Doug Ward inducted into Order of Canada for contribution to radio, food security

A former regional director of the CBC Northern Service has been honoured with the Order of Canada for his contribution to radio broadcasting and food security in developing countries.

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Doug Ward oversaw the former Northern Service, now CBC North, for 10 years, and transformed radio in the North by putting aboriginal hosts and reporters on the air.

Radio stations in the North were previously volunteer stations for the Canadian Armed Forces, Ward said from his home in Ottawa.

"They were mainly southerners talking to southerners who were living in the North."

Ward said there was a slow evolution bringing in aboriginal hosts, but most were doing light programs, not real journalistic work.

"The challenge was to provide good, sound journalistic training for young native broadcasters, whether they were Dene or Inuk or whatever."

Ward said the transition went quite well, which was apparent during the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline hearings.

"Golly, those hearings were broadcast in Loucheux [Gwich'in], Slavey, Hairskin [North Slavey], Chipewyan, Dogrib, there was a lot of native language getting on air."

Northern radio meets farm radio

Ward is now the chair of Farm Radio International, a Canadian-based non-profit that helps African broadcasters share knowledge with small-scale farmers and farm communities.

"We work with existing rural radio stations, radio stations that help farmers to have the information they need to farm better and produce more nutritious food for their families, and to make money to sell things at the market," Ward said.

"We provide them with research about all kinds of farming issues and we also train them, just like we did in northern Canada, training them to be better journalists, training them to help farmers have a voice in development so they're not just the victims of development that's swirling around them."

Ward said, much like in the North, almost all of the 400 million people living in rural Africa haveaccess to radio. Many farmers also have cell phones, so Ward said they can call in to radio programs with a question, then an agricultural expert can weigh-in, and everybody in the area gets that information.

"There's nothing like radio for the penetration, and radio plus the cell phone is just like a miracle," Ward said.

"Using radio to help people speak their voice, and to name the issues and to talk about things that was such a big thing during the Berger inquiries and such a huge thing as the North developed and as local government developed throughout the North," he said."And the same thing is happening in Africa."

Ward is one of 69 people who was recently honoured with the Order of Canada.