Generations
Longtime community friend
John Fraser supports several causes, including Camp Miriam.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
COURTESY OF CAMP MIRIAM
T
he first time John Fraser’s
name appeared in the Jewish Independent/Jewish
Western Bulletin was in
1961. The former member of Parliament for Vancouver South was
participating in a political forum organized by the Young Adults of the
Vancouver Jewish Community Centre. Since then, he has appeared
within these pages close to 170
times, offering the Jewish community holiday greetings, voicing his
support of Israel, being honored for
his activities to help Jews emigrate
from the Soviet Union, speaking at
the Jewish National Fund Negev
Dinner (honored in 1979, keynote
speaker in 2003). And, as he approaches 30 years of being on the
finance committee of Camp Miriam,
he shared with the Independent
some stories about his life, and what
led him to become such a friend of
the community, and so involved
with the camp in particular.
When Fraser’s father returned
to British Columbia after the First
World War, he worked a few different jobs before “he got involved
John Fraser
JEW SH INDEPENDENT • NOVEMBER 1, 2013
Experience our
14
didn’t become involved with anyone else until she went on a trip
in 1929/1930 with a female cousin.
“In Japan, she looked up an old
friend of hers who was working in
what later became the Canadian
embassy in Japan, in Tokyo, and
that lady introduced her to my fa-
with a guy named H.R. MacMillan,
who sent him to Japan to sell B.C.
lumber,” explained Fraser. His
mother, who was born and raised
in Ontario, fell in love with a decorated soldier who survived his
war injuries, but died in the flu epidemic after his return. His mother
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ther ... and that’s when they met,
and they married.”
Though the couple returned to
Canada for the wedding, they went
back to Japan, where Fraser was
born, in December 1931. His parents moved to Canada when Fraser was three, “and my father went
into business on his own in the middle of the Depression, which wasn’t a very good idea.”
Fraser grew up in Vancouver,
with the exception of a few years
in Powell River, when his father had
a job there. During the Second
World War, his father worked in an
agency set up to coordinate timber
productivity for the war effort; after
the war, he went back into business
for himself.
Fraser went to the University of
British Columbia, graduating from
law school in 1954. “I had a natural interest in history and politics and
that sort of thing, and I was a good
student in English.... But I didn’t
have any affinity at all for arithmetic
or mathematics. Now, I always
passed ... but I knew I wasn’t going
to try and be a research physicist or
anything.” He shared the story of
how, in Grade 12, he was taking
physics and chemistry, passing the
former but failing the latter. At the
winter break, Fraser went to the
principal, “and I said I want to drop
physics and I’m going to continue
in chemistry. He said, ‘But you’ve
done quite well in physics.’ And I
said, ‘Yes, but I can’t live with the
fact that I failed chemistry, so I’m
going to stick with it and pass it.’”
Which he did.
From ages 14 to 17, Fraser
worked in sawmills, logging
camps or survey crews and, then
was in the army – he was trained
for the Korean War and was posted in 1953 to Germany – returning
to complete law school the next
year. “And the thought of articling
in a law office downtown in Vancouver after all of the interesting
and challenging things I’d been
doing was anathema to me.” Instead, he went to work with a
friend on a geological survey for
nearly five months before settling
into articling in Vancouver; he finished with a firm in Victoria, with
the promise of a position afterward. However, said Fraser, “I was
in a good law firm ... but you had
the feeling there that you could tell
exactly what you were going to be
doing a year from now, and five
years from now, and that didn’t fit
with my adventurous nature. And
so I left and I went up to Powell
River to run an office for a Vancouver firm, and I stayed there for
several years.”
In addition to running a private
practice, Fraser was the municipal
solicitor and also the Crown prosecutor. “I learned a lot, I had to learn
it,” he said.
The Vancouver firm eventually
brought Fraser back to the city. After a few years, he “got called from
Ladner Downs, and they wanted
someone to do solely council work,
which is what I’d been hoping to
do. By then, I was married and it
was a great opportunity and I stayed
with them for 10 years, became a
partner and then I got elected in
1972, and it was 21 years in the
House of Commons.”
Fraser held various ministerial positions during his time in government, and he was Speaker of the
House for many years. He was
made an officer of the Order of
Canada in 1995, and received the
Vimy Award, which recognizes
Canadians who have “made a significant and outstanding contribution to the defence and security of
our nation and the preservation of
our democratic values,” in 2002. He
also has been honored by the Jewish community on more than one
occasion, including by the JNF and
by Canadian Jewish Congress. He
still has the certificate from CJC Pacific Region that he received for his
“extraordinary efforts and commitment to the cause of Soviet Jewry
and human rights.”
