FAST Initiatives - Related Reading

August 6, 2005 (Toronto Star)

Beyond Kindness
By Janice Mawhinney

When Tony and Elizabeth Comper got married in 1971, there were a few complications because it was regarded as a mixed marriage.

It was 15 years before the Charter of Rights and Freedoms banned discrimination on the basis of gender, age, colour, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, and physical and mental disabilities.

Tony is Catholic and was temporarily living and working in Montreal. Elizabeth is Protestant and was teaching in an elementary school in Etobicoke.

"When my students found out I was marrying a Catholic, they wouldn't come to the wedding," Elizabeth says.

Because Elizabeth was not only a Protestant, but also lived in a different parish from her fiance and they wanted to get married there, "we needed special permission from the archbishop," Tony says.

Luckily, the two overcame obstacles and disapproval and set out together on a marriage that their friends say not only is extraordinarily close, but also appears to have become a force for good.

Tony, who started as an office messenger at a summer job with the Bank of Montreal, is chief executive of the bank after 37 years there. Elizabeth is the former chair of the Tarragon Theatre and active in Toronto's theatre community. The two recently made headlines by founding a group called Fighting AntiSemitism Together (FAST) and helping to raise more than $200,000 for that cause.

They also helped to found a residential centre for elderly Chinese Canadians and gave scholarships to aboriginal single mothers.

In a time when corporate leaders are widely perceived to be focused entirely on the bottom line and charities are complaining of donor fatigue, Tony and Elizabeth Comper have spent a lifetime working to boost the causes they believe in.

"They don't just give money, they give of themselves," says Rose Wolfe, former chancellor of the University of Toronto and a friend of the Compers for more than 10 years. "They go way beyond kindness. Tony does things from very pure motives. Elizabeth always gives 100 per cent of herself."

Leonard McHardy, who owns a bookstore called Theatre Books, is another friend who says he is struck by the Compers' qualities.

"They are both deep people and they feel things strongly," he observes. "It's a very generous, natural openness they each have. They are both genuine and authentic and they have a broad and true interest in helping people."

The Compers say they identify easily with others because they find the similarities among people to be more important than the differences.

Tony is 60 and Elizabeth will turn 60 in November. They see that some colleagues and friends want to get involved in social and artistic causes, but are preoccupied with family responsibilities. They say there are times in life when individuals can more easily find the time and energy to share with others.

"Young people need to devote themselves to their families," Elizabeth says. "There will be time for other things later. Everybody is doing the best that they can."

The key, she says, is discovering what issues and causes you truly believe in. "Find your cause and your passion," she urges. "Then follow it. You never know who you can reach. Every one of us can affect eternity."

The strength of the Compers' marriage gives power to the things they do together, observers suggest.

"It's a remarkable relationship," Wolfe says. "They are connected on a very deep level. They are the most devoted couple I know - very, very close to each other.

"And it just shows how opposites really do attract. Tony is very reserved and sometimes appears solemn. Elizabeth is social and bubbly and hasn't got a self-conscious bone in her body."

McHardy has noticed that they refer to each other all the time and that, besides having different socializing styles, they have many basic things in common.

"They're both inquisitive," he says. "They are always open to learning."

The openness may have begun with early life experiences, Tony speculates. He grew up in Leaside and says he learned much from his parents. "They were very enlightened and open-minded people."

Elizabeth says she was also raised by broad-minded parents. She believes, too, that she and Tony developed their approach to life, at least in part, by exposing themselves to many kinds of readings, people and experiences.

"Tony has always been inquisitive and curious and we were both big readers," she says.

They were introduced by a mutual friend while Tony was an English major at the University of Toronto, having considered and given up the idea of going into the priesthood. Elizabeth, who had grown up a comparatively sheltered environment in Etobicoke - "I never came downtown" - was teaching at Rosethorn Public School.

Elizabeth says she knew right away that Tony was the one. They dated for five years before their wedding, which took place "July 3, like all schoolteachers," Elizabeth notes. For a honeymoon, they immediately moved to Montreal, where Tony had already been living for a year, transferred there by the bank.

