Morton Shulman,
OCThe Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
(25 April 1925 – August 18, 2000) was a
CanadianCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
politician, businessman, broadcaster, columnist, coroner, and physician.
Biography
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Shulman received his M.D from the
University of TorontoThe University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
in 1948. Shulman practiced throughout his professional life with a general practice on
Roncesvalles AvenueRoncesvalles Avenue is a north-south arterial street in Toronto, Canada. It connects Queen Street West, King Street West and runs north to Dundas Street West. Roncesvalles Avenue takes its name from the Battle of Roncesvalles, which took place in the Roncesvalles gorge in Spain in 1813...
in Toronto. He became wealthy through investing in the
stock marketA stock market or equity market is a public entity for the trading of company stock and derivatives at an agreed price; these are securities listed on a stock exchange as well as those only traded privately.The size of the world stock market was estimated at about $36.6 trillion...
and wrote a bestselling book,
Anyone Can Make a Million in 1966. He was married to Gloria Shulman and they had two children, environmental lawyer Dianne Saxe and Dr. Geoff Shulman. Shulman is also the grandfather of noted neuroscientist
Rebecca SaxeRebecca Saxe is an Associate Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in the department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Her research is on the neural basis of social cognition, and in particular she is known for proposing the role of the right temporoparietal junction in thinking about...
.
Coroner
In exchange for his involvement in the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, he was appointed Ontario's chief
coronerA coroner is a government official who* Investigates human deaths* Determines cause of death* Issues death certificates* Maintains death records* Responds to deaths in mass disasters* Identifies unknown dead* Other functions depending on local laws...
in 1961. In 1963, he was named Chief Coroner of the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. Shulman was outspoken and used the coroner position to crusade on a number of issues such as enacting tougher regulations on lifejackets for small boats, having government regulate car safety, the introduction of breathalysers into Ontario, and against then-restrictive abortion laws after he investigated the deaths of women who had died while trying to terminate their pregnancies. In other crusades, he helped to force surgeons to count instruments before and after surgery, and construction companies to provide better bracing in trenches. His years as a coroner became the inspiration for the Canadian television drama
WojeckWojeck is a Canadian dramatic television series, which aired on the CBC from 1966 to 1968. It was the first successful drama series on English Canadian television....
.
Political career
After embarrassing the provincial government by revealing its inaction in enforcing the fire code in a recently built hospital, he was fired, in 1967, as Ontario's Chief Coroner and decided to avenge himself by running for the
Legislative Assembly of OntarioThe Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...
. Despite ideological differences, he accepted the nomination of the left-wing
Ontario New Democratic PartyThe Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
. Despite his strong
capitalistCapitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
beliefs, he decided to run for the democratic socialist party because they gave him a free hand in choosing his own riding, and because their views in support of public safety were compatible with his own. He ran as a candidate in
High ParkHigh Park was a federal electoral district in the west end of the city of Toronto, in the province of Ontario, Canada...
and was elected as Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for the
ridingAn electoral district in Canada, also known as a constituency or a riding, is a geographical constituency upon which Canada's representative democracy is based...
in the
1967 provincial electionThe Ontario general election of 1967 was held on October 17, 1967, to elect the 117 members of the 28th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
.
He used his position in the legislature to become a thorn in the side of the Tory governments led by
John RobartsJohn Parmenter Robarts, PC, CC, QC was a Canadian lawyer and statesman, and the 17th Premier of Ontario.-Early life:...
and
Bill DavisWilliam Grenville "Bill" Davis, was the 18th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1971 to 1985. Davis was first elected as the MPP for Peel in the 1959 provincial election where he was a backbencher in Leslie Frost's government. Under John Robarts, he was a cabinet minister overseeing the education...
. He asked provocative questions in the legislature and was known for stunts, such as selling the book
The Happy Hooker out of his office after it had been banned by the Toronto Police morality squad - he offered MPPs a 10% discount. Once, to make a point about lax security, he carried a pellet gun (dressed up to look like a submachine gun) in a bag through an Ontario nuclear plant, and then pulled it out on the floor of the Legislature. He waved it around happily while
cabinetA Cabinet is a body of high ranking government officials, typically representing the executive branch. It can also sometimes be referred to as the Council of Ministers, an Executive Council, or an Executive Committee.- Overview :...
ministers sitting across from him hid under their desks. He wrote the book "MPP" to describe his experiences, one of at least three autobiographies that he wrote.
The Shulman File
From 1977 until 1982, he hosted a hard-hitting television show on
CITY-TVCITY-DT, Channel 57 , is a television station based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada owned and operated by Rogers Media...
called
The Shulman File which featured confrontational interviews, sensationalist and risque topics and outrageous opinions. The show was spoofed by
SCTV Second City Television is a Canadian television sketch comedy show offshoot from Toronto's The Second City troupe that ran between 1976 and 1984.- Premise :...
as
Murray's File. At the same time, he began writing a regular column in the
Toronto SunThe Toronto Sun is an English-language daily tabloid newspaper published in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known for its daily Sunshine Girl feature and for what it sees as a populist conservative editorial stance.-History:...
which continued into the 1990s. After clashing with his colleagues in the
NDPThe New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
, particularly party leader
Stephen LewisStephen Henry Lewis, is a Canadian politician, broadcaster and diplomat. He was the leader of the social democratic Ontario New Democratic Party for most of the 1970s. During many of the those years as leader, his father David Lewis was simultaneously the leader of the Federal New Democratic Party...
who refused to agree to Shulman's demands that he be appointed
Attorney GeneralIn most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
if the party won the following election, Shulman decided to leave the legislature and did not run in the
1975 electionThe Ontario general election of 1975 was held on September 18, 1975, to elect the 125 members of the 30th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
. After leaving politics, he continued his career in broadcasting for several years, and became more involved in the financial community, heading up a
mutual fundA mutual fund is a professionally managed type of collective investment scheme that pools money from many investors to buy stocks, bonds, short-term money market instruments, and/or other securities.- Overview :...
and pursuing various business interests.
Deprenyl
Shulman was diagnosed with
Parkinson's DiseaseParkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
in 1983, and formed a company, Deprenyl Research Ltd., (now known as Draxis) in order to acquire Canadian rights to the anti-Parkinson's drug Deprenyl. His company engaged in a long fight with the federal government for approval of the drug for sale in Canada. He also started a second pharmaceutical company, called DUSA, now run by his son.
Honours and death
In 1993, Shulman was made an Officer of the
Order of CanadaThe Order of Canada is a Canadian national order, admission into which is, within the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, the second highest honour for merit...
. After battling Parkinson's disease for more than 15 years, he finally succumbed to the complications arising from that disease at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto on August 18, 2000. He was buried in Pardes Shalom Cemetery on Dufferin Street two days later.
External links