In 2004, the CBC put together a program called The Greatest Canadian, a list of 10 potentials were organized, each with a well credentialled celebrity advocate to promote the cause that their pick was, in fact, Canada’s G.O.A.T.
I was looking at the list the other day and thinking about it through the lens of our current politics. Sir John A. Macdonald’s legacy is tarnished because the re-examination of residential schools, Wayne Gretzky is now more well known as a medication pitchman than a hockey player, Don Cherry talked himself out of a job and out of contention due to “commie pinkos”, and if Tommy Douglas, the ultimate winner, were alive today, I have no doubt that he’d be called a “commie pinko”.
(Seriously, a former Toronto Sun columnist called former head of the Bank of Canada Mark Carney a “slick tongued communist salesman” this week, which confirms to me that many of the people who use “communist” as a pejorative have no idea what that word means.)
Why am I’m bringing this up? It’s due to one of the finalists in that contest, a young man who at the age of 21 set himself the goal of running across the country to raise money for cancer research, and although he tapped out less than halfway through his run that wasn’t the end of the story.
You see, the real testament to Terry Fox’s legacy is not how far he ran, but how far his example has encouraged others to run; almost all the way to nearly $1 billion raised in the last 43 years of the annual event that still bears his name.
I recently went on a deep dive into the history of Guelph’s Terry Fox Run, first by talking to David Picard, who has organized the run for the last 20 years before handing off the reins for this year’s event, and then, through David, talking to Betty Stone, a school teacher who organized the first run.
Now the first Terry Fox run came together relatively quickly. Fox died on June 28, 1981, and the first Terry Fox Run happened at locations across Canada just over two months later on Sept. 13. It’s worth noting that this happened pre-internet and pre-social media when you organized stuff by talking to people on the telephone, or, gasp, face-to-face.
But my conversation with Betty meandered from the nuts and bolts of building the Terry Fox Run from scratch to talking about the meaning behind the event, and how easy it was to get people In Guelph united behind this one cause: running to raise money for cancer research.
“I am an absolute firm believer that a community that has unity encourages, promotes and enhances the opportunities for everyone regardless of background issues, or any challenges that the person may have,” she said. “Basically, all persons have the opportunity for independence, inclusion, and equal opportunity in a climate of dignity, and that was one of the things, I think, the Terry Fox Run achieved.”
It's a rare thing these days that something comes as advertised. It’s rare that there isn’t some whisper campaign that comes to light about behind the scenes maleficence or skullduggery. Innocence is a hard thing to hold on to, especially at the age of 44, which is how many times we’ve held the Terry Fox Run now.
The other thing that’s interesting about the Terry Fox legacy is the role of schools. I don’t know how many of the community runs started with a teacher like Guelph’s did, but I would bet dollars to donuts that the first time you ever encountered the name “Terry Fox” was in a school. You may not know who Mary Moreau is, but you know Terry Fox.
For the record, Mary Moreau was the most recent justice appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada.
And whether you’re young or old, there’s no doubt about the influence of Fox’s story, even if you’re old enough to remember when Fox ran through Guelph in 1980.
“The Terry Fox Run was partially responsible for me getting into running,” David Picard told me when I visited his home office surrounded by Terry Fox and Terry Fox Run memorabilia. “I was in my late 20s and I'm 71 now and I'm still very actively involved. In fact, athletics is an important part of my daily routine.”
Years ago, I looked up the old Guelph Mercury coverage of the Guelph leg of the Marathon of Hope. There was a lot of fanfare obviously, but it was also clear that we were just a stop along the way. Before the lunch hour was over, Fox left city hall on Carden Street and was running down Highway 7 to make some evening appointments in Halton Hills, all in the service of a goal we have yet to achieve.
“The legacy of Terry Fox is that his goal was to find a cure for cancer, and that was a very lofty goal. It's almost an impossible goal, because if he wanted to create something that was really difficult to achieve, a cure for cancer is probably one of the highest,” Picard told me.
He’s right of course, treating cancer is tricky enough, never mind curing it. It’s a Sisyphusian quest made all the more tragic because Fox didn’t even get the chance to finish the first part of the mission before cancer took him. But if Terry Fox didn’t quit maybe that’s why the ones who follow in his footsteps don’t quit either.
So why am I writing about the Terry Fox Run? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all the negativity in this space, all the time I spend talking about the things our council is doing, the things they shouldn’t be doing, or the things they should be doing. Even I get tired of it at times, and though the algorithm abhors happy thoughts, I still feel compelled to put some out there into the universe.
I can’t help but admire the people in our community who keep chugging away at an impossible task every September, following in the example of a 22-year-old kid who knew how short his time was and decided to literally try and outrun it. I hope I might have his strength of character if I were in a similar position, and I think you reading this feels the same.
The goal isn’t quite in sight yet, but there are thousands of people still running. Good luck and thank you to all those running on Sunday.
