OTTAWA—Award winning journalist and best selling author of ‘Extraordinary Canadians: Lester B. Pearson,’ Andrew Cohen, one of the presenters in the Historic Speaker Series being hosted by the Old Mill Heritage Museum, is looking forward to speaking about Mr. Pearson, and visiting Manitoulin next week.
“When Rick Nelson (curator of the Old Mill Heritage Museum) told me about the museum’s plans for the summer and that they would have the Lester B. Pearson exhibit display from the Laurier House and asked if I would come and speak about Mr. Pearson, I was absolutely thrilled,” Mr. Cohen told the Recorder on Monday. “The (exhibit) display now has a home,” he said, stating he is very anxious to see the museum.
“I am thrilled to come to the Island and talk about Mr. Pearson’s life, and that people have the opportunity to see his in the museum,” said Mr. Cohen.
“We were blessed to have Mr. Pearson,” stated Mr. Cohen. “Mr. Pearson was an extraordinary man, who came from humble roots-his family was not wealthy,” he said, noting that Mr. Pearson’s father was a preacher.
“It is interesting to note that this year Canada is celebrating its 150th anniversary, it is the 120th anniversary of his birth and the 60th anniversary of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Mr. Cohen. “Mr. Pearson was humble, raised one of three brothers, and in his youth was industrious. He had great ambition even at an early age. And if not for politics and his other interests, he could have been a professional athlete.”
“He joined the military as soon as he could, in 1915,” said Mr. Cohen. “After going to Oxford University and teaching elsewhere he came back to the University of Toronto and joined the new Department of External Affairs.”
“Mr. Pearson was ambitious, articulate, humble, soft spoken and determined,” continued Mr. Cohen. “He was also self-deprecating. We were blessed to have him, and he was the best known Canadian of the 1940s and 1950s.” Mr. Pearson was the 14th prime minister of Canada, and as Mr. Cohen pointed out he was instrumental in developing things like health care being provided Canada—wide, pensions, the evolving of the new Canada flag and much more.
“If Mr. Pearson had never been one of Canada’s prime ministers he still would have been hugely successful in life. He was successful in many areas of his life,” said Mr. Cohen.
“There is a very interesting history on the Lester B. Pearson Laurier House exhibit,” said Mr. Pearson. “I open my book on him with a scene in his office after he had left Laurier House. The exhibit stood for roughly 40 years before it was removed and put into storage (under the Conservative government),” said Mr. Cohen. In a story he wrote on September 6, 2016 in the Ottawa Citizen he wrote in part, “In 1974, a surprising collection was unveiled on the third floor of Laurier House, the storied historical home of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and William Lyon Mackenzie King in Ottawa.”
“It was a small shrine to Lester Bowles Pearson, a replica of the study in his home in Rockcliffe. With a humanity museums often miss, it captured Canada’s most celebrate diplomat and one of its great prime ministers. A little gem,” wrote Mr. Cohen. “Here a visitor could see an unpretentious man and understand his life, intimately, as a student, soldier, professor, diplomat, parliamentarian, foreign minister and prime minister.”
“No longer,” however, wrote Mr. Cohen. “In 2014, The Pearson Collection, as it is called, was packed up and returned to Library and Achieves Canada, its owner. There was no announcement, the Pearson family was not told.”
“The book on Mr. Pearson is not long, but part of a series. My hope in writing it was to remind people of who Mr. Pearson was and what he meant to our country,” continued Mr. Cohen.
“I have been to Manitoulin Island twice, although it has been probably 30 years since the last visit,” Mr. Cohen told the Recorder. “I enjoyed the Island very much.”
Mr. Cohen, a native of Montreal is a journalist, author and professor who studied at The Choate School, McGill University, Carleton University and the University of Cambridge. He was a finalist for the finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for his book How We Lost Our Place in the World, which the Writers Trust and Samar Canada recently named one of the top 12 Canadian political books of the last 25 years. Mr. Cohen has won two National Newspaper Awards, three national Magazine Awards, the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal (2002) and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal (2012). He writes a nationally-syndicated column for the Ottawa Citizen; contributes essays, articles, and reviews to books, newspapers, and periodicals and appears as a regular commentator CTV and CPAC. Since 2001, he has been a professor of journalism and international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he lives with his wife and their two children.
Mr. Cohen will speak about the life and legacy of Mr. Pearson on Wednesday, July 19 at the Main Street Café in Kagawong.
