Local News
QDoc: a new venture that promises to change the way patients interact with doctors
By BERNIE BELLAN It was in May of this year when I read an article in the Winnipeg Free Press by business reporter Martin Cash which told of a new venture that was going to provide an entirely new way for people who needed to see a doctor for urgent care. The venture was known as QDoc and it was the brainchild of two members of our local Jewish community: Dave Berkowits and Dr. Norm Silver.
As Cash wrote at the time, “it is being designed as the Uber for medical clinics to help link local patients, especially the elderly, parents with young children and people in remote locations far from a hospital or medical centre easily and quickly — and at no cost — with local physicians using an innovative patent-pending technology.”
Fascinated as I was by Cash’s story – and subsequent stories in other news media, including on Global TV and CTV News, I thought it was early days and, rather than contact Silver and Berkowits immediately to write a story of my own, I would wait a few months to see how QDoc had evolved in that time.
Recently I sat down with Berkowits and Silver at their downtown Winnipeg office to find our more about how QDoc has progressed – and to try to obtain a better understanding of just who it is that QDoc is most likely to help.
As it was explained to me during the course of the lengthy conversation I had with Silver and Berkowits, QDoc is “designed for episodic care” – similar to what is available at the groundbreaking Minor Illness and Injury Clinic on Corydon, the concept for which both Silver and Berkowits helped develop.
I asked Berkowits and Silver to tell me about their respective backgrounds prior to becoming involved with QDoc.
Berkowits said that he’s long been involved “on the technical side. I’ve spent my whole career mostly in diagnostic imaging. Recently I spent 15 years commuting from Winnipeg to Calgary. This is very exciting because now it’s a chance to be at home – and a chance to work with Norm. Norm is very passionate about medical technology.”
Silver jumped in at that point to say that he had recently retired from his position as an emergency room paediatric physician – “as of July 1st,” he explained. “I really did only five or five shifts the past year,” he noted, as he’s been devoting his full time to developing QDoc.
Silver added that “Dave has loads of experience in technology, but a huge amount of his experience is medical related as well, and my area is medical, but I’m familiar with programming as well.”
I asked how long they’ve known each other?
“Many years,” Silver answered.
I asked how old they were?
Berkowits said he’s 60, while Silver said he’s 50, adding that “Dave looks younger while I look older.”
I asked whether Norm is the oldest of the three very well known Silver brothers (the other two being dermatologist Shane and financial planner Michael).
Silver said that he is – older than Shane by a year and a half, and six years older than Michael.
Dave Berkowits’s younger brother, by the way, is Rady JCC Executive Director Rob Berkowits. Dave Berkowits’s sister, Heather, is actually married to Norm Silver. There is also another sister in the Berkowits family: Heather. Dave is the oldest of the four Berkowits siblings, he said, with 10 years between him and Heather, who is the youngest of the four.
Silver noted that he and Berkowits have become especially close the past 10 years – often working out together at the Rady JCC, “where we try to solve the world’s medical technology problems.”
I wondered where the idea for QDoc came from?
Silver said that “one of us would come up with an idea – and we basically had no ego about these things – and one of us would say, ‘Here’s a great idea,’ and the other would say, ‘Yah, but maybe we should do it this way instead,’ and in the end we would come up with a way better idea than either one of us would have come up with on his own.”
It was just about a year ago that QDoc did what is known as a “soft launch”. Silver and Berkowits had received help from a variety of sources, of which key assistance came from something known as North Forge Technology Exchange. North Forge is an organization supported by a number of private businesses that provides support and advice for start-ups in the technology sector. QDoc began with $1 million in capital, all of which was raised in Manitoba. Both Silver and Berkowits poured a lot of their own money into the venture.
At that point I wanted to explore just how it is that QDoc works. Silver and Berkowits suggested that I actually go online and register on QDoc to see how easy it is to access their system.
Subsequently, I did that following my conversation with them. I went to the QDoc home page and filled out the information needed to register and complete a patient profile. It was simply a matter of giving some very basic data, including name, address, phone number, and medical numbers (both the 6 digit number and the 9 digit number that all Manitobans have).
Once that was completed there is an optional area in which you can give information about allergies, your family doctor’s name, and the name and address of a pharmacy to which you might want a prescription sent – if that is a result of your online visit with a doctor.
At that point you are asked to fill out information explaining why you would like to see a doctor. If you have pictures that might be useful to a doctor in understanding your situation, you are asked to upload them.
Then, you would click on a button that says “I am ready for the doctor.”
That’s where QDoc works like Uber, as Martin Cash noted in his May article. At any given time there are doctors available to speak with you. Given the information you’ve just provided, QDoc will determine which available doctor is best suited to respond to your query and, within minutes you should be contacted by a doctor.
Berkowits explained: “We look at things like geographic location. Then the doctors who are available will get text messages on their phone – and, just like Uber, the first one to answer the text will connect with you.”
Silver also noted that “95% of the patients who contact QDoc have been ‘self-triaging’” and have had experience explaining their symptoms when they’ve presented in person either to a doctor’s office, an urgent care centre, or an emergency room.
During the course of our conversation though, several times Silver and Berkowits remarked upon the fact that, as QDoc has grown rapidly in terms of the number of patient visits, it’s become apparent that the vast majority of users are rural based – upwards of 75% at the present time, Silver said.
“In the rural areas, it’s hard to see a doctor,” he noted. And, although there has been quite a bit of publicity about QDoc in media, as I noted at the outset, it’s been primarily through word of mouth that people have become aware of QDoc.
Others “have said their pharmacists told them about QDoc,” Silver added. “Or someone else might have called a quick care clinic, but were told they couldn’t be seen and were suggested to try QDoc instead. Health Links has recommended us. So have emergency rooms.”
Looking back to his own education in medical school, which was over 25 years ago, Silver said that, long before “virtual care” became a reality (and which really came into its own as a result of Covid), “70-90% of diagnoses were shown to be able to be made by history alone; that’s without seeing the patient. When you look at adding video and talking to the patient, we know from our own metrics that 95% of diagnoses can be done without having to touch the patient.”
He added that studies in BC and Ontario have shown that when people were asked what they thought of virtual care, “98% thought it was as good as, if not better than in-person care.”
I was curious though, as to what the doctors who were standing by to receive texts from QDoc would be doing when they’re not actually working with QDoc.
