May 29, 2016 - 12:47 PM
TORONTO - Canadian journalist Carl Mollins has died at the age of 84.
Mollins' daughter, Julie Mollins, says her father died Saturday night in hospital of injuries suffered in a fall on his daily walk along Toronto's lakeshore.
"Over the last five years or so, he would go every day down to the lake shore ... and have a cappuccino and then he'd walk along the lakefront," she said.
Born in Windsor, N.S., on June 25, 1931, Mollins started his professional career in journalism in 1955 as assistant to the editor at Westminster press in London.
He also worked for Reuters before joining The Canadian Press as London correspondent in 1965. Mollins worked in various capacities at The Canadian Press until 1984.
Mollins then moved to Maclean's where he held a number of positions and was author/editor of "Maclean's Canada's Century in 1999.
Throughout his career, Mollins served as an editor and correspondent throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, China, Latin America as well as all regions of the United States, Canada and the Arctic.
Julie Mollins said her father — while assistant bureau chief in Ottawa — confronted Pierre Trudeau after the then-prime minister had publicly called a story by Canadian Press reporter Michael Lavoie "pure fiction."
"My father confronted Trudeau, they were in the elevator or something in the Parliament buildings ... and my father said 'you should apologize publicly not privately because this embarrassed Canadian Press,' and Trudeau grabbed his lapel and they had words over that," she said.
Trudeau later retracted his statement in private, she said.
Mollins is survived by his wife Joan (nee Levett), daughters Tracey and Julie, sister Sybil Ahearne, and sister-in-law Bettie Mollins.
News from © The Canadian Press, 2016