2012.06.01 | CWA Canada Local 30213 | Canadian Media Guild
In Memory of Steve McLuskie
January 28, 1953 — May 20, 2012
How could a guy who was so opinionated and took such great delight in getting under your skin be so damn loveable?
For a lot of people, that pretty well sums up their relationship with Steve McLuskie.
Steve was never afraid to give you his opinion, whether it was to rail against politicians, complain about the state of journalism or dismiss your taste in literature. No wonder most of his friends called him McCrusty.
But for all that, you couldn't get mad at the guy. It was obvious that beneath that grumbly exterior there was a warm and caring human being. Maybe it was the ready smile, the sly sideways glance or the Down-East folksiness. But people rarely minded listening to Steve holding forth on whatever entered his head. They expected it and even enjoyed debating with him. It was part of who he was.
Steven W. McLuskie died Sunday, May 20, after a shockingly brief illness.
McCrusty was a journalist for more than 20 years, working in print, radio and — as most of us got to know him — in TV news at CBC in Toronto. But he was also an academic. After years in the journalism business, he worked part-time on university courses, winning scholarships and earning a Masters Degree in Asia-Pacific Studies at the University of Toronto in 2007.
That field of study came naturally to Steve. He had a real passion for Southeast Asia (not to mention Southeast Asian women) and he went there often.
For Steve, travel was rarely tourism. He made it into an adventure. One time he discovered that Nuon Chea, Pol Pot's right-hand man in the Khmer Rouge, was living quietly just outside Pailin in northern Cambodia. Nuon Chea is a dangerous man; one of the worst mass murderers in modern history. So of course Steve decided to go talk to him. The attempted interview ended with Steve, his driver and interpreter being chased by men with guns.
He also travelled widely in Europe and Africa and took the climb up Mount Kilimanjaro, getting frustratingly close to the top before illness forced him back down.
Aside from being a great journalist, Steve was also a mentor, using his characteristic blunt style to help young journalists improve their craft. He believed journalists should know history and he enjoyed demanding that young writers tell him the names of the last six Canadian prime ministers — without looking on Google.
But for a guy who spent so much time grumbling about the world, he never complained about his own situation. When he began having trouble with his legs in late 2011, almost no one knew what was really happening — that he was fatally ill.
Even in his final week, lying in a hospital bed with a respirator doing the breathing for him, he was still Steve, waving his hands in frustration at the latest bone-headed move by the government, hungry for newsroom gossip and tossing good-natured barbs at those who came to visit.
The fact that there were so many visitors says something about how we felt. At times you practically had to take a number to get into the little room where he spent the last days of his life.
Journalist, tennis player, traveller and story teller; McLuskie was all those things and something more: friend. We'll miss him.