“They all have other jobs,” Silver explained. “I’d say 80% of them are emergency physicians – because they do shift work.”
I wondered how many QDoc visits require referrals to other doctors? (In the Free Press article, Martin Cash told the story of a woman who contacted QDoc when her seven-year-old son was hit with a baseball bat. The doctor who responded to her query arranged for her son to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist the next day.)
But, as Silver explained, that would have been the exception rather than the rule when it comes to consultations with a doctor on QDoc, saying that “95% of our patients are taken care of without any other help” needed from any other doctors.
Also, since those first reports of QDoc in various media appeared in May, QDoc has been able to assemble quite a bit more information about how the program is being utilized. For one, there’s been a monthly volume increase of 70% month over month each of the past four months. (There were 144 visits to QDoc in May, but well over 1,000 in August.) As a result of all the new data that’s been gathered based on who’s been using QDoc It’s been a constantly evolving learning curve, Silver explained, but they’ve now arrived at some interesting observations, including: “15% of our patients would have gone to the emergency department if we didn’t exist and, (as has already been noted) 76% of our patients are from outside of Winnipeg – that’s where the need is.”
As far as how patients interact with the doctors, I wondered about the software that’s used?
“We have our own software that we’ve built from scratch,” Berkowits explained. “It’s an end to end encrypted video conversation. The audio side of it is recorded and kept as part of a medical record.”
“So it protects the doctor – and the patient,” Silver added.
In terms of what the patient would actually see on their computer screen, here is how it was explained to me: The screen would show: “We are searching for a doctor for you.” Then, “when the doctor accepts the call, they would hit the link on their computer or mobile device and doctor and patient would be connected together, with both audio and video. The doctor would be writing notes and ordering prescriptions, if necessary, while the patient might be asked to upload pictures or, with video, show the doctor if they have, for instance, skin lesions or, say, it’s your son who’s having trouble breathing, the doctor could examine him on camera.
Then, the doctor could fax a prescription to a pharmacy of your choosing. (It may seem archaic but prescriptions are still faxed into pharmacies in Manitoba, rather than sent digitally.) If lab tests are needed, the patient can receive an order for tests that can be printed out and taken to a lab.
The results of those tests will be sent to the doctor who ordered the tests, but if, for instance, the patient didn’t actually go for the tests that the doctor might have ordered, QDoc will send a follow-up communication to the patient saying “You forgot.”
What QDoc also does, at the end of every interaction between a doctor and patient, is ask the patient whether QDoc can send a copy of the report prepared by whichever doctor has treated that particular patient to that patient’s family doctor.
I asked whether QDoc is available 24/7?
The answer was “Yes. We don’t always have coverage 24/7,” but the system will respond 24/7 and, if there is no doctor available at a particular moment you’ll be told that.
Currently, according to Silver, there are “34” doctors in the QDoc system. “We want it be as attractive as possible for doctors working with us, so we want to give them a lot of work. Most of them are pretty motivated. Eighty percent of our paediatric patients right now are seen within five minutes of logging on.”
Another benefit of QDoc is that the 34 doctors who presently make up the total number of physicians on call at present are all connected through WhatsApp, where they share information and can discuss particular cases.
Silver gave this example: “A doctor who’s seeing a patient who happens to be in Brandon and who should really be seen by a doctor in person can ask on WhatsApp: “Is there anyone in Brandon who can see such and such patient tomorrow?” and a physician in Brandon can respond, “Yes, I can see your patient.” (Since the likelihood is that Brandon doctor is an emergency room physician, he or she will also likely say: “Tell your patient to come to emergency and tell the nurse that I’ve agreed to see your patient.”
As Berkowits observed, “virtual health care – since the pandemic, has become widely accepted, but the platform that we’ve built is widely collaborative.”
Something that Silver added – about emergency room physicians, is that quite often they’ll deal with a case such as a car accident or a drug overdose where a patient may present in an unconscious or semi-conscious state, the doctor treats them, the patient wakes up – and can be quite belligerent. But treating a patient virtually, where the doctor is able to give immediate and effective treatment – and the patient is very much appreciative – well, that’s very rewarding for emergency doctors – and is one of the reasons so many of them are flocking to join QDoc.
I suggested to Silver and Berkowits though, that someone would have to have either a computer or a mobile device in order to contact Doc.
While they didn’t totally disagree, Silver gave an example of a new initiative that’s been taken in cooperation with the public sector as an example how QDoc can be used to help patients who have no access to a computer:
“We have a partnership with something called the Downtown Community Safety Partnership,” he explained. “They’re relatively new and they’re funded by government. They’re working with homeless people. If they can get the money, they’re going to be carrying tablets and then they can help homeless people contact us. A lot of these people don’t go to a doctor, they don’t go to a hospital, they don’t trust authority.” But, as Silver noted, a doctor from QDoc might be in the best position to provide help – through a worker from this downtown organization.
Similarly, QDoc will also be working with one personal care home by installing a large screen TV through which residents, with the help of an aide, will be able to communicate with a doctor.
I wondered though, whether an initiative of that sort wouldn’t be perceived as taking the place of a visit to a family doctor?
Silver said that wouldn’t be the purpose, but where it would make sense would be, for example, if a resident suddenly developed a rash – and it might take weeks to see a family doctor.
Again, it occurred to me that there could often be a language barrier between patients and doctors on QDoc. I wondered whether QDoc had any contingencies in place that might help to resolve difficulties of that sort.
Berkowits said that “there are translation services that are free from the government and we’re going to try and partner in real time so that we’ll have three people involved in a virtual call: the patient, the doctor, and the interpreter,” but, he admitted that’s not on the immediate horizon.
I asked how much QDoc could conceivably grow, especially if it continues at its current rate of 70% expansion every month?
Silver answered that “we’d like to get to one per cent market share.”
I asked what he meant by that?
He said it “translates into $15 million of revenue.”
I asked how many patients would have to use QDoc’s service to reach that goal?
He said it “would be 150,000 patient contacts a year.”
In the long term the goal is to open up in every province in Canada, Silver added.
As far as how much money QDoc makes on every call, they take 15% of whatever amount the physician would bill Manitoba Health Services.
