Get Real: Goodbye to a worthy adversary and good friend

Kincardine deputy mayor Marie Wilson has died.

That was the headline I had to write yesterday and I struggled with the whole story.

I've known Marie since I moved to Kincardine in 1995. At that point, she was a reporter for the Kincardine News and I was a reporter at the Kincardine Independent – the two competing weekly newspapers in town.

We covered the same events, particularly weekly council meetings, and it was supposed to be in our very nature to dislike each other. But we didn't. I may have disparaged the company she worked for, given that it was the competition, but it was tough to dislike her.

She was very professional when we arrived at the same event, taking her own photos rather than mimicking mine. She was a good writer, if somewhat flamboyant, using five words when one would do.

Eventually, she became editor of the Kincardine News, but continued to cover council. After amalgamation in 1999, we ended up at some horribly-lengthy Municipality of Kincardine council meetings, and as people who have a shared experience (particularly a traumatic one), we became friends.

In fact, because the council meetings were not only lengthy but dreadfully boring, we often sat and had a good conversation at the press table, waiting for something at the council meeting to spark our interest.

I remember at one meeting, we were having such a good chat, and my voice tends to carry, that we didn't realize the council meeting had actually stopped while Gordon Jarrell, mayor at the time, glared at us (in his most “principal-like” fashion), waiting for us to stop. I looked him in the eye, and said, “What?”

While Marie loved being a journalist, the pay wasn't much, so she went to the “dark side” and became a public relations manager for Ontario Power Generation (OPG). She was good at that job, and many of her media friends appreciated that she knew how to draft a proper press release so we didn't have to spend hours turning it into proper language for the masses to understand.

She was so proud of being handed the communications portfolio for OPG's proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR) for low- and medium-level nuclear waste. She took the show on the road with the DGR trailer, showing up at numerous events, including fall fairs, encouraging people to learn more about the project, and handing out free pens and bouncy balls that lit up.

I remember when the Joint Review Panel brought its hearings to Kincardine in 2013 and 2014. Marie asked me to write a letter to the panel, outlining the extensive information that had been presented to the public. It was an easy letter to write because it was true – there were so many open houses and press conferences, and mobile trailer presentations, that anyone who tried to say he didn't know about the project was either not living here at the time or was living in a cave and not paying attention.

In the end, it didn't matter. While the panel made its decision in 2015 that the DGR should proceed, the federal government tossed that hot potato around for far too long, and the Saugeen First Nation voted it down, so the process has to begin all over again.

In the meantime, Marie had shifted gears and gone to work for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO) which had just launched its own DGR proposal for used nuclear fuel. It was a good fit, given her knowledge and experience with the process.

Two years ago, she retired from the NWMO and decided to run for Kincardine council. She certainly had the knowledge and experience for that job and I was thrilled when she received so many votes, she was named deputy mayor. Finally, one of us at the council table, to make sense of all that nonsense!

After the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic hit in mid-March, council closed the municipal office and council chamber, and at the end of March began holding meetings via telephone-conferencing. It wasn't until May that the municipality began holding Zoom meetings at which you could see the members of council on the computer screen.

I noticed Marie looked different, especially her hair. I thought I would just send her an E-mail and say, “Wow, what's with the new hairdo?” Then, a mutual friend contacted me and asked whether I knew if Marie was okay because she looked unwell on the Zoom meeting.

So, I contacted her and was completely floored when she told me she was battling cancer but didn't want to make a public announcement because she didn't want it to define her. In fact, she had been diagnosed back before the 2018 election but managed to fight it off.

Just before Christmas last year, the cancer returned and she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment which meant the loss of her hair, so she was wearing a wig – hence, the different hairstyle.

May 25, we got together for lunch at her home in Tiverton. She looked great in her soft-flowing, flowery summer dress and head-covering. We talked about her hope that the final chemotherapy treatment in June would put the cancer into remission. We talked about the past, the present and her future as a solid member on Kincardine council. We talked about her family and mine, about her grandchildren, my daughter's wedding, my youngest getting married, and so much more.

That was the last time I saw her in person. I continued to see her on the computer screen at the council Zoom meetings. In fact, she chaired the Sept. 21 meeting in the absence of the mayor.

And now, she's gone.

Goodbye, Marie, a worthy adversary and good friend.

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