CBC journalist and three-time Gemini award winner Joe Schlesinger was the distinguished and highly coveted presenter chosen for the 31st annual Watts lecture at the University of Toronto at Scarborough campus on Nov. 5. Schlesinger, in the words of Professor Susan Solomon, is “Canada’s most distinguished foreign correspondent.” He currently co-hosts a show on CBC’s Newsworld entitled “Foreign Assignment,” and he’s also the author of the best-selling book Time Zones.

Solomon said that once the decision was made to obtain a journalist as the presenter of the 31st annual Watts lecture, Schlesinger was “at the top of everyone’s list.” The annual lecture is in the memory of F.B. Watts, a former geography professor at UTSC. The intent of these lectures is to “bring distinguished individuals from all walks of life to speak to the community,” Professor Solomon noted in her introductory speech.

Schlesinger’s highly anticipated speech, “Winning Wars…Losing Peace,” was littered with his own personal experience of war from childhood and his diverse journalistic career. He said himself, “we journalists are notorious for describing things in anecdotal terms.” As Solomon said, Schlesinger chose to become a journalist because “journalism affords him a rare opportunity to learn.”

Having been a Jew in Nazi Europe, he is a survivor of Hitler’s terror, and his experience is what makes him uniquely qualified to be a foreign affairs specialist, as well as a sought-after speaker on these topics. His lecture included World War II and the Cold War, of which he said that “peace is not just the absence of war, but the beginning of a new life. [The Cold War] made a wasteland and called it peace [and I] spent much of my career wandering through it.” During his career he has covered wars in Vietnam, wars between India and Pakistan, and the Gulf War. On this he proclaimed “I am, if you will, my own guinea pig.”

Over and above his outstanding talent for public speaking, Schlesinger presented to the audience some rather controversial points of view on the current war in Iraq. During the question and answer session he addressed issues concerning the UN, the United States situation in Iraq, and the Canadian role in peace keeping.

Parts of the lecture will be aired Thursday Nov. 13 at noon on 89.5 CIUT, thanks to students from UTSC’s journalism program.