Considering that Berkowits and Silver have some pretty serious ambitions to grow their company, starting first in Manitoba, then in all of Canada, with the possibility of licensing their software to other countries as well, I asked whether they’re looking for additional investors?
“We’ve talked about that a little bit,” Silver said. “But, we don’t think we need investors. We’ve been able to get a lot of grants so far ($200,000 worth, he specified). “We should be cash flow neutral by early next year – if we don’t keep hiring more programmers.” (He explained that currently QDoc has 10 programmers.)
I asked Berkowits, who’s the software guru behind QDoc, what more needs to be done with the existing software powering QDoc?
“We have a list of features that we want to keep introducing,” he explained. “When we started out initially we were pretty happy for just a patient and doctor to connect. But, as we built this out we started taking a look at other electronic medical record systems and how they do things, we also want to make it easier and better for the physician. We want to work on our platform.”
Berkowits then went on to describe some of the enhancements that DocQ would like to make, including incorporating: “Artificial intelligence, natural language processing, ambient listening, conscription services.” (There’s not enough room to expand upon each of those subjects here. Suffice to say that this is an entirely new world of virtual medicine that Berkowits and Silver are planning on entering.)
At the end of our conversation Silver suggested that, in addition to trying the QDoc portal to see how easy it is to register as a patient, I take a look at the reviews QDoc has received from patients. Now, while I’m always a little bit sceptical of online reviews, the number of Google reviews that I was able to see (69 as of the date I looked at them – Sept. 4) showed unanimous praise for QDoc. While this article was not intended as an endorsement of QDoc – although it might certainly be perceived that way, the high praise QDoc has received thus far from patients is certainly an indication that Berkowits and Silver have hit upon something that promises to fill a desperate need within our health care system.
Norm Silver had also suggested that I might want to talk with at least one of the doctors who is working with QDoc to get a sense of what a doctor’s perspective is on the QDoc platform.
I spoke with Dr. Taft Micks, who is an emergency room physician based out of Brandon. As I expected – given that Dr. Micks had volunteered to speak with me after having been contacted by Dr. Silver, he was quite enthusiastic about his experience with QDoc thus far. He told me that he’s been with QDoc from the very beginning – which goes back to last October.
As an emergency physician, Dr. Micks said that he’s constrained by several of the limitations that apply to the delivery of emergency medicine in this province. He noted that “I don’t fee like I can take the time to address people’s needs in emergency,” but when he’s on QDoc, “I’m able to connect with a patient almost instantaneously” and “from a physician’s perspective, I’m able to arrange treatment.”
Micks added that he’s like to see emergency services expanded, but he’s quite aware that’s not realistic at this point. And, even though he’d be prepared to put in more hours in the emergency ward in Brandon, where he’s currently working 32 hours a week, Micks is quite aware that expanding emergency services will require hiring more nurses – a problem that won’t be resolved in the short term.
As a result, he’s been spending increasing amounts of time working with QDoc and, he added, he’s hoping to scale back the amount of time he’ll be spending in the emergency department as a result.
Micks observed that what QDoc is doing “is the future of medicine.”
“The software is designed to be as physician friendly as possible – as opposed to other software” that he and other physicians have struggled to learn, he said.
His only concern, he noted, is that as QDoc becomes increasingly popular, wait times to interact with a physician might take longer, but in the meantime he said he’s been quite impressed with how the system has been working thus far.
Local News
One of Canadian and American television’s greatest producers of all time: Perry Rosemond – a true North End boy, who never forgot his Winnipeg roots
Introduction by BERNIE BELLAN Perry Rosemond was a well- known television producer who grew up in the North End of Winnipeg before moving to Toronto and establishing himself as one of Canadian television’s brightest talents in the 1960s, later to go on to even greater success in the US before returning to Canada in the 1980s.
Rosemond passed away in Toronto on August 20 at the age of 89.
In August 2020, Gerry Posner interviewed Rosemond for the Jewish Radio Hour. I contacted Rochelle Zucker, the longtime producer of that show, to see whether she could send me an audio file of that interview – which she was able to do. Following is a complete transcript of the often hilarious interview Gerry did with Perry Rosemond:
Gerry Posner: Welcome to the Jewish Hour radio show. This is Gerry Posner, and I’m delighted to be back on the radio once again with a guest whom I believe you will find interesting and informative. So today I feel very fortunate to have on the show a real Winnipeg legend, a man who has made his way in the world of the arts, and that is no small achievement. He has been a big name in the field of entertainment as a writer, a director, a producer for many years. I speak of Perry Rosemond. Perry, welcome to the Jewish Hour radio show.
Rosemond: Thank you, Ger.
Posner: I imagine you might have even listened to this show when you were a youngster.
Rosemond: Well, I have to tell you that my grandmother would call us every Sunday when I was about seven years of age, and she would say, “Turn on the French station at 1 o’clock and you’ll hear a very beautiful program.” And that was Noah Whitman’s show. And here I am, a mere 73 years later, on the show. Remarkable.
Posner: Well, I’m glad you made it. Tell me something, Perry. Who were your parents?
Rosemond: My parents were Max and Mona Rosemond, two of the most beautiful-looking people on the face of the earth, and where is genetics when you need it? But we lived in my grandmother’s house. You called it your grandmother’s house, even though there was a grandfather there. But she ruled the roost. And there were 14 of us in a house that wasn’t that big. But my dad was a clothing designer. My mother was a showroom model. And my mother wore a girdle, but she was never fat. And I later learned in life that the reason she wore the girdle was so that when the buyers in the showroom pinched her, it didn’t hurt as much. Those were my parents.
Posner: Well, where was the house that you grew up in?
Rosemond: The house I grew up in was at the corner of Manitoba and Andrews in North Winnipeg.
Posner: So you spent quite a few years there.
Rosemond: Oh, yes. I spent quite a few years there, but we moved. My parents were sort of upwardly mobile, and we moved from Andrews and Manitoba to Lansdowne Avenue. That was an improvement. Oh, my goodness. I had my own room.
Posner: Were there more of you than just Perry? I mean, were there siblings?
Rosemond: No, there was just me. But I was surrounded by cousins who were as close as brothers and sisters, really. And we stayed close for our entire lives. So there was a huge, huge sense of family at 193 Andrews.
Posner: Who would these cousins be?
Rosemond: My cousin Sonny and my cousin Mickey.
