Eric Dowd

Veteran Journalist and longtime fixture at Queen's Park, Eric Dowd, passed away on Christmas Day, after a long illness, surrounded by his family.
He was just short of his 80th birthday.

Here is an excerp from Steve Paikin's book "Public Triumph, Private Tragedy" about the life of Prime minister of Ontario John Robarts, in which Eric is quoted (p.65-66)

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"Eric Dowd [...] remembers an encounter with the Prime minister, who marvelled at Dowd's home life. "How is your lovely wife and those five lovely children?" Robarts once asked Dowd in the corridors of Queen's Park.

"Fine, Mr. Robarts, but how do you know about my family?" Dowd asked.

"Don't you remember?" Robarts replied. "When we returned from the retreat up north, they were all waiting for you at Union Station. That was a really charming sight."

Almost four decades after the conversation, Dowd still recalls the sadness in Robart's voice. "It Struck me afterwards," Dowd tells me, "that there he was, the second most powerful man in the country, and he had some wistful envy of a young unimportant reporter who had an obviously warm family life. It was well known that Robarts' own marriage wasn't warm and loving.""
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Goodbye Eric.
You might be gone but your memory lives at the Pink Palace