In early 1961, “Preview” included an article on Dominion archivist W. Kaye Lamb and the fifty-two miles of history at the National Archives in Ottawa (January 28). There was also a piece on Bruce Kidd, the young runner who was resisting offers to attend an American university (February 25). On March 25, 1961, “Preview” mentioned Bell Telephone’s problems with metal slugs replacing nickels at pay phones. In April the “Background” section published a short piece on art. The University of British Columbia had just purchased a collection of Native art and artifacts for $10,000, and the provincial government had paid the astronomical sum of $70,000 for a collection that included a hundred paintings by Emily Carr. In the issue of June 17, 1961, now that birth control pills for women were coming onto the Canadian market, “Preview” predicted an oral contraceptive for men.
In July, in the “Background” section, Peter reported on a recent survey that found that Quebec teens were far more individualistic than their Anglo counterparts. In August, “Preview” featured an interview by Peter C. Newman with the head of environmental research of Atomic Energy of Canada. Was the disposal of atomic waste a problem? Newman asked. Not really was the answer. In September, “Preview” published Michael Sheldon’s tongue-in-cheek article suggesting that all of Canada should speak French and that a new flag should feature a large fleur-de-lis with the Union Jack in one corner. The same “Preview” contained an article with no byline, but it was surely Peter’s. A doctor in Windsor, Ontario, had discovered that tolbutamide, a drug for diabetes, reduced the curse of acne. “Though acne neither kills nor cripples,” the writer noted, “it can leave mental and physical scars for life.”
Peter’s last article (November 4) as “Preview” editor was on a Montreal subject. Earlier in 1961, McClelland & Stewart had published William Weintraub’s Why Rock the Boat, a raucous satire of the newspaper business in Montreal. The reviews were flattering, except in Montreal. What really upset one city editor, even though he admitted that the practice was widespread, was Weintraub’s observation that editors often suppressed stories unfavourable to advertisers. Peter liked the novel.
“Preview” had been a good experience for Peter. It showed him how to condense a story and forced him to look for stories of interest to readers. “Preview” may also have provided a model for his radio shows, which usually opened with a short, pithy essay or bulletin, often personal. In feature articles, Peter was developing into a mature writer. While he had begun with articles on The Varsity and Sir Casimir Gzowski, as 1961 drew to a close he was casting his net farther afield to catch topics such as prison reform and the rising generation. In November 1961, Peter was posted to Montreal as the first Quebec correspondent for Maclean’s. By that time, Le Magazine Maclean,17 the French-language version of Maclean’s, founded in the late spring of 1960, was beginning to raise the hackles of Quebec nationalists. It was already clear that the French version wasn’t a voice of Quebec, in spite of a top-notch staff that included Pierre de Bellefeuille, Jacques Guay, and André Laurendeau, who was also editor of Le Devoir. In August, Premier Jean Lesage called the new magazine a mark of respect for Quebec culture, but pointed out that it wasn’t really representative of Quebec culture. Peter’s office was on Peel Street, where the French-language version was produced.
A short piece for the entertainment section of Maclean’s called “The Bike Race That Has More Fans Than the Grey Cup” (December 2, 1961) was Peter’s first article written in Montreal. Le Tour du St-Laurent, modelled on Le Tour de France, was in its ninth year. It attracted more than a half-million spectators along the route from Quebec City to Montreal and through the Eastern Townships. It cost about $15,000 annually, and its founder was Yvon Guillou, a Frenchman whose greatest concern was an infestation of performance-enhancing drugs! Almost a year later, in the issue of October 6, 1962, Peter’s expanded article on the race appeared in Maclean’s under the title “Ohé, les Gars du Tour du St-Laurent!” In translation it was published that same month in Le Magazine Maclean. Each evening the riders and their fans were entertained by stars such as Dominique Michel, who, Peter pointed out, was the wife of Camille Henry of the New York Rangers. The overall winner of the race was Aleksei Petrov, who, Peter claimed, was as handsome as Bobby Hull.
On December 16, 1961, A.J. Newlands “with Peter Gzowski” penned a feature called “What It’s Like to Drive a Buick to Moscow,” in which Newlands described a road trip from Great Britain to the Soviet Union where his wife and he were surprised to discover good roads, friendly people, and clean sidewalks. Peter, it seems, edited the article and probably rewrote it.
Soon after the Gzowski family settled into a house on Snowdon Avenue in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (NDG), Peter took the train to Quebec City to learn French. While Peter’s French improved only marginally, he began to understand the resentment created each time that French Canadians/Québécois were forced to listen to and speak English. He concluded that if he had to live in a second language “in order to compete on equal terms with everyone around me,” he, too, might become a separatist.18 The resultant article, told with good humour and humility, was published in Maclean’s on January 27, 1962.
Peter quickly picked up the currents of change in French-speaking Quebec. In the “Background” section of the December 16, 1961, issue of Maclean’s, he wrote a short piece called “Why the Separatists Aren’t Ready to Separate — Yet.” The month before, he had attended a Laval University Conference on Canadian Affairs where panellists André Laurendeau, René Lévesque, and Gérard Pelletier, seated next to Eugene Forsey and Doug Fisher, complained about the absence of bilingualism in Ottawa and the fact that federal government cheques were issued only in English. At one point Lévesque told the young, enthusiastic audience that English Canada needed French Canada more than the latter needed English Canada. While surveys concluded that only a minority of Québécois opted for independence, Peter warned that if grievances were allowed to simmer, more and more French Canadians would support the idea of an independent Quebec.19 The article was translated and published in Le Magazine Maclean in January 1962 as “J’ai découvert les racines du séparatisme.”
On February 24, 1962, Peter’s “Quebec Report” dealt with the move to secularize education. The leading organization pushing for a more “neutral” education was Mouvement laïque de langue française, composed mostly of francophone parents who were worried that their children were learning too much about the Church and not enough about modern, secular society. To examine the issue, the Lesage government had established a commission. “Things don’t change that fast in Quebec — even in the ‘quiet revolution,’” Peter noted. This was his first printed use of the phrase. The term was in the air, and good listener that he was, he picked it up. Years later he was credited with inventing the phrase, which he denied. It was coined by Brian Upton, a reporter for the Montreal Star. After Upton and Peter talked in Montreal in 1961, Peter had absorbed the phrase.20
In March 1962, Peter used the term again. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker was perceived by Québécois as unsympathetic to their aspirations. He massacred the French language; he refused to establish a royal commission to study bilingualism; and he didn’t appoint a Quebec lieutenant. Peter understood that Diefenbaker failed to understand the Quiet Revolution and the determination of Québécois “to take a full share in Canada’s future.” Hence, the politician to watch, Peter advised, was Réal Caouette, the leader of the Créditistes, a party that had won safe Liberal seats in the 1958 election and that threatened now to take seats away from the Conservatives. Even though Liberal leader Lester B. Pearson wasn’t much more popular in Quebec than Diefenbaker, Peter predicted that, in the next federal election, the Liberals would win as many as sixty seats in the province. He was right. In the federal election of 1962, the Conservatives’ huge majority was