Posner: Both Rosemonds?
Rosemond: No, they were on my mother’s side.
Posner: What was her (maiden) name?
Rosemond: Magid.
Posner: MAGGOT. Really? Okay.
Rosemond: And Sonny and Mickey were four years older than me and exploited me at every opportunity. My uncle Dave Rosemond used to manage the Beacon Theater in Winnipeg.
Posner: In the North End.
Rosemond: Yes. And they would go to the Beacon Theater with me and get in for free because of me and still take my 10 cents that my mother gave me for the popcorn. So their mission in life was to exploit Perry Rosemond.
Posner: And you remember it, too.
Rosemond: I do indeed. I do indeed.
Posner: So you went to school where?
Rosemond: William Whyte School.
Posner: And then did you go to (St. Johns) Tech?
Rosemond: I went to Aberdeen and then to Tech. And at William Whyte School, I would go to sleep at night and pray to wake up Ukrainian so that the daily beatings would stop. But it was 50% Ukrainian and 50% Jewish.
Posner: Yeah, you knew what it was like to be a Jew.
Rosemond: Absolutely.
Posner: Did you do any studying in Hebrew or Yiddish?
Rosemond : I did. I went to Hebrew school. And in those days, I sounded like Georgie Jessel, for God’s sakes. In those days, I can’t believe I said that. If you’re going to cut anything, cut “in those days.” Please, Ger, do me a favor. But in those days, the instructors were measured by how much pain they could inflict on the students.
Posner: And you had a bit of that.
Rosemond: A bit of that. I was once thrown against a radiator by Mar Gross, and I still bear the pains to this day.
Posner: But you weren’t a product of Cantor Brownstone’s choir.
Rosemond: No, that was Alan Blye, and he was my friend and my roommate when I moved to Toronto to become an actor.
Posner: Who were some of your buddies in Winnipeg growing up? I guess Blye was one of them.
Rosemond: Blye was very close. Bugsy Lavich was very close, very close, and probably the leading bookmaker of his generation.
Posner: He’s well-known.
Rosemond: Indeed, and remains today my closest and dearest friend. And whenever I think about Bernie, I say to myself, how advantageous is it to have a friend who is the smartest human being in the world? I mean, if I need to know anything, he knows it. He knows it.
Posner: Did you go to university in Winnipeg at all?
Rosemond: I went to the University of Manitoba, and that’s where I got the bug to go into theater because I was Troilus in “Troilus and Cressida.” I was Cassius in “Julius Caesar,” and I was hopeless in the classroom. But it just took me by storm. It really did. And I ended up going to Toronto.
Posner: Well, just hold on a second. Were you not involved in some fashion in the creation of the MTC, the Manitoba Theatre Centre, in its very early days – with John Hirsch?
Rosemond: I was a founding member of the Manitoba Theatre Centre with Gordon Pinsent and Len Cariou – who went on to win a Tony, and Donnelly Rhodes, who went on to be a terrific influence in theatre in Canada. And I was one of the founding members. And you know what was strange, Gerry, is that I thought, boy, if this guy John Hirsch is in Winnipeg, what must they be like in New York or the West End in England? And I never met his match. But boy, could he intimidate me. I was in a play, “Death of a Salesman.” I was playing Bernard, and he came up to me and he said, “Mr. Rosemond, don’t you think you ought to reconsider your interpretation of that lawyer you’re playing?” And it would have been a fair note, except it was given to me after dress rehearsal. I’ve never seen a man customize performance the way he did — everybody got exactly what they needed. He was beyond brilliant. He went to his demise as my mentor and my idol and my friend.
Posner: So he was your introduction to the world of arts.
Rosemond: Absolutely. And strangely enough, we hooked up later when — oh, many, many years later — when he was head of drama at CBC, and he brought me back from Los Angeles to create the program “King of Kensington.”
Posner: When you made that decision somewhere in the ’50s, you’re in your, I guess, 20s, and you make a decision, “I’m going to move to Toronto, and I’m going to go into the arts as a career.” Your parents must have looked at you like you were out of your head.
Rosemond: Do you know, Gerry, it was funny, because beyond the initial beating about the head and shoulders that my father laid on me, they never stopped supporting me. They stood by me, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. 100% support. Let me chart my own course.
Posner: But the odds were stacked against you. Come on.
Rosemond: Oh, tell me about it. I mean, it was about 15 minutes before I realized I wasn’t a very good television actor. I remember sitting in the basement of 42 Bedford Road in Toronto with Gordon Pinsent, who was my other roommate, with Alan Blye, and we were watching a guy who stole a part from me. He was playing the part I was born to play. And I watched it for about 10 minutes, and I said, “You know what, Gordon? He’s better than I would have been.” And Gordon said, “Perry, get out of acting. You don’t have the ego for it.” And I’d been sneaking in and out of control rooms all this time, Gerry. So I got bitten by the behind the scenes. And that’s where I headed.
Posner: So you actually gave up the acting. You went into production.
Rosemond: Exactly, exactly.
Posner: Well, maybe you were fortunate that that happened early on in the career. In your career, as I gather, you’ve touched the lives of some pretty big names. Tell me if I’m wrong here. Dick Van Dyke?
Rosemond: Yes. Len Cariou, Cloris Leachman, Julie Andrews, Steve Martin, Billy Crystal, Donnie and Marie, Johnny Cash, and the list goes on.
Posner: How does this all come about?
Rosemond: Oh, Johnny Cash. That was the best time of my life. Two years in Nashville. I’ll tell you how it came about. Johnny wanted documentary elements in his variety show, and I had trained in both in Canada. So I wasn’t the best documentary filmmaker, and I wasn’t the best comedy variety producer, but the fact that I could do both got me the job directing his show. And when they introduced me to him — it was during the hippie era, so I had the long hair and the whole nine yards.
Posner You weren’t exactly a feature presenter. You didn’t present well.
Rosemond: No, I didn’t present well because Johnny said, “Where are you going to film this week?” And I said, “I’m going to Hazard, Kentucky to film coal miners.” And Johnny said, “Perry, if you go into Hazard, Kentucky on a Saturday night with that long hair and them bell-bottoms, they’re going to kill you.” So this whole Hollywood invasion of middle America was absolutely hysterical. But the show was a big hit.
