Passion and Conviction: The Letters of Graham Spry

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and author of
War and Peacekeeping and For Better or For Worse.

Graham Spry was a public interest lobbyist who is considered to have
been one of the founders of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. With
a few friends well-placed in all parties in the early 1930s, he created
the groundswell of public support that led to the CBC’s creation.
Better the state than the States, people said, indicating their
(perennial) fear that the American media would swamp the Canadian.
Spry’s subsequent career—running a CCF newspaper, as an oil company
executive, and as Saskatchewan agent-general in London—never quite
lived up to expectations, but certainly he was a fascinating,
influential figure. Regrettably, he has not been well served in this
book, which is simply a collection of snippets, most undated, from his
correspondence. Spry merits a full-scale biography, but this is not it.