Source : Ottawa Citizen

Executive pushed for Canadian content, Alan Hustak reports.

MONTREAL - Denis Harvey, a street-smart, adventurous news hound and CBC broadcast executive, changed the way Canadians viewed themselves and the world.

It was under Mr. Harvey's direction that the CBC moved toward establishing a 95 per cent Canadian content rule, promoting Canadian drama, establishing an all news channel and revitalizing the network's flagship broadcast, The National.

Mr. Harvey died Sunday of a heart attack in Toronto. He was 74.

"His passion, integrity and straight-talking no-nonsense style are the stuff of legend," said CBC president Robert Rabinovitch. "His tremendous dedication to a vision of Canadian public broadcasting that reflects our country to its citizens and connects Canadians from coast to coast remains his lasting legacy."

Denis Martin Harvey was born on Aug. 15, 1929, in Hamilton, where his father was a customs inspector. Mr. Harvey had little formal education; he dropped out of high school when he was 17 to go to work at the Hamilton Spectator as a copy boy. He rose through the ranks working the various beats, eventually becoming city editor and executive editor.

In 1965, when the Toronto Star launched its Saturday magazine supplement, The Canadian, Mr. Harvey was hired as editor.

He joined the Montreal Gazette in 1969. Although he spoke no French, he provided dynamic leadership as executive editor during the 1970 FLQ October crisis by defying government attempts at press censorship. He published the full text of the FLQ manifesto, and broke the news that police had a photograph of kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross sitting on what appeared to be a box of dynamite. Warned by the Quebec justice minister that he could be arrested under the War Measures Act for breaching security, Mr. Harvey continued to print FLQ communiques.

"He didn't need a consultant or focus groups to tell him how to run a newsroom," recalled Gazette editorial writer Paul Waters, who worked for Mr. Harvey both at the Gazette and later at the CBC. "He transformed a ramshackle, dispirited operation into an award-winning, professional team that provided the best English-language coverage of the crisis.

"He did the same thing when he went to the CBC. He whipped that place into shape, too."

Mr. Harvey left the Gazette in 1972 to become chief news editor of CBC, but was back in Montreal as head of CBC sports to organize coverage of the 1976 Olympic games.

Between 1978 and 1981 he was editor-in-chief at the Toronto Star. He returned to the CBC as vice-president of English television in 1983. It was under his forthright and often abrasive direction that the target of 95 per cent Canadian television programming content was established.

He came close to meeting it. He was instrumental in boosting regional content, revitalizing The National and promoting Canadian drama series.

He was once described by veteran Ottawa reporter Charles Lynch "as a no-nonsense kind of guy whose eyes tend to squint when he's telling you what's wrong. His jaw protrudes in the most alarming fashion. When he spits, ball bearings come out."

Mr. Harvey's tenure at the CBC was, however, not easy. He had to implement drastic cuts after the Mulroney government gutted the CBC's budget. He retired in 1991 as vice-president of English television, but continued to work as a special adviser.

His first marriage to Georgina Davidson, the mother of his two children, ended in divorce. He then married Louise Lore, a CBC television producer.

Funeral arrangements have not been completed.

© Ottawa Citizen