Posner: Give me the career path. You came here (Toronto) in the ’50s.
Rosemond: OK, I came here in the ’50s, late ’50s, as an actor. Right. Shared a room with Gordon Pinsent and Alan Blye. Right. We were very competitive, but Alan really won because he had a role on a continuing starring role on one of the big variety shows. And if I’m not mistaken, he actually declared Gordon Pinsent and me as dependents on his 1959 tax form. So he definitely was the more successful of the group. Then I went back to Winnipeg in 1960, and I applied as a production assistant. And there were no openings, but there were producer-directors that had quit, and so they gave me a job as a producer-director.
Posner: So I get this is at CBC in Winnipeg, correct?
Rosemond So I got 4,200 bucks for the year, and I did Metro News and a talk show, and then I did a show called “Red River Jamboree,” which was fully sponsored by Kraft Foods, always in the top ten. And, Ger, I’ve been going downhill ever since.
Posner Well, I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know hardly that, based on what I’ve read about you. I’d say you’re climbing the ladder, and you’ve climbed to the top. And then, so how long were you back in Winnipeg?
Rosemond: I was back in Winnipeg until ’63. What happened was I was doing this variety show and I looked eastward and the third best variety producer at CBC in Toronto was a guy by the name of Norman Jewison. And so I thought, oh, my God, I’m never going to get to Toronto, which was Mecca, as a variety producer. So I went to my supervisor and said, “Look, I want to do children’s programming. My heart is with the children.” And so I got transferred to the children’s department in Winnipeg, took two kinescopes under my arm and headed to Toronto, and got a transfer to children’s programming in ’63. ’63 to ’68 Toronto, ’68 to ’85 Los Angeles.
Posner: But what were you doing in LA?
Rosemond: Well, I came out of the Cash show and did Bill Cosby’s show. You might not have heard of him. He hasn’t been in the news much these days. But I did Bill Cosby’s variety show, and from then, Donnie and Marie (then) a situation comedy called “Good Times.” But what happened is I had three shows going in Canada at the same time. I had “Bizarre” on CTV. I had “Tom Jones” on Global TV, and I had “King of Kensington” on CBC. So I thought, well, what am I doing in America?
Posner: So back you came to Canada?
Rosemond: Back to Canada, where I’ve been since ’85.
Posner: Now, in those years, those five years that you alluded to, that you were doing work in children’s programming, you were pretty involved, from what I gather. You did some work on “Children of the World?”
Rosemond: Yeah, that’s probably something of which I’m most proud. It was a series on children in developing nations, and it drew an audience of over 600 million people just in audio-visual distribution.
Posner: Wow. And if I had to say, what’s the number one thing you’ve accomplished? That would be it?
Rosemond: That would be it.
Posner: Really?
Rosemond: Absolutely.
Posner: I understand it won (something called the Japan Prize). I mean, I hadn’t heard of this, but I gather it’s pretty significant. The Japan Prize is (for) the best children’s program.
Rosemond: That’s correct.
Posner: So, you know, that’s saying something. That’s a long way from the North End.
Rosemond: Well, you know what we say. They say, how come there’s so many great people from the North End? And my answer is always the same. It’s a deep and abiding desire to get the heck out of the North End.
Posner: Now, I think, correct me here, in some fashion, not only did you do this program that won this prize, “Children of the World.” But you also were connected, and maybe you can tell me how, to “Mr. Dressup” and “The Friendly Giant?”
Rosemond: That’s right. I was head of children’s programming for a period of time and worked with Mr. Dressup and the Friendly Giant. Friendly Giant, I remember once being in a room with him, and I was giving him some notes, and he turned around and he walked away from me. I thought, well, that’s rude. And then I looked, and a group of schoolchildren had come into the studio. And he was deathly afraid of being seen as anything but a giant. Which he was, by the way. He was a gigantic personality.
Posner: Well, you were the executive producer of those shows, right?
Rosemond: Correct, correct, yeah.
Posner: And in some way you got connected to Sesame Street, too?
Rosemond: That’s right. I was living in Los Angeles, and they asked if I would come back and Canadianize Sesame Street.
Posner Canadianized Sesame Street? I didn’t know there was a Canadianized version.
Rosemond: Well, what we did was we took out the Native American segments and the Spanish segments, and we substituted them with Native Canadian and French. And then gradually we took over and did our own version, a Canadian version of Sesame Street. Again, very gratifying. Back to Winnipeg to do it — that was my blackmail. I said, I’ll come back and do it if I can do it in Winnipeg, because I like the graphics artists in Winnipeg, and I felt I’d get a better product.
Posner: Okay, that’d be what, sometime in the ’80s?
Rosemond: That would have been earlier. That would have been in the ’70s.
Posner: Wow. Well, you kept up your links to Winnipeg.
Rosemond: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Posner: Now, so you’ve had children’s programming. And you also got into, I gather, documentary and public affairs.
Rosemond: Right, yes. “The Way It Is.”
Posner: “The Way It Is” was the Sunday Night flagship show. That was the big show on CBC Sunday night, wasn’t it?
Rosemond: That’s right. It was the big show on CBC Sunday night, and I worked with an executive producer called Ross McLean. I didn’t last too long on that, Gerry. I remember Ross had a very constructive way of winning arguments. We had one argument. And I can’t even remember what it was about, but he won it hands down by throwing a Coke can at my head. And I took a hike, and I never came back to “The Way It Is.”
Posner: That’s the way it was.
Rosemond: That’s the way it was, right.
Posner: You also did what you call profiles for CBC’s “Telescope,” with Oscar Peterson, Arthur Haley, Gordon Pinsent, Glenn Gould, Donald Sutherland. I mean, that was another big show.
Rosemond: Yeah, and that was my entrée to the United States because I became their man in America. And thus I did Donald Sutherland in Hollywood while snooping around for work and Eddie Albert from ‘”Green Acres” and all of the expatriate Canadians who were living in Los Angeles. And that gave me a foothold because I could look for work and still pay the rent. My Canadian qualifications counted for nothing in America. You were zero. Zero. And I was starting from scratch at age 30, and I had to have some kind of income to get things going.
Posner: And then somewhere along the line you got — you oversaw the production, I’m not sure exactly, of “Hockey Night in Canada.” I’m guessing you never even played the game.
