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ADMIRATION SOCIETY
We all need someone to look up to: for inspiration, leadership, or as a role models. Five Canadians tell us who their heroes are.

Text: JOHN ROBERTS, MILTON WONG, CHANTAL PONTBRIAND, SUSAN SWAN, DENIS CHOUINARD

ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER
John Roberts On Kathleen Robertson

JOHN ROBERTS, CBS NEWS' SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT AND HEIR APPARENT TO ANCHOR DAN RATHER, BEGAN HIS TV CAREER IN 1979 INTERVIEWING ROCK MUSICIANS ON CITYTV'S THE NEW MUSIC.

TO SAY I ADMIRE A WORLD LEADER, an author, a pioneering doctor or some other heroic figure would be to take the easy way out. As cliché as it might sound, I would like to pay tribute to the person who brought me into this life, my mother, Kathleen Robertson.

She lost the love of her life, my father, when I was just five. Twenty years later, she endured the crushing grief of losing a child when my brother died from cancer. I know she never recovered from either, yet through both, she summoned the strength to go on – as a provider, a mentor, a teacher and a friend.

She sacrificed every day, working 60-hour weeks for minimum wage – she earned barely $100 a week. Yet there was food on the table, a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs and, somehow, presents under the tree every Christmas. We were never left wanting. And my mother never asked for a thing.

She taught me the value of a dollar and the preciousness of life. She bred in me a streak of fierce independence and a steely resolve to face the challenges that would beset me as I grew to adulthood. Her stoic nature was often lacking in outward displays of affection (a lesson I’m afraid I learned all too well), yet her love was never in question.

At the age of 88, she still mows her own grass and shovels the snow. She hasn’t driven for years (she’s half blind from glaucoma, cataracts and cornea transplants), but she’ll never ask for a ride. The walk to the bus stop does her good, she says. The only concession she has made to age is that fixing the roof is now off-limits.

My mother and I have always had a difficult time expressing ourselves. And I have never told her how much I admire and love her. Until now.

THE GREEN GIANT
Milton Wong On David Suzuki

VANCOUVER BUSINESSMAN MILTON WONG IS CHAIRMAN OF HSBC ASSET MANAGEMENT CANADA, WHICH MANAGES NEARLY $4-BILLION IN ASSETS. A MEMBER OF THE ORDER OF CANADA, HE IS RECOGNIZED FOR HIS COMMUNITY WORK, WHICH INCLUDES LAUNCHING VANCOUVER'S ANNUAL DRAGON BOAT FESTIVAL.

BY THE TIME YOU REACH AGE 61, a lot of people have influenced your life, but for me, the most influential person I can think of is David Suzuki.

He’s about my age and since the 1960s, I’ve watched him evolve. When he began to talk publicly about environmental issues, he met with a lot of opposition from his colleagues. They felt that speaking out publicly was not the role of a professor. It was deemed to be stepping outside the bounds of political correctness and he was vilified for being so outspoken.

Now of course he’s an international leader in this field. He has become less strident, more holistic, more inviting. He continues to communicate the importance of how we conduct ourselves in the world, how our behaviour has to be sustainable and how all living things are related. He also seeks to reconcile the different elements in our communities. He looks at the world in a global way and provokes people like myself – a businessman – to review how we’re behaving and how we’re making decisions. We all have to consider the sustainability of the earth and, as human beings, we have to move toward balance.

I admire him for his consistency; I think he’s had an impact on all of us. Given that we are moving into an era of biotechnology, understanding our natural world is so essential. In all walks of life, from businesspeople to politicians and housewives, everyone has to understand their role on this earth. There has to be a foundation for how you conduct your life.

It’s really that important.

THE FIRST INDEPENDENT
Chantal Pontbriand On Lou Andreas-Salomé

CHANTAL PONTBRIAND IS AN ART CRITIC AND COFOUNDER OF PARACHUTE, THE CONTEMPORARY ART MAGAZINE SHE HAS EDITED SINCE 1975. SHE IS ALSO PRESIDENT OF THE FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DE NOUVELLE DANSE, WHICH SHE CO-FOUNDED IN 1982.

