Publisher, former bureaucrat receive provincial honour
Frank Tierney, Huguette Labelle appointed members of the Order of Ontario
Ottawa residents Frank Tierney, co-founder of Borealis Press and Tecumseh Press, and Huguette Labelle, a former deputy minister in the federal government, are among 25 people appointed members of the Order of Ontario on Thursday.
Tierney said he was surprised at receiving the province’s highest honour.
“I’m looking forward to the whole event as an experience,” said Tierney, 82, who was a professor of Canadian literature at the University of Ottawa for more than 30 years.
“But I was surprised to receive it because it (award) is highly competitive and I didn’t know I had been nominated.”
He said he plans to attend the investiture ceremony next Wednesday in Toronto with his wife, Audrey, and their seven children.
Film director Deepa Mehta, Canadian Football League commissioner Mark Cohon, tenor Michael Burgess, CBC reporter Brian Stewart and Kingston businessman and philanthropist Michael Davis are also receiving the award.
Labelle was the first francophone woman to become a federal deputy minister and the first woman to lead the Red Cross in Canada. She is also known as an expert in transportation, health care, development and governance.
Tierney and university professor Glenn Clever founded Borealis (devoted to new Canadian writers) and Tecumseh (focusing on Canadian authors and critical commentaries of their works) in 1972 and were instrumental in helping to bring the works of Canadian writers to a wider Canadian audience.
They published the first three works of award-winning Canadian writer Carol Shields, James Noonan’s Canada Governors General at Play, and a critical edition of Stephen Leacock’s Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.
“Canadian authors couldn’t get published back then,” said Tierney. “You had to be a big name, and we understood that. There was no flow for the young people or older who were just beginning as new authors, so we decided to start the company and we put money into it ourselves.”
“I was driving Carol (Shields) home one night at the beginning when she was starting out. I asked her when she had the time to write because had five children then. She said, ‘Frank, I write when I’m stirring the porridge in the morning.’ ”
He said he was happy to give Shields her first opportunity to get published.
Tierney said more than 500 titles have been published through Borealis and Tecumseh. “That’s a lot of books. I’m just pleased we were able to help and it gives me great pleasure.”
He co-founded the Journal of Canadian Poetry in 1976. He was also chair of the English department at the university and retired in 1996. He has remained active with the publishing companies, which have 12 employees.
“We’re able to continue with the company and we’ve never made what you would call a substantial profit because whatever money comes in we put back into books,” said Tierney.