Letters to Vancouver Newspapers

I wrote letters to newspapers (also known as "letters to the editor") for over 50 years, from 1966 to 2019. With two daily newspapers in Vancouver, The Province and The Sun, there were plenty of opportunities to vent over something.

I worked at The Province in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and I didn't want to bite the hand that was feeding me, so my complaining, at least in the letters section, was kind of limited during that time period. Later, there were other newspapers in Vancouver, when I was usually more preoccupied with working behind the scenes in my "real job" at various printing companies.

Writing letters is fun — where else can you say the prime minister of Canada or the premier of your province is a total moron without getting arrested? Sometimes I was annoyed when what I had written was revised by the person in charge of the letters section, but this only happened a couple of times when the meaning of what I said was compromised. Once when I complained about this to the managing editor of the Vancouver Sun, she replied with a snotty letter.

Gordon Clark was in charge of Letters to the Editor at The Province, where most of my opinions ended up. Several years ago, he left his job at Pacific Press, which ran The Province, over some huge flap regarding "political correctness." You can read his farewell words here, well worthy of being a massive "letter to the editor."

Anyway, here are mine: Vancouver Province; Vancouver Sun; Vancouver Courier; 24 Hours; Georgia Straight.