Rosemond: I was on the third line of the Chicago Blackhawks in the miniature NHL, you know, and probably the worst ever third liner in the history of Manitoba’s miniature NHL hockey. But here’s the deal with that. When I wanted to come back to Canada, I couldn’t just come back as a freelancer because when they brought me in from America, I was the big American producer that they were bringing to Canada. If I was going to be in Canada, you know the deal, the expert’s always 100 miles from home.
Posner: That’s right.
Rosemond: So I had to have a foothold. So I had worked with Don Ohlmeyer Productions, and they were consulting to Hockey Night. And they wanted to take over Hockey Night. And Don suggested that I come up from America to put them in the hockey business, which I did. And I also started other shows for this company, Molestar Communications, which were more in the entertainment business and more to my liking, like the Juno Awards, I’d escape for a month or two, or a syndicated series called “Starting From Scratch,” which I shot in Montreal. So I would leave the administrative behind and jump back into the trenches whenever I could.
Posner: You know, it’s okay you didn’t play so well in the third line in miniature. You did a little better, I would say. Now, you mentioned David Steinberg. And you produced his show, CTV’s “David Steinberg Show?”
Rosemond: Yes, that’s right.
Posner: Did you even write for that show?
Rosemond: I wrote for it.
Posner: How many scripts would you have written for?
Rosemond: We did one season only, but we had an incredible guest list. David grew up a block away from me, and we knew each other forever. And I’ve done so much with David, and I admire him so much. And David attracted a huge guest list of John Voight and Ethel Merman and Milton Berle, and he also was able to bring out John Candy for his first show and Martin Short and Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty and all of those people.
Posner: No, I don’t think David Steinberg’s memories of Winnipeg are as warm as yours are. They are kind of, you know. I’m quite surprised to hear you say that because I think in the beginning maybe, you know, when you were a young kid you hate where you came from. Maybe there was some of that. But now he cherishes it.
Rosemond: He does. I also had a lot of clout in being able to, if I may say so, book enormous talent because we had Marty Short and Andrea Martin, and I was able to book Howie Mandel, because I gave him his first shot in America on Norm Crosby’s “Comedy Shop.” And I got to tell you this really boring story, but I’ll try to make it quick.
Posner: Okay.
Rosemond: My partner and I on Norm Crosby’s Comedy Shop could veto any act that appeared on the show. So Howie’s manager was Saul Holliff’s nephew, and Saul was Johnny Cash’s manager, who was very good to me on “The Johnny Cash Show.” So he said, could you put my act on? And I said, send a tape. So he sent the tape of Howie, you know, with the faucet on the forehead and the diaper and God knows what else. And before we were 15 seconds into it, my partner Joe Sigmund raised his hand and he said, “I veto.” I said, “Joe, it’s Saul Holliff’s nephew’s act. We’ve got to put him on. Let’s tape him. We won’t use it.” And six months later, to make a long story even a little longer, Phil Kives from Winnipeg of K-Tel came to order a DVD from us. And he said, “make sure that you put on the DVD the kid with the diaper.”
Posner: Okay. You know, I’m just barely starting and we’ve got to finish this. Tell me, Perry.
Rosemond: Yeah.
Interviewer: What’s the story? Are you into retirement mode or you’re still going at it?
Rosemond: My dream is that it’s “ready camera.” I want Ingmar Bergman to shoot this, by the way. My dream is “ready camera one” and aneurysm, and in slow motion my head starts to descend to the console and I’m dead before I even hit it.
Posner: You’re still working. Still working. And I guess you still connect to Winnipeg.
Rosemond: Absolutely. I was there several times to do specials in Winnipeg, and I still would go back today, especially with the tax credits.
Posner: Perry, it’s a joy to have you. I tell you, we barely scratched the surface, and I appreciate your taking the time to come and do this.
Rosemond: Can I tell you, and I say this in all honesty, you are one terrific interviewer.
Posner: Well, thanks very much. I enjoy doing it.
Post script (added by Bernie Bellan): Some of the things that Gerry omitted from his interview were that Rosemond also produced the terrific documentary, “When Jews Were Funny,” which was named best Canadian Feature Film at the 2013 Toronto Film Festival.
As his obituary on the Benjamin’s Parrk Memoria Chapel website also notes: “In 2003, Perry was appointed a member of the Order of Canada, a national recognition for a career that entertained, educated, and made Canadians laugh.
“But Perry never measured his life by accolades, he measured it in smiles. He lived to spread laughter and joy. It was his way of making people feel seen and valued. He will be dearly missed and forever loved.”
Local News
From a ‘pie in the sky’ idea to 2,400 young hockey players
By BERNIE BELLAN I didn’t used to cover sports for The Jewish Post & News except for the odd occasion.
For years we could count on the late, great Harvey Rosen to comb the waterfront, looking for any sports story that might have the least connection to anything Jewish. Harvey would even go into visiting teams’ locker rooms during Winnipeg Jets games and, if a player had a name that sounded Jewish, inquire whether that player might be Jewish.
Then, for a few years, we added well-known sports writer Scott Taylor to the mix. Scott offered quite a different perspective, looking for stories about athletes that went far behind the scenes to uncover details that other reporters might have missed.
With both Harvey and Scott gone from our pages, I’ve occasionally found myself filling the sports void. These days, however, I tend to wait for an interesting story to find me.
And that’s exactly what happened with Wheatland Hockey.
Recently, my neighbours Elliot and Linda Katz mentioned that they knew of a Jewish couple who had started a hockey development program in Winnipeg. The couple, Rich Hechter and Rachel Wolfenson, had apparently started Wheatland Hockey only about 16 months earlier.
I subsequently learned that, in that short time, more than 2,400 young hockey players had gone through Wheatland’s various programs.
That number got my attention.
So, I contacted Rachel and Rich to find out what they had created — and why.
It started with a gap
The idea for Wheatland began, as Rachel described it to me, as “this little pie in the sky idea that we were going to have a spring development program in the spring of 2025.”
They started with about 50 kids spread across three age groups.
Sixteen months later, Wheatland has grown into a broad hockey-development organization offering programs for players from U9 through U15, along with specialized programming, female hockey, spring and summer teams, events and high-performance opportunities.
But the numbers aren’t really the story.