During their year apart, Tony says, he was staff assistant to a Jewish man who headed the computer department. He was effectively accepted into the man's family that year, gaining a lot of exposure to the Montreal Jewish community, which helped to broaden his outlook.

Tony's decision to move into the computer department from his position in the bank's personnel department was considered by most of his colleagues to be a step or two backwards.

"Everyone told him, 'Don't do it; it will be the end out your career,'" Elizabeth recalls.

But Tony thought computers had a future and went for it. He spent 10 years in the technology department and gained invaluable knowledge and experience.

By working for a bank, spending years in the computer section and involving himself deeply in the arts, Tony fulfilled the promise of a Grade 10 vocational test that found his highest scores to be computational, literary and mathematical.

The Compers lived in Montreal for 10 years. For part of that time, Elizabeth taught at a Hasidic academy for girls and found the experience highly satisfying, she says.

Tony was working long hours and Elizabeth worked towards her Concordia University degree at night school three evenings a week, after teaching all day. "I decided to do something for myself," she says. She then took an interest in children's literature and earned her master's degree in library science at McGill University.

When the couple moved back to Toronto in 1980, they were happy to find it had become a much more diverse city. They lived in London from 1984 to 1986 and developed a great love for theatre there, which they brought back to Toronto with them.

Tony worked in marketing and then ran the bank's computer operation in Toronto, becoming chief operating officer in 1989 and president in 1990. He set up a task force to find out why few women were in the bank's executive ranks and saw the female executives rise from 9 per cent to 34 per cent. He also launched initiatives to support the hiring of visible minorities, aboriginals and people with disabilities.

Elizabeth found causes that ignited her own passion. She embraced the Toronto theatre community, including working for 10 years on the board of the Tarragon Theatre, and she helped raise money to fund the first Yee Hong Centre for Geriatric Care, a non-profit senior care centre with special sensitivity to Chinese and South Asian cultures.

"Fifteen years ago, a Markham politician said there were too many Chinese moving in," Elizabeth recalls. "Business leaders were asked to speak out about this and no one would until Tony did.

"I couldn't bear to think that our older Chinese citizens had lived such tumultuous lives and came to Canada and were in need of a bed, to be loved and cared for and spoken to in their own language." She turned those feelings into countless volunteer hours helping get the Yee Hong Centre established and running.

She also funded five scholarships a year for single mothers on the Six Nations reserve for five years and continued to follow the women's progress. "I wanted to help them become independent," she says. "There were no strings attached. Some only lasted a month and that was fine. One went on to get her master's degree."

Tony did fundraising and work on the Governing Council for the University of Toronto, where he had graduated years earlier. He also served on the Board of Governors of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews and was vice-chair of St. Michael's Hospital.

Tony and Elizabeth were also prime movers in the establishment of the Elinore and Lou Siminovitch Prize in Theatre, the largest annual arts award in the country.

The prize alternates among directors, playwrights and designers. The winner receives $100,000 and the only requirement is to choose a protege to mentor and give that person $25,000.

"It changes lives," Elizabeth says with evident pleasure. "We wanted something that could change a life."

Just over a year ago, when there were several incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism in Toronto, Elizabeth was distressed at the news reports. She was particularly moved when she saw two Jewish children on television talking about the incidents.

"Something like a primordial feeling came over me," she says. "I wanted those children to know that this is our issue - all of us. Tony was in the washroom shaving. I went in and said 'Tony, can't we do something about this?'"

The "something" turned out to be the founding of FAST, a group made up of 22 non-Jewish business leaders, each of whom has donated at least $10,000. The first initiatives are aimed at learning programs for students.

"They are very gutsy people," says Irving Abella, York University professor of Canadian history and a 15-year friend of the Compers.

"When they see something wrong, instead of talking about it and clucking over it, they stop and work to correct it. They're people of action, not of words.

"They're a team and they have a very compassionate view of society. I like that about them.

"They are modest and humble people, but they are able to do really remarkable things."

Reproduced with permission from the Toronto Star

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