The highest honour the City of Prince George can bestow on an individual is the Freedom of the City. Most of the freemen appointed over the years, including Don Bassermann last month, have been long-serving mayors and city councillors.
Yet if there was ever one man in Prince George's 100 years who was truly free and behaved like a free man, that would have been Ben Meisner.
On the radio, in the Citizen and on his website, Meisner spoke freely, on all topics. His opinion was his own and he put it forth passionately, with no regard for who it upset. He slammed politicians who didn't deliver, he deplored wasteful spending and he always stood up for this city, this region and its residents, especially when he felt they were getting hosed by Victoria, Ottawa, the gas companies or anybody else.
He drove mayors, premiers, city councillors and prominent business leaders bonkers. They called and wrote letters, insisting Meisner had it all wrong, that Meisner was being unfair, that Meisner was loose with the facts and didn't have the whole story. They would threaten to stop listening, stop going on his show, stop reading his column and stop returning his phone calls but it made no difference. They still kept listening and reading because his views meant something and mattered a great deal to a great deal of people. When the man had something to say, he said it and let the chips fall where they may.
He wasn't always right but he always cared.
He wasn't always fair but he was always heard.
He lost a libel suit brought against him by former NDP MLA and cabinet minister Paul Ramsey. More than a few other politicians over the years, on both sides of the spectrum, threatened to sue him, too, but he would not be intimidated, never mind silenced.
Meisner enjoyed the admiration and adoration of many. To his family and numerous friends and supporters, our sincere condolences.
Meisner was also despised and reviled by many others, both for his strident views and for the cantankerous, curmudgeonly style he used to express those views. To his detractors, our sincere hope you recognize and respect the broad community support he enjoyed. He didn't obtain that support by sitting on the fence. The phrase "on the other hand" was simply not part of his vocabulary.
Love him or hate him, everyone who knew Meisner and his work had an opinion of him.
He commanded both respect and notoriety, which he earned in equal measure. One of the feelings behind respect is fear and, in Meisner's case, more than a few people were respectful to him out of fear he would let them have it with both barrels in his next column.
I was not a fan of Meisner but I deeply respected both the man and his work. This is not an easy business but he engaged in it with all the energy and enthusiasm he could muster. He was a straight shooter but even when he missed, there was one consistent message to his listeners and readers that I always took to heart: there are wrongs in the world and we should never tolerate those wrongs or the individuals behind them.
I disagreed with Ben on many issues over the years and agreed with him on many more. I debated him, on the air and in print, about electoral boundaries and gas prices. He was polite and gracious but he gave no quarter and expected none in return.
His journalism strayed into activism too often for my liking but I understood why he did it. He understood the limits of words and realized that sometimes words needed to be supported by action to make things better for Prince George and its residents.
He was fearless in his views and his causes and he backed down for no one. For any journalist, and for any man, that is the highest praise and the sign of a career and a life pursued to the fullest.
But that's just this man's opinion.