The story is why they thought Wheatland needed to exist in the first place.
Rich and Rachel felt there was a gap between traditional minor hockey and the highly specialized — and often expensive — training programs available to elite players.
There were plenty of opportunities for kids to play hockey. But what about the player who needed to improve one particular part of their game? What about the U9 player whose parents had no idea what skills their child should be working on? What about the player who wasn’t an elite athlete but had the potential to become a much better hockey player with the right instruction?
That was the space they wanted Wheatland to occupy.
As Rachel explained it, some families come to Wheatland knowing exactly what their child needs.
“They might know that the kid’s gap is power skating,” she told me. “They might have a great shot and great stick handling, but they’re not strong skaters.”
Other families arrive with a much less specific question.
“They’re new U9 families,” Rachel said. “Their kids have been spat out of the Timbits world and into the U9 world and they don’t know what to focus on.”
That’s where Rich comes in.
‘Pedagogy on ice’
Rich brings an unusual background to hockey coaching.
He is currently taking a one-year sabbatical from his role as vice-principal of Brock Corydon School, the Winnipeg school often known as the only public school Hebrew bilingual program in North America. For many families in Winnipeg’s Jewish community, Brock Corydon is where they know Rich best.
Before becoming a vice-principal, he worked as a high school teacher and as a university professor in the Faculty of Education. He has also spent more than a decade coaching youth hockey.
This year, rather than stepping away from education, Rich is using his sabbatical as an opportunity to continue learning, writing, and growing as a coach and mentor while devoting more time to developing Wheatland Hockey.
That additional time will also allow Wheatland to extend its reach beyond Winnipeg through a new initiative called “Wheatland on the Road”.
Over the coming year, Rich will travel to rural Manitoba communities including Manitou, St. Laurent, Lundar, Steinbach and Elm Creek to lead coaching and mentoring sessions for local players and coaches.
The initiative reflects Wheatland’s belief that access to quality coaching should not depend on where a young player lives. It also gives Rich an opportunity to work directly with local hockey communities, sharing ideas and helping coaches develop their own approaches to teaching the game.
For Rich, education and hockey aren’t separate worlds.
Rachel described his approach as “pedagogy on ice.”
The idea is simple: coaching isn’t just about showing a young player how to execute a skill. It’s about understanding how that player learns, figuring out what they need, and creating an environment where they can improve.
That educational philosophy is evident in the way Wheatland approaches development.
Its programs focus on areas such as skating, puck control, shooting, passing and receiving, positional play, defensive skills, checking, hockey IQ and tactical understanding.
But the organization also talks openly about developing confidence, resilience and character.
The Wheatland philosophy is summed up on its website as building “skills, character and excellence — on and off the ice.”
And that distinction is important to Rich.
The objective isn’t simply to produce better hockey players.
It’s to help young people become better learners, teammates and competitors.
A Jewish leadership team in an unlikely business
There is also an irony at the heart of Wheatland’s success.
We are not exactly the people known for our sporting prowess, and none of the people leading Wheatland played in the NHL. Yet, the organization is run by Rachel and Rich, with Ryan Paul, Eleni Wener, Avi Walker and Dustin Roitelman in senior leadership roles.
That may be unusual in the hockey world, but it is also part of what makes Wheatland distinctive.
This is not a business built around former professional players leveraging on their own playing careers. It is being led by people who believe deeply in the values Wheatland has developed — and continues to develop.
They believe in teaching young people how to learn, how to work with others, how to persevere and how to contribute to their communities.
In that sense, Wheatland’s leadership team reflects the organization’s broader philosophy: hockey expertise matters, but so do education, mentorship, organization, empathy and a commitment to making the game more accessible.
The fact that this group has helped build a hockey organization serving thousands of young players from across Manitoba is, in its own way, pretty remarkable.
Making hockey and coaching accessible
Perhaps the most important word in Wheatland’s philosophy is accessibility.
“Accessibility is one of our guiding principles,” Rachel said. “We believe that all kids should have the opportunity to get on the ice, regardless of socioeconomic conditions.”
For Rich and Rachel, accessibility means more than making hockey available. They believe that good coaching should be accessible, too.
That commitment is reflected in Wheatland’s “Pay-What-You-Can” program, which helps ensure that financial circumstances do not prevent children and families from participating in quality hockey programming.
For Rachel and Rich, the program is one way of giving back to the broader community. They believe that hockey — and the opportunity to learn from good coaches — should be available to as many young people as possible, not limited only to families who can afford the full cost of specialized training.
That doesn’t mean Wheatland is trying to be everything to everyone.
Rather, the idea is that a family shouldn’t need to have an elite-level hockey player — or an elite-level hockey budget — to access good coaching.
The organization keeps its groups relatively small. A typical session might have four or five players, while a larger session could have as many as 20, with several coaches on the ice.
The result is that a player who shows up to a smaller session can end up receiving something approaching a semi-private lesson without the family having to pay a premium for that experience.
And, Rachel noted, if only a handful of players show up for a session, “they would get the benefit of a semi-private class for a very inexpensive cost.”
Building coaches, too
Wheatland’s emphasis on development doesn’t stop with the players.
The organization has also created a Junior Coach program, through which some of its younger participants have an opportunity to begin learning how to teach the game themselves.
Five of Wheatland’s junior coaches are under the age of 15.
That’s significant because it reflects another part of Rich and Rachel’s philosophy: hockey development isn’t simply about producing better players. It’s about creating people who can contribute to the hockey community.
The organization’s coaching staff also includes experienced coaches with backgrounds in player development, athletic development and hockey education.
The same philosophy is at the heart of Wheatland on the Road. By working with coaches in rural communities, Rich hopes to help build local coaching capacity so that players can continue benefiting from quality instruction long after his visit is over.
Hockey as a bridge between communities
One of Wheatland’s most memorable recent initiatives involved a visiting Israeli hockey club.
The visiting players took part in two on-ice sessions with Rich and Ryan. After changing out of their gear, the young players then visited Rich at Brock Corydon School, where they met with grade 5 and 6 students.
For the players from Israel, the experience offered more than additional hockey instruction. It gave them an opportunity to connect with Winnipeg students through a shared language — the language of hockey — while also learning about one another’s communities.
For Wheatland, the sessions demonstrated how hockey can create meaningful connections that extend well beyond the rink.