Fraser has been married to his
wife, Catherine, for 53 years, and
they have “three magnificent
daughters and seven granddaughters.” In addition to his career pursuits, Fraser played first division
rugby until he was 35, having also
played football and soccer in high
school; and he and his wife are
both longtime skiers. Unfortunately, the couple hasn’t been on
mountain lately, as his wife recently
underwent a hip replacement.
When asked whether he’s always
been interested in politics, Fraser
said that although he was mischievous and aggressive when he was
young, he always had a lot of
friends; he likes people. “By the
time I was in Grade 7,” he recalled,
“the teachers were putting me up
in front of a thousand kids in the
auditorium, this was at Point Grey
Junior High School. I used to have
to make speeches, introduce visitors and this sort of thing. At first, I
didn’t like this, but after awhile I got
to realize that I was getting an opportunity a lot of kids never would
get at that age. And one thing led
to another, and so I started to get
elected to things in high school. By
Grade 12, I got talked into going
into an oratorical contest and I won
it. And I was involved in student
elections from then on. By the time
it was my third year of university,
I joined the Conservative party because I got talked into going to a
mock Parliament and I sat with the
Conservatives. Interestingly enough,
the issue was whether or not we
should have an armed brigade in
Europe and, of course, I took the
position we should have and then
... a couple of years later, I was serving in it.”
Fraser’s “ambition was to become a good enough courtroom
lawyer so that even the Liberals,
who I assumed would always be
in power, would have to appoint
me to the bench.” When he shared
his objectives of working for a top
Please see FRASER on page 21
FRASER from page 14
COURTESY OF CAMP MIRIAM
For the last several years, John Fraser has visited Camp Miriam every summer.
Both of his parents were Christian and he was raised at St. Mary’s
Anglican Church. “I don’t remember
ever any critical tirades or even commentary against Roman Catholics or
Jews or Chinese or Japanese or anybody,” said Fraser, praising the
church’s priest at the time, Dudley
Kemp. In addition, said Fraser, he
was taught right from wrong. “If I
had told my mother when I did
something wrong, or my father, that,
well, it’s all relative, I’d have gone to
the woodshed,” he half-joked. “So,
when you ask me, well, how I did
I get involved in all of this, I really
think I’m being accurate in going
back into my early days growing up
and the influence of my parents. And
Larry and I were great pals and we
did a lot of things together, and, of
course, we talked about everything.”
Sharing a story of his parents’
kindness to Estrin’s family, Fraser
summed it up, “All these things,
they form you and you emulate to
some degree – hopefully, the best
degree – the better characteristics
of your mother and father.” He
linked this concept to his belief in
the creation of a Jewish state in Middle East, though he admitted to being angry about the terrorist acts,
such as the hanging of a British soldier and the bombing of the King
David Hotel, that preceded Israel’s
formation. Given all that the Jewish
people had gone through, “It was
not only right, but it was time for
the United Nations to form an Israeli state, so I was for it right from
the start.”
Fraser’s involvement with the local Jewish community grew from
there, he said. About Camp Miriam
specifically, he explained that he was
aware of its existence when Bernie
Simpson called him after Judge Angelo Branca – who had been chair
of a mixed (Jewish and non-Jewish)
committee helping raise money for
Camp Miriam since the late 1960s –
died in 1984. Simpson had already
been involved for years and related
to Fraser that he had been to visit
Branca just before he passed away.
In that encounter, Simpson asked
Branca for suggestions as to who
could take over as chair of the finance committee, and Branca said,
“See if you can get John Fraser. And,
to me, that was a great compliment,
coming from Branca.”
Fraser is still very much involved.
In addition to his committee work,
he’s been visiting the camp every
summer for the last several years.
He tries to mingle with all of the
campers, as well as meet with the
older kids for a more in-depth talk,
in which he shares with them his
reasons for being involved with the
camp, his experiences growing up
and his trips and continuing commitment to Israel. Among other
things, he said, he advises the
campers, “Don’t take anything for
granted. You can’t assume everything’s going to be alright.” Sharing
a story about an exchange with his
father, Fraser said he encourages
the campers to be skeptics, to be
critical of what is going on around
them and to be active in the world,
but to try and not become cynical,
to not give up.
