I’ve now been a journalist here in Greater Sudbury for nearly 17 years — most of my adult life.
That can involve covering a lot of routine stuff such as government funding announcements, fundraising walks, meetings and school activities.
I do actually enjoy that kind of thing for what it is, as it gives me a level of connectedness to my community I might not otherwise have.
But there are times when things can get really interesting and you think to yourself “Is this really happening?” or you feel you’re a witness to history (or at least local history).
An example was back in November 2012 when my colleague, Heather Green-Oliver, and I were sent out to cover a protest at the downtown Sudbury office of Rick Bartolucci, then the MPP for Sudbury.
Sudbury Coalition Against Poverty protesters, who objected to cuts to a social service program for families facing eviction, had set up what they called an “emergency homeless shelter” in the office’s waiting room.
Greater Sudbury Police showed up, and said if those in the office didn’t leave, they’d start arresting people for trespassing. This blanket order from police also applied, it turned out, to media on the scene covering the protest.
Heather and I stayed anyway, and watched as 12 people were arrested, including our colleague Carol Mulligan, then a reporter with the Sudbury Star. Carol passed away Aug. 11, 2019.
All I’m going to say about that is that the feisty Carol was never exactly a reticent person.
Anyway, it was still a shock to see a fellow journalist — and one around my mom’s age, who covered the aforementioned funding announcements and meetings alongside me — led away in handcuffs. Carol was eventually released unconditionally.
An earlier protest I covered back in 2005, as a young reporter at the beginning of my career, shows how far we’ve come as a society.
As Canada prepared to legalize gay marriage, protesters gathered in downtown Sudbury to voice their objections to the change.
A counter-protest by the local LGBTQ+ community took place at the same time and on the same sidewalks, resulting in shouting matches between the two groups.
That event left a big impression on me and the college journalism student close to my own age who had accompanied me that day.
Same-sex marriage coming in when it did means that several school friends of mine have now been married to their partners for years, and many are raising children.
A particularly action-packed period of my life was during the 2009-2010 year-long Vale-Steelworkers strike, as I did a lot of the coverage for Northern Life and NorthernLife.ca (Sudbury.com’s predecessor publications).
In March 2010, I travelled to Vale Canada’s Toronto headquarters with a couple of Laurentian Media (then our parent company) colleagues to interview Tito Martins, then the president and CEO of Vale Inco.
After writing so much about this strike that occupied our attention locally almost as much as the pandemic is right now, it was interesting to be able to pose our questions directly to the executive, who said he was puzzled as to why the Steelworkers wouldn’t accept their offer.
By the way, upon his 2019 retirement as the Steelworkers International president, the always-vocal Leo Gerard, told me the Brazilian-owned Vale wanted to impose one business and collective bargaining model on the multinational company.
He said he told the now late Roger Agnelli, former CEO of Vale, to “go f*** himself.”
When I returned to Sudbury after interviewing Tito Martins, I wrote up my story. But the news wasn’t done with me that day.
On that frigid March evening, I covered a fire at the townhouses on Dow Drive in my hometown of Copper Cliff. It gutted eight townhouses and left 27 people homeless. Among the people affected was a childhood friend and her family.
I remember a lady yelling at me that night for doing what I do as a reporter. Yes, I’m documenting it, but for the record, I always feel so badly for people who are the victims of situations like that. It could so easily be any of us, couldn’t it?
Then there was the period in early 2015 when it seemed like Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne visited Sudbury every week as she tried to help the former NDP MP Glenn Thibeault get elected as the Liberal MPP for Sudbury.
She was almost on a first-name basis with the local reporters, including myself. I had to wonder what Wynne’s wife, Jane, thought about travelling to Sudbury so often.
As you all know, the 2015 Sudbury byelection was surrounded in a miasma of intrigue and scandal that involved many local prominent Liberals, and dragged on for several more years, grabbing national headlines.
In years to come, I think I’ll look back on this pandemic as an especially interesting time in my career.
That will include covering a protest last September by a group of citizens opposed to public health measures such as masks and lockdowns.
I had an interaction with a protester, who enthusiastically, shall I say, showed her displeasure that I was there. It was another “Is this really happening?” moment.
I think it was a small taste of what reporters in the United States and around the world have been dealing with in the current political climate.
Despite my description of notable protests in this column, those are the exceptions. The vast majority are pretty uneventful, and they’re actually among the list of routine events journalists cover.
History is being written right now, and the world is changing. As always, my colleagues and I will do our best to document it.
Heidi Ulrichsen is the associate content editor for Sudbury.com.
