Simma HOLT

HOLT, Simma O.C.
March 27, 1922 - January 23, 2015
When pioneering journalist and former Member of Parliament Simma Holt wrote her autobiography, it was published with the title "Memoirs of a Loose Cannon." Some might object to being described in those terms, but Simma revelled in the characterization. After 92 years, that cannon fell silent on January 23, 2015. It is not yet clear if her tombstone will bear the epitaph she once suggested for herself: "Silent at Last."
Born Simma Milner in Vegreville, Alberta, the sixth of eight children, Simma graduated from the University of Manitoba. That is where she began her journalism career on the student newspaper and as a stringer for the Winnipeg Free Press. In 1944, she began her legendary three-decade career at the Vancouver Sun.
At a time when most female journalists were confined to the society and fashion pages, Simma covered the police, courts and waterfront beats, among others. She became a friend of policemen, firemen, prominent lawyers and a few accused and/or convicted criminals. Her forceful articles may even have saved some of the latter from the gallows. She wrote passionately about those she believed to have been wrongly convicted, long before that became a high profile issue in the justice system.
In the early 1960s Simma covered the conflict between the government and the Sons of Freedom Doukhobor sect in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. That work led to her first book, "Terror in the Name of God", published in 1964. Her later non-fiction books included "Sex and the Teenage Revolution "(1967), "The Devil's Butler "(1972), "The Other Mrs. Diefenbaker "(1982) and "Memoirs of a Loose Cannon" (2008).
While working at the Sun, she was an active member of the Newspaper Guild, which represented editorial employees at the time. In 1972 Simma was a delegate to the Guild's first international Conference on Women in Journalism.
From 1974 to 1979, she served as Liberal MP for Vancouver- Kingsway. She was the first Jewish woman ever elected to Parliament. In Ottawa she paid particular attention to justice issues, serving on the Justice and Legal Affairs Standing Committee, the Sub-Committee on Penitentiary Violence, and the Health and Welfare Committee. Characteristically, she was less respectful of party discipline than was expected of most government backbenchers. She later served on the National Parole Board and, later still, continued to be a passionate campaigner for the causes that attracted her. These included the plight of "leaky condo" owners (of which she was one) and the rights of the Falun Gong.
In 1996, she was awarded the Order of Canada. The citation praised her "lifetime commitment to assisting those suffering from injustice, persecution and poverty" and said that her "perceptive and impassioned writings have contributed to positive social change by raising public awareness of injustices in society."
Her passion for issues and causes extended to individuals. In her eyes, those she liked and admired could do no wrong and she could not do enough for them. Those she disliked or disapproved of had an implacable foe. Through it all, her self-deprecating sense of humour never failed her.
Simma was predeceased by her beloved husband Leon Holt, her parents Louis and Nassa Milner, siblings Hannah Smith, Miriam, Morty, Leo, Arthur and Macey Milner and her friend Erika Roesner. She is survived by her brother Earl Milner, of Edmonton. The surviving nieces, nephews and cousins are too numerous to list, but she was particularly close to nieces Leah Milner (Rene Desmarais) , Frances Litman and Donna Digance (Leonard) ; nephew Nathan Smith (Linda Wong); grandnephews Jason Smith and Avrom Digance; grandniece Jacqueline Smith; cousins Norman Fages (Fay), Beryl Woodrow (Larry Wolfson) and Betty Law, the widow of her brother Macey. She also leaves friends across Canada and around the world, including Nancy Morrison, Kay Alsop, Laverne Barnes, Louise Whittaker, Paul Scizek, Bob Sung, Shaun Cathcart, Wolfgang Roesner, and her "family" at Seton Villa.
Thank you to Drs. Kerry Savage, Monte Glanzberg, Paton, Doersam, Parson, Durham and Yeomans, the staff at Seton Villa in Burnaby and the staff of the VGH palliative care unit for making Simma's journey with lymphoma more bearable.
Services will be held at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery, 2345 Marine Drive 201, New Westminster at 2 p.m. on Sunday, January 25, 2015. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the BC Cancer Foundation, with the request that the donation go to the Centre for Lymphoid Cancers at the BC Cancer Agency.