Gzowski, Peter

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1984
PETER GZOWSKI
to be Doctor of Letters

Good afternoon, I’m David Galloway, and, if you'll stick around for a while, you will hear a very interesting guest on our programme.

Some of you will remember, perhaps, those old-time Canadian broadcasters such as Lorne Green and Earl Cameron who had voices which implicitly told you that they were God announcing the end of the world. But, in the words of Saint Luke, "the Lord turned and looked on Peter," and for over fifteen years, Peter Gzowski has entertained and enlivened us with a lighter voice, which conveys not so much the twilight of the Gods, but, in the words of the poet Shelley, "the great morning of the world."

Peter Gzowski's ancestors have given distinguished service to Canada and it would take a kind of Masterpiece Theatre series to do justice to his great, great grandfather, Casimir Stanislaus Gzowski, who was born in pre-Revolutionary St. Petersburg in 1813, came to Canada in 1841, helped to build a Grand Trunk Railway in 1857, an international bridge between Buffalo and Fort Erie in 1970-73, and was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1890.

Peter Gzowski is emulating his distinguished ancestor in a different way. His career in the media began when, at the age of nineteen, he worked on a newspaper in Timmin's Ontario. Editor of the Varsity at the University of Toronto, he worked on several small-town newspapers, "cocky beyond his years," as he himself put it. Managing editor of Macleans, editor of Star Weekly, writer for film, radio and television, he became host of CBC's "This Country in the Morning" in 1971 and won an ACTRA award. He is author of five books -- including one on Wayne Gretzky and the Edmonton Oilers -- and I note that his promise to shave off his beard if the Oilers won the Stanley Cup has been fulfilled. His books reflect the lightness, precision and accuracy with which he conducts his radio programme, and he is currently known to millions as host of Morningside for which he received a second ACTRA award.

The nervousness of the great performer before he goes on stage is well-known, and Peter Gzowski is no exception. Much solid work and painstaking preparation lie behind the apparent nonchalance of his effortless performances. In the studio by 5 a.m., apprehensively smoking the first of his three packs a day, he often -- so I am told by someone who works with him -- loses his "greens" -- the name for those little green slips of paper on which information about his guests is written. In fact, before the famous Canadian high-jumper, Debbie Brill, appeared on his show, he lost the Brill "green", and, with one of those spontaneous effusions of wit for which he is noted, he said, "A little Deb will do you."

He is not noted, however, for his sartorial splendour and that is, perhaps, one of the reasons why his forays into television have been limited. Who would want to have one's fingers painted to cover the nicotine every time one appeared before the cameras? He likes, as the euphemism goes, to be "comfortable," and visible evidence of that comfort is there for all the studio to see in his ink-stained apparel and the remnants of the fried egg sandwiches to which he is addicted.

As the poet, Robert Herrick, wrote, "A sweet disorder in the dress/Kindles the clothes to wantonness." Today, sitting on this august platform, Peter Gzowski must be feeling distinctly uncomfortable, and certainly not wanton.

Mr. Gzowski is a Canadian nationalist in the best sense. He has travelled the length of Canada many times, has taken a constant delight in what he has seen, and has expressed that delight in a language which is ever tasteful and often new. Today he has travelled to the University of New Brunswick which he has called "one of the most exciting places in higher Education." It is, indeed, exciting for us to have him with us.

Insignissime Praeses, amplissima Cancellaria, tota Universitas, praesento vobis Petrum Gzowski ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradem Doctoris in Litteris in hac Universitate.

From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 2