When Phil Kinsman heard 26 students were stuck for nearly an hour in a Glengarry Residence elevator in the fall, he hurried to what was then known as the Carleton’s offices in the tunnels under the quad to tell Richard Labonté.
Labonté, who was lead and editor of the paper, helped turn the story into Kinsman’s first byline and printed it in the Sept. 19, 1969 edition. Despite cutting his lengthy investigation into Glengarry’s brand-new faulty elevators into an eight-inch news hit, Kinsman said Labonté was a kind and gentle mentor.
“Richard was a great editor,” Kinsman said. “He had a great sense of humor. It never felt like you were being reprimanded for doing something wrong, he would say ‘Here’s how you can learn from this.’”
Labonté graduated from Carleton University with an English degree in 1971. From 1969 to 1970, Labonté led a team to report on university affairs in the student publication that would become the Charlatan.
Tim Miedema, the Carleton’s business manager from 1969 to 1970, remembered Labonté as a thoughtful journalist.
“He reported on what was going on there and kept his fingers on the pulse,” Miedema said. “That year, we were starting to get into a sort of a wacky council.”
The Carleton’s Jan. 9, 1970 issue printed the Carleton University Students’ Association’s (CUSA) constitution in full. The association formed that year.
That year, Labonté would also edit a special edition on the “dark arts,” several issues worth of scathing political commentary and a page spread of John Lennon and Yoko Ono fully nude.
Kinsman noted Labonté’s unique skill as a reporter.
“He was very approachable. He just sat there and people would open up to him. And he could talk quietly about anything,” Kinsman said.
Labonté had a penchant for science fiction and produced his own “fan-zine” called Huginn and Muninn. Kinsman remembered seeing Labonté use a manual press to print the zine and mail it out across North America to his audience of readers. Miedema added he remembered going with Labonté to science fiction conventions across North America.
After graduating, Labonté would go on to write for the Ottawa Citizen, where he came out as gay in a 1980 column. He moved to California shortly after and opened a chain of gay and lesbian bookstores called A Different Light.
Throughout his career, Labonté won several awards for editing gay literature, including a collection of science fiction called The Future is Queer.
In 2001, Labonté moved back to Canada and married his partner Asa Dean Liles. Labonté died of cancer at home on Bowen Island, B.C. on March 20, 2022.
Kinsman, who would go on to work with Labonté at the Ottawa Citizen, said Labonté never stopped fostering new writers.
“He was such a person to learn from. He was a mentor to so many people in journalism,” Kinsman said. “He continued to help people develop their style and pushed the boundaries of science fiction.”
Featured graphic by Isaac Phan Nay with files from Mark Fawcett.