Rachel and Rich
While Rich is the face of Wheatland on the ice, Rachel’s role is largely behind the scenes.
A Senior Investment Advisor with TD Private Wealth Management, Rachel brings an entirely different skill set to the organization, overseeing operations and communications and helping ensure that families have a positive experience from the moment they register.
The division of responsibilities seems to work. Rachel brings the organizational perspective needed to turn an idea into an operation. Rich brings the educator’s perspective to player development.
The broader leadership team brings additional experience, energy and commitment to the values that guide Wheatland.
And somewhere along the way, that little “pie in the sky” idea became something considerably larger.
More than 2,400 kids have now gone through Wheatland’s programs in just 16 months.
That’s a lot of hockey players. But when I asked Rachel what she thought accounted for that kind of growth, her answer wasn’t really about hockey.
It was about giving families something they were looking for.
“We teach people first, we teach hockey second,” is the philosophy Rich and Rachel have adopted.
Perhaps that’s why Wheatland has grown so quickly.
Because for all the talk about hockey development, what they are really trying to develop is something bigger: young people who feel supported, challenged and capable of getting better.
And through initiatives such as the Pay-What-You-Can program, Wheatland on the Road and its work with visiting teams, Wheatland is also showing how hockey can be both accessible and a bridge between communities.
If the first 16 months are any indication, there are a lot of Winnipeg families — and perhaps many potential community partners across Manitoba — who were looking for exactly that.
For more information about Wheatland Hockey, visit Wheatland Hockey.
Local News
“Fiddler on the Roof”: First ever joint production between Winnipeg Jewish Theatre and Rainbow Stage is a smash hit
By BERNIE BELLAN You really can’t go wrong by mounting a production of “Fiddler on the Roof” – and Rainbow Stage has proven that four previous times: in 1971, 1977, 1984, and 1993.
What each of those productions had in common though – aside from the fact that they were solely Rainbow Stage productions, was that each time the star role of Tevye the milkman was played by Cliff Gardner who, in his day job, was the program director at CJOB radio.
I can’t remember how many times I saw Fiddler at Rainbow State previously but, after a while it wasn’t quite the novel experience it was the first time I had seen it there.
But now – as a result of a very creative idea, “Fiddler on the Roof” has been brought back to Rainbow Stage once more – but this time as a co-production with the Winnipeg Jewish Theatre.
The idea for mounting a joint production came from WJT’s artistic director, Dan Petrenko who, as Myron Love noted in an article for The Jewish Post this past February, had observed that “ Because of the times we’re living through, and particularly the growing antisemitism in our communities and across the country, I felt there is a need to tell a story that celebrates Jewish culture on the largest stage in the city – to reach as many people as possible.’ ”
Myron’s article went on to say that “Last year, WJT approached Rainbow Stage with a proposal for the co-presentation of “Fiddler on the Roof.” Rainbow Stage management was really enthusiastic in their response, Petrenko said.”
In my own profile of Dan Petrenko, which I wrote in April 2023, when he first came to Winnipeg, just after having been hired as the WJT’s new artistic director, I noted that “Dan was born in Israel, the son of Jewish parents who had moved from their hometown of Odessa in Ukraine.
“A formative influence in his life, he says, was his grandmother, who had been a pianist in Ukraine. She had aspirations early in her life to study in a music conservatory, but the antisemitism that was pervasive in the Soviet Union prevented her from achieving that ambition. Instead, she had to travel all the way to Siberia in order to obtain training to become a pianist.”
After re-reading my own article about Petrenko in preparation for writing about the new production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” now on at Rainbow Stage until Sept. 13, I couldn’t help but note the parallels in Petrenko’s own life and the story that is at the heart of “Fiddler,” which is one of Jews having to cope with antisemitism in their native Ukraine and finally being forced to leave their home community of Anitevka – for parts unknown.
While “Fiddler” has so many dimensions – from its story of persecution, of girls being kept from studying because of age old taboos, of marriages being arranged, to notions of democracy – and socialism, starting to be espoused in the late 1800s in Eastern Europe – it’s the music that really drives the show.
I don’t have to remind anyone how timeless the songs from “Fiddler” have become. There have been documentaries produced, both about how the Broadway show came about and later, how Norman Jewison crafted a quite different approach to telling the story of Tevye the milkman in his brilliant movie adaptation of the Broadway musical. There have also been several books telling the story how three geniuses: Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein, and Jerry Bock, combined to create something that is as timeless in its own way as any musical could ever be.
But, what can you say about the WJT-Rainbow Stage co-production of “Fiddler'” that couldn’t possibly avoid using superlatives? Playing to a sold-out audience on opening night, Wednesday, September 9, even though there was a slight chill in the air as the evening wore on – and certainly mounting a show at Rainbow Stage in September is a chancy proposition – the evening was one of pure magic.
I don’t know who came up with the idea of having the orchestra play behind the performers – as opposed to the usual practice of having them play in the pit in front of the stage – but it was sheer genius to do that. I’ve often attended Rainbow Stage and been frustrated that the singers’ voices are drowned out by the musicians’ instruments – but not this night.
Each note sung could be heard clear as a bell – even from the children who played Tevye and Golde’s youngest daughters.
The performances were universally excellent – all the way from Daniel Kash as Tevye and Debbie Maslowsky (a name very familiar both to WJT and Rainbow Stage attendees) to everyone else in the cast. It would be unfair to single out anyone in the cast for special praise; they were all so good, but if there was one moment that was absolutely thrilling above all else, it was when the opening note to the Russian song “Za vashe zdorovye” (to your health) in the famous tavern scene that culminates with “To Life” was belted out.
And, having the Rusalka Ukrainian dancers perform only added to the evening’s excitement. The exuberance they brought to the wedding scene was a demonstration of how combining the talents of one of Winnipeg’s most exciting dance troupes with many Winnipeg performers who had previously appeared either in WJT or Rainbow Stage productions was a demonstration of just how much talent there is right here in Winnipeg.
Sadly, by the time this is published this version of “Fiddler on the Roof” is only scheduled to be performed two more times: Saturday, Sept. 12, at 7:30 pm and Sunday, Sept. 13, at 2:00 pm. Tickets had been going fast as of the time of publication, but if you want to check with the box office, the number is 204-989-0888
