In politics or in advocacy, you have really hit the big time if you are invited as a mystery guest on the CBC game show Front Page Challenge, a truly educational and entertaining production about current events and history. This chapter is about a great moment in the spring of 1971.
Regular panellists in the 1970s were CFRB broadcaster Gordon Sinclair, columnist and political activist Pierre Burton and another CFRB radio personality Betty Kennedy. There was always a guest panellist, and during my appearance, the guest was Anne Terry. The photo shows the panellists questioning me, trying to figure out the nature of the story I represented. The host of the show was Fred Davis, another radio and television personality.
Front Page Challenge always gave the public audience the details of the secret story and, in my case, it was the public rally at the Royal York Hotel where I was protesting the Government’s White Paper on Tax Reform.
This show went on for about 40 years, and I will never forget Indira Gandhi as a guest, flown in from India. The photo with Malcolm X gives you a sense what it is like being the hidden guest (hidden only from the panel that is).
CFRB personalities where great supporters of mine and an interview on the Betty Kennedy show gave one massive exposure. I remember telling her after the big rally, that we needed help because our phones were ringing off the hook and that we did not have enough staff to open all the envelopes with cheques.
There were over 50 people that showed up at our office on University Avenue within an hour of that interview. I remember so distinctly, that in the long line of volunteers there was a retired colonel, a lady on welfare with a coat that dragged on the ground, and another lady with a full-length mink coat.
A favourite celebrity guest panellist on Front Page Challenge was Bob Hesketh, who had an award-winning radio program called, “The Way I See It”. His show was syndicated across Canada and enjoyed a massive audience.
I remember members in rural areas that did not read the prominent city newspapers tell our District Managers when I later started the CFIB, that they had heard Bob Hesketh promoting John Bulloch and our anti-White Paper activities.
And then, son-of-a-gun, using Governor Bob Morrow’s Condo in Maui in 1979, I found myself sunning on the beach about ten feet from Bob and Stella Hesketh. We had an unforgettable week together. And we both agreed that we would not talk politics when together.
Another regular panellist after Gordon Sinclair died was Jack Webster, who had his own TV show in Vancouver. It was Bob Morrow who heard me on the Jack Webster Show in 1971 opposing the tax proposals in the White Paper. Bob was a tax specialist and told his wife Stacy that "This fellow Bulloch doesn't have it quite right." "Well call him and talk to him," Stacy suggested. And that is what he did. And he became a vital part of the Canadian Council for Taxation and the CFIB for more than 25 years.
Despite all the planning involved in getting a new venture up and running, it is the surprises and basic good luck that makes it all such fun. Who would have believed that from high profile appearances or exposure on shows like Front Page Challenge, or The Way I See It or the Betty Kennedy Show, so many people would join in to help me both technically and financially. Courtesy of the CBC, the complete program is available by clicking on the following link.