- ARTICLE -

Richard Thomas: gentleman, scholar, friend...

Rob Learn
News Staff

ALMAGUIN: A huge void was felt across the Almaguin community this past week with news that Richard Thomas was seriously injured in an accident and is fighting hard for his very life.

The outpouring of concern came from every corner of the district and from even further afield, as people wanted to find out how Thomas was doing and prayed for his recovery.

Almaguin News takes this opportunity to reflect on a life well-lived, with every hope that we will be hearing from him about how we did.

Richard Thomas is a self-described maverick, whose many talents lead him through politics, writing, environmental lobbying, alternative energy and, of course, radio and television work.

Blessed with a golden voice and the knowledge of how to use it, Thomas says he was a brash young man travelling North America in his late teens and early 20s when he happened to come across his wife Jenny.

As he recalls, he found himself in British Columbia after hitch-hiking up the west coast with little money and not more than a change of clothes. Thomas opened a phone book and found where one of the local radio stations was located and went there to land himself a job.

Walking in unannounced, Thomas asked a young receptionist if he could see the station manager. She inquired whether he had an appointment. He did not.

She doubted whether he could get in to see him, but Thomas with the warm brashness he is so well-known for, knocked on the station manager’s door and was invited in.

When he came out of the office the receptionist asked what happened.

Thomas told her he was the station’s newest on-air personality and on his way out the door asked her if she would like to join him for coffee, if she was willing to buy her own.

Jenny agreed.

That brashness continued to serve him as he worked his way through the radio industry in numerous capacities with what have become the standard bearers in Canadian broadcasting, including writing the original business plan for CHUM FM in Toronto and a new vision for CBC radio.

But, it was in the radio trade that cemented his maverick label.

In 1976 he told a young Allan Dennis during their first meeting at his recording studio, “I consider myself a maverick. After being fired from 18 of 23 radio stations, because I disagreed with the manner and quality of the shows being aired, you can see for yourself the reason for the label maverick.”

Richard says that he stopped working in 1966, but he never seemed at rest. He moved his family to Kearney in 1969 where he created a recording studio that attracted some of most talented musicians from around the world. It also served as an instrument for Thomas to produce radio programs that became very popular with audiences in Europe.

His golden baritone voice brought his stories to life, often with music serving as more than just a backdrop, but a glue binding the tales together.

At the same time he worked doing voice-overs for radio and television commercials for corporations such as Molson’s and Gulf Oil. He was considered one of the top three talents in Canada.

By the mid to late 70s Thomas turned his attention to doing something personally to save the planet from the harm created by dependence on crude oil for energy.

Using the wisdom of an old moonshiner, Thomas built his own still, using crops of jerusalem artichokes (a tuberous plant with edible top often thought to be a weed — not an actual artichoke) and sugar mangels to make ethyl alcohol.

He then converted a 1970 Volvo from gasoline to alcohol and calculated that his one and one-third acre crop had yielded about 300 gallons of fuel at a cost of 30 cents a gallon in 1980.

While he tried to get attention for his successful experiment, Thomas was soon in the headlines in December of 1980 when the RCMP seized his still and charged him under the Excise Act for producing spirits without a license.

The charges were dropped in a landmark decision that recognized the need for alternative energy sources, such as the one Thomas has successfully demonstrated.

“The Government of Canada recognized the need for the development of energy alternatives, including the possibility of alcohol fuels produced on a small scale,” wrote Ontario’s deputy Attorney General, announcing the reasons for the decision.

The landmark decision from the upper echelons of government came at a time when Thomas was carrying the Parry Sound Riding Liberal banner in the 1981 provincial general election.

It was his first foray into provincial politics, as a candidate at least. People were excited about sending the man to Queen’s Park with ideas that came from contemplation and not the party brochure.

In fact, advertisements from the time do not mention that Thomas was running for the Liberals.

One ad read, “Democracy is giving Parry Sound Riding a chance to send a brilliant man to Queen’s Park. Richard Thomas will be the most exciting man in Parliament. And he will be representing us. ELECT THOMAS. Sponsored by the East Parry Sound Committee to Elect Richard Thomas.”

And Parry Sound Riding nearly did.

Thomas is responsible for giving former Premier Ernie Eves the nick name “Landslide Ernie” after the battle for the riding came down to a margin that could be counted on one’s fingers.

