Rev. David Mainse, 81, on Sept. 25 after a five-year battle with leukemia. Mainse was the founder of Crossroads Christian Communications Inc., which started in 1962 as a weekly black-and-white, 15-minute broadcast that aired after the nightly news on a small Pembroke, ON TV station. It was Mainse’s vision, motivated by a desire to see Christian programming in primetime, and his team’s arguments before the CRTC in the early 1980s, that led the regulator to amend the Broadcasting Act and call for applications for religious channels. Mainse subsequently founded YES TV (formerly CTS), with television stations in Burlington, Calgary and Edmonton. Crossroads went on to launch numerous spinoff ministries, including the Circle Square Ranch children’s camps. Mainse stepped down as CEO of Crossroads and host of 100 Huntley Street in the summer of 2003.
Johnny Burke, 77, Sept. 21, of cancer. Best known for his time as band leader on CTV’s Funny Farm in the late 1970s, Bourke was born in Rosaireville, N.B. and got his start playing Maritime kitchen parties. He left for Toronto as a teen in the early 1960s, playing in various bands, including the Caribou Showband, which was later named Johnny Burke and the Eastwind. They played on a variety of TV shows and went on to play for acts like Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Waylon Jennings and Glen Campbell as the Funny Farm house band. Burke’s biggest hit was 1978’s Wild Honey. In 2005, he was inducted to the New Brunswick Country Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012.
Thelma Chalifoux, 88, on Sept. 22 in Alberta. After leaving an abusive marriage in the 1950s, Chalifoux went back to school to study sociology at Lethbridge Community College and construction estimating at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, while working to support her seven children. She began working in community development and was offered a job by the Métis Association of Alberta, later serving as chairwoman of the Métis National Council Senate and vice-president of the Aboriginal Women’s Business Development Corporation. She was the first Métis woman on the Senate of the University of Alberta. Along the way, she also became the first full-time Métis woman staff announcer, producer and host of a weekly show on CKYL Radio Peace River; and was co-producer of Our Native Heritage series on Allarcom (ITV). Chalifoux was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1997 and served until her retirement at age 75 in 2004. Among other accolades, she received a National Aboriginal Achievement Award in 1994.
Carl Newton, Sept. 15, at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Newton founded Newton Cable in the 1960s, originally known as Willowdowns Cable, which served North Toronto. The business was sold to Rogers in 1992.
