VANCOUVER — Simma Holt, a journalist, author and former member of the House of Commons, died in Vancouver on Friday at the age of 92.
Holt, the sixth of eight children, was born as Simma Milner in Vegreville, Alta., attended the University of Manitoba, and joined the Vancouver Sun in 1944, where she worked for 30 years as a reporter, feature writer and columnist.
In 1949 she married Vancouver teacher Leon Holt, and they remained married until his death in 1985.
Holt, one of several female journalists who stormed the then-male bastion of newspapers, was elected to the House of Commons in 1974 as the Liberal candidate for Vancouver Kingsway, but was defeated in 1979.
She was the first Jewish woman elected to Parliament.
Holt gained a reputation as a tough reporter when she covered the traditionally male waterfront and crime beats. But she was also known as having a soft heart, and her interest in forgotten and abused children led to numerous stories.
“My father once said that because I had no children, the children of the world must be mine,” said Holt in 1996. “So when I saw kids who had no future and lived in a Tobacco Road atmosphere in the middle of nowhere and nobody cared, I had to write about it.”
In 1996, Holt — who also served a four-year term on the National Parole Board — was inducted into the Order of Canada, which recognizes “outstanding achievement and service in various fields of human endeavours.”
“I always wanted to help people,” said Holt at the time. “You can't change the whole world, but you can change one person at a time.”
She joked that the timing of awards like the Order of Canada disturbed her. “I think they think you’re going to die,” she laughed. “But I’m going to fool them and be around and be obnoxious for another 30 to 40 years.”
Holt campaigned for women’s rights, but struggled in the early days of her career as one of few women in a newsroom full of men. “It was harder for a woman, but it made you work twice as hard.”
In 1996, Holt was also inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame — the first female journalist in B.C. to receive the distinction.
Holt wrote several books: Terror in the Name of God: The Story of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors (1964), a history of the Doukhobors in B.C.; Sex and the Teen Age Revolution (1967), a study of the problems faced by young people especially in foster homes and the correctional system; The Devil’s Butler (1972), about the drug explosion and the hippy scene and the depravities and murders committed by the Satan’s Angels motorcycle gang; The Other Mrs. Diefenbaker (1982), a biography on Edna Diefenbaker; and Memoirs of a Loose Cannon (2008), a personal memoir.
“She was fearless,” recalled former B.C. Supreme Court Justice Nancy Morrison, who became a longtime friend of Holt’s after meeting her in 1970.
“She was a friend for any underdog and that’s why I called her ‘the court of last resort.’ ”
Morrison recalled Holt, as a court reporter, taking up the cause of prostitutes at a time when few reporters would.
She referred to Holt as a “crusading investigative journalist who was afraid of no one.”
Frances Litman, a Victoria photographer, said she was 40 when she met her aunt and the two became close quickly.
Litman said she admired Holt’s spirit. “She had a lot of fire in her. She really inspired me right to the very end.”
— With file from Times Colonist