A judicial recount of the March 19, 1981 election gave Eves 8,995 votes to Thomas’s 8,989, a difference of six.

The close but no cigar experience may have whetted Thomas’ appetite for the political arena as he soon set his sights on an even bigger prize — the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party.

In some measures the run can be counted a success, considering his uphill battle without a seat in the legislature, a lack of experience in party politics and his desire to spread the message of energy alternatives.

At the February 21st, 1982 convention Thomas placed third garnering 11 per cent of the vote behind professional politicos David Peterson (who eventually won and became premier) and Sheila Copps, Canada’s former deputy prime minister.

In other terms - financial - the run wasn’t successful. Almaguin News reported after the leadership convention that the race had cost Thomas more than $40,000 of his own money (Of note, real estate listings from the time show that a three bedroom bungalow on Lake Cecebe with guest cabin, boat house and stone fireplace was going for $38,000. That same piece of real estate now sells at more than $400,000).

The amount of money did mean some challenges and changes for Thomas that saw him move to Emsdale and a few years later to where he resides today on the banks of the Magnetawan River near Burk’s Falls.

It was about this time, 1985, that Thomas began writing his musings in a column for the Almaguin News.

The columns started under the heading “Ask a Dumb Question,” with the premise that more dumb questions needed to be asked in the world.

“Dumb questions poke into things that seem so obvious we should be embarrassed to ask about them. Sometimes though, they find a thin spot in what we thought was true and let new light shine in on things we had forgotten. The kind of question that strips away the emperor’s clothes,” wrote Thomas in his introductory column.

Editor Allan Dennis says he was covering a Cattlemen’s Association meeting and while listening to Thomas decided, “I should get Richard to write a column for us.”

Thomas took to the column like he did to water, another passion of his.

In this writer’s estimation he was the best damn columnist writing in Canada, at the least, and I’d stand on Roy McGregor’s coffee table in my Blundstones and say that any day.

Thomas’s columns are impossible to read without some new thoughts nibbling at the back of one’s mind.

His other passion for water — whether swimming, canoeing or enjoying its calmness — has always stayed with him.

He also enjoyed telling the tales of being a young radio personality in Toronto canoeing along the shore of Lake Ontario into work thinking up a story with every stroke.

But, swimming was essential to him. Thomas said he cursed the winter because it kept him out of the water for longer than he could almost bear.
He was still taking a daily swim when the temperatures allowed this past summer.

And politics also always seemed to get a grip on him.

He ran again against Ernie Eves in 1985, but was not nearly as close to usurping the Conservative grip on Parry Sound. Then in 1990 he helped found the local chapter of the Green Party and would later become its candidate in elections right up until 2001.

He still holds the provincial record for the most votes attracted by a Green Party candidate.

His political interests also ventured into the municipal arena. Thomas was a Perry Township councillor in the 70s and in 2003 was elected the Reeve of Armour Township.

Thomas was, for lack of a better word, a reluctant candidate in the 2003 race, but wanted to see the alienation that stemmed from the 2000 election voting irregularities put to rest.

As with almost everything, the man poured himself into the task sitting on nearly too many committees and boards to count along with being outspoken about issues directly affecting local residents. One of the most notable of the battles was the four-laning of Highway 11 through Armour.

Thomas spearheaded the lobbying effort for changes to the highway’s design taking the case directly to the Minister of Transportation just this past fall.

Thomas was never shy about speaking his mind on a whole range of issues, from global warming, to local economic independence, to nuclear reactors and nuclear waste storage to the rate of society’s consumption.

His column was often the medium for his contemplations, but Thomas was also a sought after speaker for Earth Day celebrations and other gatherings when we reflect on the state of the world.

Also in the later years he kept his hands busy with farming, tending, at one time, more than 60 head of goats and sheep, along with chickens for eggs and eating.

And he looked the part in the laid back wardrobe that farmers enjoy, overalls included.

His comfortable atire went well with a sense of humour that thrived at smiling back in the face of seriousness.

One of his favourite anecdotes was about a member of council (I believe) complaining about him to a mutual friend for speaking up at a meeting with his bootlaces undone. Thomas says his friend asked the council member when the incident happened and after hearing the answer said it was an impossibility.

“It couldn’t have been him (Thomas) he goes barefoot after May.”