Rhetoric runs riot in reporter row

Abstract

Mrs. [Judi McLeod] has been on medical leave since her transfer. "A lot of people have been hurt in this issue," Alderman Robert Callahan said. "The whole thing has gotten out of control." During the municipal election campaign last October, Alderman Terry Piane wrote a letter on City of Brampton stationery to Thomson Newspapers Ltd., which owns the Daily Times, complaining about Mrs.

Rhetoric runs riot in reporter row

Tuesday, February 22, 1983

Tempers ran high, rhetoric flowed freely and grievances poured out in a cathartic rush.

But after more than an hour of debate last night in which aldermen invoked everyone from Voltaire to George Orwell, Brampton Council was unable to lay to rest a controversy involving a reporter from the Daily Times who was pulled off the city-hall beat by her publisher.

By a vote of 10-6, council defeated a motion calling on the newspaper to reinstate Judi McLeod. Mrs. McLeod, the wife of the newspaper's managing editor, was transferred to the lifestyles section on Jan. 19 after complaints from two aldermen and from members of Brampton's Progressive Conservative establishment.

Mrs. McLeod has been on medical leave since her transfer. "A lot of people have been hurt in this issue," Alderman Robert Callahan said. "The whole thing has gotten out of control." During the municipal election campaign last October, Alderman Terry Piane wrote a letter on City of Brampton stationery to Thomson Newspapers Ltd., which owns the Daily Times, complaining about Mrs. McLeod's coverage and her husband's role in editing the newspaper. "Your intention to publish the McLeod's choice for Brampton Council is sick and not in the best interest of the residents of Brampton," she wrote. "This nonsense must be stopped immediately and the McLeods should be run out of town." A brief presented by a delegation calling itself the Watchdog Committee accused Mayor Kenneth Whillans of arranging "to have policemen secretly seated" in their midst at a council meeting two weeks ago.

Mr. Whillans, his voice rising in anger, replied that plainclothes policemen had come to the meeting after he called a senior police official about three telephone calls he had received warning that there would be demonstrations over the transfer of the reporter.

He said the policemen were there "for the protection of the presence of people" in council chambers.

Mrs. McLeod, who watched a cable television broadcast of the proceedings, said later, "When I go back to the paper, I'll go back on the city hall beat. Or I'll try to make them fire me."