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This
country will miss Dan Iannuzzi
by Maria Minna
(originally published in
Tandem 2004-12-05)
During the more than 20 years that I have known him, Dan Iannuzzi
always struck me as one of the few people in this country who sees,
and dreams about, the full potential of Canada and its people.
And, first and foremost in that dream, in that vision, is the
importance of welcoming immigrants and ensuring that they are able
to participate fully in the building of a truly just Canadian
society.
Dan made Canada a better place, for all Canadians. He built a media
conglomerate that enabled us to see ourselves in the mirror of
Canadian society.
CFMT-TV, the multicultural television station known to many as
Channel 47, was a major vehicle for integration. It provided
cultural programmes, news reports and community information to
thousands of Canadians of immigrant background in their own
language.
Programmes, such as Tabu, were interactive allowing
for debate regarding issues that the community may not have been
ready for yet such as domestic violence, equal pay for work of equal
value, etc.
I can still remember, back in the mid-1980s, when one
of my sisters called to tell me how upset her neighbours' husbands
were about "that feminist stuff" I had uttered on Tabu with Angelo
Persichilli.
Without Dan Iannuzzi, there would have been no Tabu, no Channel 47
and no Corriere Canadese through which we could express our opinions
and help make Canada a better place in which to live.
Dan and I agreed that multiculturalism is not just a recognition
that Canada has many different cultures in addition to English and
French. But, rather, that multiculturalism is all-encompassing and
includes the English and French and Aboriginals. (Dan never forgot
the importance of the native peoples of Canada).
It is a circle and in that circle we are all equal
and we are all ethnic as we all have an ethnocultural background. We
are all part of the Canadian Mosaic. It is an inclusive vision
rather than an "us and them" one.
Dan once told me, when he was trying to illustrate
his thinking, that the Globe and Mail was the largest ethnic paper
in Canada.
I remember commiserating with Dan late one night,
about two years ago, after I had made a presentation to the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
In my presentation, I took exception to the fact that the CRTC had
defined the word ethnic to mean anyone whose background is neither
English nor French.
How, I asked, in a country that celebrates its diversity, that
prides itself on being a model of multiculturalism, can it be the
official policy of the CRTC that an ethnic is anyone who can't trace
their origins back to Britain or France?
And yet, that's the way it is in Canada. Despite the
fact that Dan was a third-generation Canadian of Italian origin, he
was usually on the outside looking in. That is probably one of the
reasons why he championed what he referred to as the "Third Force",
the significant portion of the Canadian population that was neither
English nor French.
If we could pull together - all of us "ethnics" - we
could exert a significant influence on how our country was run. I
supported that concept 100 percent.
We both lobbied hard for the new multilingual World
Television Network, a cross-Canada multicultural television station,
Dan was still working on at the time of his death.
The concept was to provide multicultural programming
but with English subtitles so that we could all learn about each
other. The CRTC did not understand the vision or the value of
bringing us all closer.
Dan believed, as I do, that we have to be talking across cultures,
be exposed to each other's cultures and values, because, at the end
of the day, our deepest values are not that different and we are
building a country together. Communication is crucial for us to go
from strength to strength.
When I pressed a senior cabinet minister to explain why Dan was
being denied a license, the cabinet minister said: "But, we've
already done something for the Italians."
He was referring to a license Johnny Lombardi got for
a radio station in Ottawa.
What, you might ask, had that got to do with the imaginative,
multilingual, programming Dan wanted to broadcast across Canada and
around the world?
Despite such
setbacks, Dan Iannuzzi remained, to the end, "Fiercely Canadian and
proudly Italian."
This country will be diminished without him.
Our
Country's Great Sorrow
By
Annamarie Castrilli Former MPP
(originally published in The Hill Times and
Tandem 2004-12-05)
It can't be! Dan Iannuzzi dead! The giant of
multiculturalism, a beacon of intense affection for the Italian
community in Canada, a communicator par excellence, a peerless
Canadian nationalist, a strong and resolute voice amidst mediocrity.
This, and more, can be said of Dan Iannuzzi.
To me, like to many others, he is, he was a
friend. As soon as I was elected to chair the National Congress of
Italian Canadians, Dan Iannuzzi was among the first to welcome me
with immediate warmth, despite our differences: I was a mint-new
lawyer, he a veritable colossus of our community. Dan, however, was
like this: a man who did not discriminate. One's ideas and
commitment to them were what counted for him.
This is the example he set for a whole generation
of activists. How many battles we fought together, beginning from
our very first when we clashed with the Toronto Sun. A so-called
journalist working for them wrote some intentionally offensive
remarks targeting our community. Dan was immediately available with
every resource he could muster, and eventually that 'journalist'
disappeared from the pages of the Toronto Sun.
And then, his constant activities in favour of
multiculturalism. We owe a lot to Dan in this field. Even before
Pierre Trudeau launched multiculturalism as an official policy, Dan
was at the helm of Corriere Canadese, giving voice not just to
Italian culture, but to Italian culture as an important element of
Canada. Thus, the newspaper's motto is "fiercely Canadian, proudly
Italian". Afterwards, with his contacts with the Conservative Party,
he advised Brian Mulroney's cabinet to pass Bill C-93, which became
the current law on multiculturalism. That law, unanimously passed in
1988, turned Canada into the world's first nation to proclaim, in a
national law, multiculturalism as a fundamental value of its
society.
More recently, I recall our activities for the
creation of an Italian House at the University of Toronto, ensuring
that Italian language and culture keep their importance in Canada's
most important university establishment.
Possibly, one of the most significant battles was
that of getting the Canadian Government to admit to the mistreatment
of citizens of Italian origin during World War II.
Hard-working people, whose only 'guilt' consisted
in bearing an Italian last name, were prosecuted, arrested,
interned, humiliated in their own country. Our community was the
target of a cruel campaign intentionally launched by the Canadian
Government. Families were divided, businesses and industries
expropriated without compensation, properties were sold without
benefit to the owners, many futures were destroyed.
The Italian community in Canada, which had been
around since before Confederation, lost its infrastructure, so much
so that it was rebuilt almost from scratch by new immigrants who
came after the war.
Dan Iannuzzi, son of an internee, was at the
forefront of that battle, and he still was when Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney admitted that an injustice had been made against
Italian-Canadian people, and offered official apologies to our
community.
For me and many others that was a victory after
much effort, but for Dan it was even more than that, due to his
personal involvement in restoring the repute of a community and of
his own father.
Always generous, always ready to help with his person, his time and
his immense talent. This was Dan Iannuzzi. He never asked for
thanks, because all he did for the community came out of his heart.
Recognition, however, did not lack. In fact,
Canada presented him with its highest honours: the Order of Canada,
the Order of Ontario, the City of Toronto Achievement Award, the
Ontario Bicentennial Medal, among many others.
And that was only fair, because Dan Iannuzzi
embodied the best of the essence of Canada. Born in Quebec in an
Italian family that immigrated in the 1800s, trilingual, founder of
several media, he firmly believed in the values of our community,
culture, family; and shaped a new vision of Canada with almost
ferocious determination. That is a Canada that resembles him:
generous, tolerant, hard-working, multicultural, with a bright smile
towards the future.
We owe much to Dan Iannuzzi. He did not only open,
but beat down numerous gates for those who would come after him. He
changed our society forever.
To me, like to many other people, Dan's death is a
personal loss. He was a friend in every sense of this word. But for
Canada, the loss is huge. We've lost one of our modern heroes, and
with him a large part of our national conscience.
Heartfelt condolences to Elena Caprile and to the
rest of the Iannuzzi family.
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