One on One with Markus - Pierre Zundel

Growing up, Sudbury's Pierre Zundel says he had a pretty normal relationship with his father, but learned very quickly there were certain topics they'd never agree on.

Zundel's father was Ernst Zundel, a Holocaust denier who lived in Canada for decades before being deported to Germany to face prosecution. He died in August.

"As I got older and understood what it was what he was about, we very quickly disagreed and so we basically agreed not to talk about that," Pierre said.

"We talked about relatives, we talked about family, we talked about gardens, we talked about all kinds of things but that area we knew was not going to be our agreement."

CBC Morning North host Markus Schwabe sat down with Zundel who is interim president of Laurentian University.

It's part of a special interview series called One on One with Markus that features longer conversations with some of the interesting people in our communities.

'Diametrically opposed'

Pierre was born in Toronto, moved to Montreal for part of his childhood, and then moved back to Toronto. After teaching forestry in New Brunswick for about 20 years, he made his way to Sudbury to work at the University of Sudbury and now, Laurentian University.

Pierre says he has no problems talking to people about his father's views and how he doesn't share them.

"[My views] are diametrically opposed to that. I don't believe the things he believed," he said.

"I've been open about it with my academic colleagues in the senate when I was hired here at Laurentian. In that particular case, I was the one who brought it up because I knew people would be asking."

Critical thinking

Zundel says his feelings about his father have played a role in his teaching career. When he taught his first university course in 1984, he says he worked to incorporate critical thinking in the classroom.

"So people can understand what people are saying, the truth and the falsehood of it, how to judge evidence so that they don't fall prey to all kinds of conspiracy theories, quack ideas about things," he said.

"Part of that really came out of my experience with that whole revisionist project."

Eventually, Zundel and his wife decided to look into moving back to Ontario from New Brunswick. He says his wife's parents live in Parry Sound, and they wanted to live closer to them.

Relearning history

At that time, Zundel says there were also cases before the court dealing with Indigenous people being able to harvest wood on Crown Land that he paid close attention to.

"For me, those cases opened my mind to the idea that what I thought I knew about Indigenous people and their history was dead wrong," he said.

"When the University of Sudbury posted its president position back in 2008, I did a little research into it and I realized that's where the Indigenous studies program is at Laurentian."

He says he thought it would be great to be in an environment where he could learn more about Indigenous culture.

"Certainly my appreciation for how well Europeans lived up to their treaty commitments and to the arrangements that they made with people changed. I had always thought that we had followed through on our commitments," he said.

"I learned after the fact that there was a very different story and that time after time we've ignored those commitments and we've treated our Indigenous people really badly."

Zundel went from being the president of the University of Sudbury, to vice-president academic of Laurentian University and is now interim president and vice-chancellor at Laurentian.

You can hear the full conversation with CBC Morning North host Markus Schwabe and Pierre Zundel by clicking the link below.