearing and had to cup his ear with one hand while listening to the news. In the other hand was his trusty pipe. Newscasts included the names of local boys who had either been killed or were missing in action, plus the names of those wounded. It was a dreadful daily toll.

Even at that tender age, the thought of being in that radio never left me. I wanted to be an announcer, and I took my first audition at age fifteen at CHAB in Moose Jaw. Of course I was told, You’re too young, kid. Try again when you’re older. Throughout my life, I have always found a way to overcome obstacles to get what I want. I began hanging around CHAB, standing at the studio window and looking beyond that into the control room where I longed to be. I did little favours for announcers such as getting them coffee or carrying their broadcast equipment to remotes. At age seventeen, I was told by a friendly guy at CHAB, announcer Bruce McInnes, that he knew the chief announcer at CJNB, North Battleford, in northwestern Saskatchewan, four hundred kilometres from Moose Jaw, and there might be a job there. With no appointment and no money for bus fare, I hitchhiked to North Battleford. The chief announcer I had been told of, Jack McClung, said he had no authority to hire anyone, and he sent me to program director Tommy Nelson. I was given an audition, and to my great surprise and delight, I was hired. Nelson, a kindly man who wore his hair in a brush-cut style, told me later that he hadn’t hired me because of my voice but rather for my initiative in hitchhiking. He knew I really wanted the job. It was the first of many breaks for me in a long and satisfying career.

To say the least, I came from humble beginnings. I was born on November 16, 1934, in the little town of Mortlach, Saskatchewan, delivered by a midwife. My mother, Ruth, was a beautiful young schoolteacher when she met my dad, Peter Garrett, known throughout his life as Pete and Irish to some of his workmates. I was the third of six children. My brother Donnie died just short of his second birthday, apparently from the effects of sunstroke. Donnie’s death hit my dad pretty hard, and it may explain why he was gentle with me. Some would say I was spoiled, or Dad’s pet.

But there was one exception to Dad’s gentleness. At about age four or five, I banged at the kitchen door, trying to get into the house with a box that was too big for me to handle. I kept banging and yelling, Open the door—let me in. My dad lost his temper and helped me through the door—with the toe of his boot! It was completely out of character for him. All his life he was a softie who would do anything for his family.

Our family life was not easy. My mother had a nervous breakdown after the birth of her second child, my older brother, Bob. The details are not clear, but I believe she spent some time in a psychiatric institution in Brandon, Manitoba. On one occasion I remember Mom threatening to commit suicide by swallowing gopher poison. Dad intervened to stop her, and I think it was about that time Mom went home to her parents in Manitoba, taking my sister, Muriel, and my brother, Bob, with her.

Dad would not let her take me. Thus we had a hired woman for a while, Helen Mackie, who later married and raised a family. Occasionally I visited her in the small town of Chaplin, Saskatchewan, and we would share a few laughs. After Mom returned home, three more children were born—Donnie, Elinor and Jim.

Life in the dirty thirties was difficult for everyone. Dad worked on the farm we lived on, south of Valjean, but he did not own it. Like so many families during the Depression, we were on relief, the term used at the time for welfare. I can remember someone coming to the farm with groceries. Even the necessities of life were hard to come by. The farmhouse was heated by a coal and wood stove but we were not always able to buy coal. As many farmers did, we burned cow chips—dried cattle manure. Not a nice odour, but it kept the stove burning on cold winter nights. The farm had no electricity. We used coal-oil lamps for years until that magic night when Dad brought home a Coleman mantle lantern. He would light the gauze mantles and pump the little gas tank, and it gave a brilliant light. Muriel, Bob and I were so excited we ran outside to see what the light would look like reflected in the snow. We had no shades or curtains on the windows so we got the full effect. It was a sight that has stuck in my mind after some seventy years!

While we struggled like virtually all Prairie families in the thirties, life on the farm was a lot of fun. I remember my first day at a small country school named Knowleside. It was a one-room school with one teacher covering all grades. Before I was old enough to attend, my older brother and sister would let me walk as far as the woodpecker telephone pole partway along the two kilometres to school. On those outings, I would run back home while they carried on to school. Sometimes I would see Dad with a team of horses pulling a plough or some other piece of equipment in the field, and I would jump on and go for a ride. Mom recalled me always helping Dad put the harness on the horses in the barnyard, running under the horses to connect the belly band. Why I didn’t get kicked in the head I’ll never know. I knew how to hitch up the four horses in the team and knew exactly where each horse should be. I never missed the chance to go with Dad, whether it was to take a wagonload of grain to the elevator at Valjean, about thirteen kilometres from the farm, or later when we moved to nearby Chaplin to go to the farm with a borrowed team of horses and a hayrack to get a load of hay for our milk cow. Those were great times for a kid growing up on a farm.

A year or so before we left the farm, Dad had some problems with his cows. Sometimes they would get out of the pasture and into the crops of our neighbour to the east, Bill Douglas. Bill was a bachelor then and the woman of the house was his old mother, who chewed tobacco. One day when Dad went to retrieve his cows he drove into the Douglas farmyard with a team of horses and a hayrack. Bill Douglas was so incensed about the cows that he and Dad got into a fistfight. Old Mrs. Douglas was so angry she grabbed a piece of firewood and threw it at Dad on the hayrack, saying, Here, take this home, you poverty-stricken son of a bitch. Dad laughed about it years later, recalling the story.

Our water, from a deep well on the farm where we lived, was ice cold, a shock to the system. It was something I never got used to, especially so since it was on my bare bottom. My brother Bob manned the pump and our housekeeper held me under the stream of cold water while I screamed blue murder. The last desperate act of our housekeeper, Helen Mackie, was to teach a precocious five-year-old once and for all that you don’t mess your pants, and I guess it worked. The problem was solved, but not without a few choice words from a mouthy kid. As Helen told me fifty years later, she’d tried to bribe me with a quarter. She recalled me saying, I don’t want your goddamn quarter.