Looking to the future, Fraser told
the Independent, “Well, this probably isn’t the time to go into all the
bookkeeping, except to say this:
we’re not in debt. But we’re having
a more and more difficult time raising sufficient funds to not only keep
the camp going but also to do what
we’ve had to do the last couple of
years: rebuild, and build some new
things on the campgrounds. Now,
why are we concerned about the financial future? Well, the reason is
that, when Judge Angelo Branca
took over ... the camp was very run
down, there was even danger of it
closing, and he was able to put together a number of people who put
up enough money to tidy the place
up and get it going again, and to
save it. And some of those people,
for many years, were very significant donors, and I won’t get into
names now because the minute you
say some names, you’ve left somebody out. But what we’re faced with
now is that we’ve got fewer of those
people because some of them have
passed on and their families, for
whatever reason, may not be in the
same position to be helpful, so
we’ve got to find a wider number
of contributors to the camp. And we
have to find and maintain some, of
course, significant contributors and,
when I say that, I think I can mention that, for instance, Joe Segal has
been a longtime, and continues to
be a longtime, supporter, and Sam
Belzberg and the Dayson Foundation, and I could go on and on, but
there are fewer of those [people]
than there used to be. So, we’ve got
a big job to do.
“The other thing, too, is this,” he
continued. “From a total number of
campers during the period that the
camp is open of about 300, the
number of camperships is now at
105, and it is going up ... and the
Jewish Family Service Agency is asking us to take more and more
young people. So, all of this is
a challenge.”
Fraser added, “I’m 81 and I’m
very lucky to be as active and alert
as I am, but there will come a time
when we’re going to have to look
at the leadership of the finance committee and, while I can undoubtedly continue to be useful, there will
come a time when we’ve got to
consider bringing other people in.
That’s not something we have to do
in the next six weeks or anything,
but it’s something you always have
to consider in any organization and,
of course, I’m conscious of it.”
He concluded, “What I want
people to do is to remember why
Camp Miriam got started.... I got involved in this because I wanted
Jewish kids to be able to go somewhere every summer and be absolutely confident in being Jewish,
[and] that also is part of the purpose
of Camp Miriam. Part of the purpose in the early years also was to
make sure that Jewish kids fully understood and recognized the importance of their own Jewishness,
their history and the evolution of
the state of Israel. All of those things
are just as valid today as they were
then, and Camp Miriam is a way of
continuing that in a very positive
way. And the last thing I’ll say is
this, I’m not for one minute thinking of all these young people as being just Jewish. I’m a patriotic,
intensely Canadian person, and I
know that these people are very,
very important to our country because they’re going to have to be
looking after our country for us,
those are tomorrow’s influential
Canadians, so this is a very Canadian venture.”
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JEW SH INDEPENDENT • NOVEMBER 1, 2013
law firm and going into public life
with his father, who was “sort of a
Liberal,” said Fraser, his father offered his support, “as long as what
you’re doing is honorable,” but
pointed out that Fraser had “picked
the most difficult route to get either
of those objectives.”
Growing up on Quilchena Crescent, Fraser was close friends – and
still keeps in touch – with Larry Estrin. “He lived about three doors
away from me, and he and I were
born on exactly the same day, we’re
the same age,” explained Fraser. At
Prince of Wales High School, there
were several Jewish students, “I
knew them and I spent time with
them,” said Fraser. “I grew up with
Jewish kids.... Lots of non-Jewish
kids knew Jewish kids, but they didn’t grow up with them, they weren’t
in and out of their homes.” He clarified, “It was two very disparate
groups of people. Now, that doesn’t mean that there was active hostility or active resentment or
nastiness or anything, it’s just that
that’s the way it was. And, in addition to that, while my wife says that
the antisemitism in Vancouver was
never what it was like in Montreal –
she did her nursing there – it was
certainly in existence, and I started
to notice it. I probably started to notice it especially after I was spending as much time as I was in doing
all kinds of things with Larry and
with other Jewish kids.... I didn’t
have any illusions about the number of ways in which a Jewish kid
growing up in Vancouver in the forties would know perfectly well that
he or she was Jewish and there were
things that he or she was not really
going to be able to join in. For instance, no Jew could join the
Quilchena Golf Club, there were no
Jews in the Vancouver Club, there
were anti-Jewish caveats on properties, in other words, you couldn’t
sell to a Jew, and there was quite
open, if not malicious, antisemitism.”
By the time he was 12 or 13,
Fraser said he was well aware of antisemitism, more so than others perhaps because he was born in Japan.
When the Japanese were interned
here during the war, he explained,
“My father, of course, said this is absolutely wrong.... This is what I was
hearing. So, I grew up very conscious of what prejudice is.” Even
without the war, he added, “there
was plenty of prejudice against Chinese and Japanese” and, after the
war Canada was sending Japanese
who had been born here “back” to
Japan. “I was influenced by all this,”
said Fraser.
Later in his conversation with the
Independent, Fraser gave other examples of how he has acted upon
his beliefs, noting, for example, how
he wouldn’t join a fraternity because
he couldn’t, given his “strong Christian beliefs, believe in joining a fraternity that refuses to accept people
who aren’t white Christians. I just
won’t go along with it on a university campus or anywhere else.” He
said he refused to join the Vancouver Club for the same reason.
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