Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, retired after 28 years on the Supreme Court of Canada, seventeen of those as the 17th Chief Justice of Canada. McLachlin is photographed at her office at the Supreme Court of Canada, on Dec. 11, 2017.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
For the last How I Spent My Summer of the season, former Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin – whose new novel, Proof, lands this week – remembers how reporting on salads for the Edmonton Journal’s “women’s section” proved useful on Canada’s highest bench.
I grew up on a ranch, so I’d always worked during the summers at home, but my first real job with bosses who weren’t my parents was at 19, the summer after my second year of university. For $325 a month, which was pretty good, I was what they called a “junior reporter” at the Edmonton Journal.
I was always interested in writing and thought I’d be a journalist. I worked at the University of Edmonton’s student newspaper, The Gateway, as the fine arts editor, mostly co-ordinating reviews. When the Edmonton Journal came to The Gateway to say they wanted two or three people to come and work at the real newspaper for the summer, I applied, got it and was very excited to finally move beyond reviews. I thought I’d be reporting on world events, or at least city events, and I’d finally be a serious journalist.
Well, on the first day, I arrived at the newsroom with two other guys. They were promptly given jobs in the main newsroom while the bosses said to me, “You’ll be working in the women’s section.” In those days, newspapers had dedicated “women’s sections” with things like recipes, parenting, women’s clubs, rummage sales and church groups.
Most women then didn’t work outside the home, and those who did might have a part-time job or a temporary job, but most didn’t have a career. Even the women who worked there – three of them in their late 20s, all newly married – seemed to be on a stopover until they had children. All except Mrs. Bowen, that is, who presided over the women’s section. She was quite a formidable figure, very matriarchal and a bit strict, and a lovely writer. She was very much my senior, as one might expect, and I really admired her.
We had a glassed-off enclave that was completely separate and cut off from everything that was happening in the newsroom and the world. I felt so naive, and I was so disappointed. But I didn’t walk away, so I guess I learned my first lesson on that very first day: Don’t say no just because you didn’t get the exact job you wanted. Nobody gets the job they want right away. You still have an opportunity and you should take it.
I resolved to do my best, whatever my story assignment was. I covered the Salad Queen contest, which was a big deal in those days for whichever woman made the best salad. When I’d talk to the guys in the coffee room, they’d be doing really good stories about the goings-on in the city and at city hall, and I was doing … salads.
One time, Mrs. Bowen was away and I was sent to get some stories about women at the Edmonton Exhibition. I met a woman in a tent who was a tassel dancer, with tassels on strategic points on her costume, so I wrote a story about how she got into this line of work and what her life was like. She told me about the dangers of her job and showed me burns on her body, because she’d use fuel and fire in her act. I thought it was a good and interesting woman’s workplace story and it actually landed on the front of the women’s section.
I have a vivid recollection of the big editor-in-chief storming into our enclave saying, ”What are you people doing?!” It wasn’t a recipe or church story, and she wasn’t the kind of woman he thought his readers should know about, so he was very upset. It was such a different era then and I wasn’t sure it would change any time soon.
After the summer, I decided journalism wasn’t for me after all. That’s not to say the job was a waste, as it was so helpful in many ways. Mrs. Bowen taught me to organize my thoughts and write on a deadline – a skill that helped me immensely all throughout university and my law career.
While others struggled and procrastinated to write up their judgments, I’d just get going, follow the formula, get it in readable form and edit it later. Get it in and then let it go. Perfection is never attainable, whatever you’re doing, so you just have to do as well as you can within the time period. Finish the job you’re given, and if you can come out smarter or wiser or more skilled in some way than when you started, even better.
As told to Rosemary Counter