1983

Rating: NNNNN

From the day it opens on June 15, 1983, the Morgentaler Clinic on Harbord – the province’s first freestanding abortion clinic – is besieged by anti-choice protestors. Then comes the raid. Police arrest Henry Morgentaler, and in the weeks ahead NOW joins thousands of his supporters who swarm the streets outside. But triumph doesn’t come until 1988 when the Supreme Court rules Canada’s abortion law denies women “security of the person.” Though the original site is firebombed in 1992, the clinic still functions at 727 Hillsdale.

they said

It is a crock of shit. It is something that they’re trying to force down people’s throats. – Jim McKenny, former Maple Leaf and Citytv sportscaster, on the proposed domed stadium

This is the first time in 10 years I have been vaguely impressed by our government. – Peace activist Len Desroches on Pierre Trudeau’s 11th-hour disarmament tour

It’s dangerous music, penis rock. It’s just what the government wants kids to listen to. They don’t want kids listening to anything intelligent, because people might start getting ideas and people might start thinking about dislodging the people up top. – Men Without Hats’ Ivan Doroschuk, talking about heavy metal

I’m sure there’s a theory about self-destructive people in psychopathology, but I don’t feel qualified to discuss it. I think extraordinarily gifted people can hit the top and there’s no more, so they have to poke through the ceiling. That can take a destructive form. – Dan Aykroyd on the drug spiral and death of Blues Brother John Belushi

“I might be a better human being or I might have different visions or clearer feelings, but as a poet, I feel that I was just as talented at 19 as I am now and I hope to be when I’m 88.” – poet Robert Priest

“I’ve never lost myself in the business because I’ve never tried to find myself.” – singer Joan Armatrading

“Getting a hit is not so hard as keeping a hit. I had to sit down and do some soul-searching and I asked myself, if I never got another hit record in my life what would I do? And I said, ‘I would try to get another hit record. ‘” – Nile Rodgers on Chic and Le Freak

we said

“It shouldn’t be surprising to find lyrics on this album that make the Clash sound like Joe Clark.” – about Bruce Cockburn’s socially relevant The Trouble With Normal LP

“A true rarity, it’s a film that looks like a teen sex comedy that an adult can see without feeling as if brain cancer were imminent.” – about Risky Business

“The only problem with a greatest hits collection from one of America’s most valuable national resources is which hits to include.” – about Hall & Oates’s Rock N Soul Part I

“As Tony Montana, he has mastered the Cuban accent.” – about Al Pacino in Scarface

“The album is soaked in implicit violence – some of it explicitly stated.” – about the Rolling Stones’ Undercover LP

“They possess a degree of sophistication in composition and harmony that you don’t often find in such a young band.” – about DeBarge

“He can never leave well enough alone, strategically peppering some of the finest jazz/rock fusion going with his famous gross-out absurdist pop-culture prose poetry pieces, more or less forcing his warped world view down your throat.” – about Frank Zappa’s The Man From Utopia

“One endures the unfunny comedy, the unromantic romance and the unsexy sex in the hopes that something will blow up in a way you’ve never seen, or that a memorable villain will utter some great evil line.” – about James Bond movies

“Typed or handwritten or doodled or any combination of the above, fanzines take punk credo beyond haircuts.” – about the rise of the fanzine

Top 10 movies

Videodrome

Fanny And Alexander

Coup De Torchon

Zelig

Carmen

Scarface

Danton

The Draughtsman’s Contract

Star 80

Au Clair De La Lune

Top 10 albums

Talking Heads Speaking In Tongues

Heaven 17 The Luxury Gap

Michael Jackson Thriller

Bruce Cockburn The Trouble With Normal

David Bowie Let’s Dance

U2 War

The Parachute Club The Parachute Club

Elvis Costello Punch The Clock

Tears for Fears The Hurting

Gang of Four Hard

Design of the Times

In This Year

JANUARY

The metric system is introduced.

FEBRUARY

Oh, give me a dome: a feasibility study recommends Toronto build a $150-million domed stadium.

Pierre Trudeau announces he’s retiring once there’s a replacement for him. Guess you could say John Turner is a replacement.

President Ronald Reagan proclaims 1983 the Year of the Bible.

M*A*S*H ends its 11-year, 251-episode prime-time run without proving either way whether suicide is painless.

JUNE

Ronald Reagan calls the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Irony makes repeated attempts to contact the president but fails.

Morgentaler Abortion Clinic opens on Harbord.

Brian Mulroney replaces Joe Clark, paving the way for Ben Mulroney to become a household name.

Folksinger Stan Rogers is among the 23 passengers killed when a fire breaks out on an Air Canada flight, forcing an emergency landing in Cincinnati.

The basements in 1,600 Toronto and area buildings are evaluated for potential use as bomb shelters.

The Swatch watch hits stores.

Ship-breaking begins on the beach at Alang in Gujarat.

JULY

Gimli Glider: an Air Canada Boeing 767 runs out of fuel midway between Montreal and Edmonton and is forced to glide to a landing in Gimli, Manitoba.

SEPTEMBER

Soviet jets shoot down Korean Air flight 007, killing all 269 people on board.

OCTOBER

A Regent Park committee against police harrassment charges that the area’s black youth are victims of racist insults, excessive surveillance and beatings by police.

Hooters opens first restaurant in Clearwater, Florida, and everyone swears they come for the food. Honest.

NOVEMBER

Martin Luther King Day is declared a U.S. national holiday.