Helping Nick in his time of need
Local man asks community to give back to Nick Ternette
Peter-Andre Globensky


Two peas in a pod we are not, but for the time being, and until he gets better, Nick Ternette and I have suspended our debates on licensed parenthood, Canada’s capitulation on the Devils Lake and NAFTA issues, and the sky-high pay scales of this city’s top bureaucrats.

Ternette — the community activist, Order of Manitoba nominee and perennial mayoralty candidate who normally writes this weekly column — is ill. He has been stricken with cancer, and it is in its advanced stages. I have asked to do this column because it is unlike Nick to put his hand out and ask for help.

We would like to do that for him.

Nick is a long-standing friend — and that relationship transcends our very divergent political views on any number of issues.

I first met the endearing rabble-rouser in the 1980s when we worked as partners in Calgary helping to build that city’s non-profit housing movement. An avowed socialist at a time when that ideology had fallen out of favour, Nick soon returned to his roots in Winnipeg. I moved on, joining the Progressive Conservative party — when “progressive” was not a dirty word — and then serving hard time as an adviser in the prime minister’s office.

To say Nick and I had divergent careers is putting it mildly!

His passion for and commitment to causes are characteristics I have always admired about Nick. Because I hoped I also had a measure of these same traits, one of the first things I did when I moved to Winnipeg in 1998 was look him up.

Nothing had changed about him. His blood pressure remained as high as the decibels in his speech. He gesticulated (as if his voice needed emphasizing) as wildly as he always had and, if he really got going — fortissimo voc — and you had the misfortune of sharing a meal with him, you usually got unintentionally showered with bits and pieces of the entree of the day.

That was and is Nick.

Above all, after all these years, Nick has remained true to his beliefs and commitments to a more fair and just community, championing the rights of those with little means of doing it for themselves. Gadfly to the established and accepted order, he has done constructive damage to the status quo and made an outstanding contribution to this community. We are the better for it — and those who give a damn are in his debt.

Nick has never been known to trouble himself about money and finances. So long as he and his partner, Emily, have been able to put food on the table and shelter over their heads and love their three mischievous grandkids, the rest is for tomorrow.

That’s where we come in. Nick is without income when he is recovering from chemotherapy and too sick to work. We have set up a trust fund to help tide Nick and Emily over the tough times to come. They are also doing their bit. On Sept. 10 and 11, at their modest Wolseley home at 158 Evanson St., they are having a garage sale, with part of the proceeds going to CancerCare Manitoba.

Please join us in helping this selfless Manitoban.

Contributions can be sent to:

Nick Ternette in Trust
158 Evanson St.
Wpg., Man.
R3G 2A2

Peter-Andre Globensky, a Winnipeg resident, is a friend of the Ternette family and spends his time trying to retire.