I DON’T REALLY REMEMBER WHEN I discovered the philosopher, psychoanalyst and writer Lou Andreas-Salomé. Like a good friend, she has been with me for so long. Lou has had a profound influence on me, as she did on some of the great figures of her time, who were drawn to her charm and zest for life: Freud, the old psychoanalyst whose heart she captured; Rainer Maria Rilke, the young poet she imbued with confidence; Paul Rée, a philosopher like herself, who was a colleague and friend; and Nietzsche, whose soul she awakened. The author of The Gay Science found in Lou, with her lively intellect and joyous outlook, someone who fulfilled his aspirations. Together, the two of them created a philosophy based on joy.

As a teenager, she became a great lover and a seasoned traveller and set off to discover men and the world. Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France and especially Russia were her favourite places.

I love this picture of Lou with Nietzsche and Rée. Like an ode to freedom – in the cart, wielding a whip – free, free, free! Lou was liberated long before her time, long before the time of modern women, in a century when it wasn’t at all easy. She won this freedom with her strong belief in her independence – in a pact she made with herself that still reaches out to the world, and my heart.

THE ACTIVIST WRITER
Susan Swan On Arundhati Roy

SUSAN SWAN IS THE AUTHOR OF THE BIGGEST MODERN WOMAN OF THE WORLD AND THE LAST OF THE GOLDEN GIRLS. HER NOVEL THE WIVES OF BATH WAS RECENTLY ADAPTED INTO THE FEATURE FILM LOST AND DELIRIOUS.

ARUNDHATI ROY’S FACE – WITH HER DELICATE full-lipped mouth and haunting brown eyes – was already a familiar media image before I read that the novelist donated her $34,000 Booker Prize money for The God of Small Things to the campaign against India’s Narmada Dam. As a novelist myself, knowing all too well the solitary time required to write a novel, I was astonished by Roy’s generosity. With her beauty and literary talent, she could have settled for the poofy comforts of literary celebrity. The prize money she gave away could have been a nest egg that allowed her more time to write and spend on her career.

Why do I admire her? For her social conscience, something that’s a bit out of fashion in today’s literary age. Writers – me included – can be too distracted by the pressures of writing and marketing our books to bother with political issues. In a recent collection of short stories about India’s government dams, Roy pointed out that 33 million people in India have already been displaced by these dams that have driven farmers and workers into the cities. Lacking a resettlement plan, they can be arrested and even shot for the smallest misdemeanour.

On January 11, 2000, Arundhati Roy was arrested along with 300 to 400 villagers who marched to protest the construction of India’s Narmada Dam. In April 2001, she was charged with criminal contempt and ordered to appear before India’s Supreme Court. Her case has been taken up by PEN Canada.

Writers are frequently drawn to write about human imperfection and suffering because their imagination allows them to step into the shoes of the one who suffers. In Roy’s case, her social conscience resonates in her art and her activism.

Her example gives me the courage to do the same.

MICHAEL & ME
Denis Chouinard On Michael Moore

AWARD-WINNING QUEBEC FILMMAKER DENIS CHOUINARD CO-DIRECTED HIS FIRST FEATURE IN 1997. HIS LATEST FILM, L'ANGE DE GOUDRON, WON BEST CANADIAN FILM AT THE 25TH ANNUAL MONTREAL WORLD FILM FESTIVAL.

I ADMIRE QUITE A FEW PEOPLE, but I’d especially like to tip my hat to the iconoclastic American filmmaker Michael Moore – for his integrity and his strong opinions. They were, as usual, evident in an article he posted on his Website immediately following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Unlike the prevailing rhetoric, his was a thoughtful piece that prompted reflection.

But Moore is hardly an intellectual with a wall full of diplomas. As a young man, he was destined to work the assembly lines in Detroit, but he rejected the inevitability of his fate. In Roger & Me, one of my favourite films, he explores this issue with wry humour and candour. I like that his thinking goes contrary to the current neo-liberal tide. In a world where everyone is a micro-expert, Moore, like Noam Chomsky, is one of the few people who look at the big picture. He brings the same pragmatism to all topics: the working world, culture or the environment. And that’s rare.

Something I also like about Moore, with his baseball cap and Coke-bottle glasses is that he is no Paul Auster clone. He is simply unpretentious and it’s apparent in his Internet articles, where he talks about himself, offers opinions on today’s society and warns about manipulation by the media and governments.

If I met Moore in one of my favourite haunts, I would certainly offer to buy him a drink!