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Peter Silverman interviews Larry Grossman in 1985. Peter Silverman, broadcaster and consumer advocate, dead at age 90. Silverman Helps was part of CityTV’s CityPulse news from 1989 to 2008. He and his team fielded 20,000 calls a year from people seeking justice from vendors, landlords and bosses.Courtesy of Frances Burton

For nearly two decades, while Peter Silverman hosted his pioneering consumer advocacy news segment Silverman Helps on Citytv’s evening newscast, he and his team fielded 20,000 calls a year from people seeking justice from vendors, landlords and bosses.

On the surface, Mr. Silverman was all tough-guy gruff. He famously barked, “Watch it, buddy!” when a storekeeper hustled him out of his shop. A clip of the exchange became the lead-in for Silverman Helps. (People used to call this phrase out to him when they saw him on the street.)

He made headlines across North America when an optician accused of scamming customers hit him with a door and threw papers at him. Though he was in his 70s at the time, Mr. Silverman put up his dukes and defended himself, claiming, “If you hit me I’ll …” with the following expletives bleeped out on the TV footage.

“Peter was a warrior. He had a valiant heart and stuck up for the underdog,” said Stephen Hurlbut, who worked at Citytv with Mr. Silverman, serving as national vice-president news and local information programming at the end of his tenure there. “He was a big-picture guy, interested in the big themes in life. He wasn’t particularly enamoured with being a television personality as much as he was the work involved.”

“He really cared,” Cristina Tenaglia said of her mentor, who died on Oct. 7 at the age of 90. She was promoted to researcher and associate producer directly from her role as intern on Silverman Helps while still a student, at Mr. Silverman’s insistence.

She, producer Terry O’Keefe and Mr. Silverman listened to thousands of disgruntled consumers and reached out to seek justice for them. Many of these people’s problems were not newsworthy enough to make it to air, but they got help anyway.

While the idea for Silverman Helps came mainly from Citytv co-founder Moses Znaimer, Mr. Silverman shaped the segment’s values. “The show was about restitution, not revenge,” Mr. O’Keefe said.

During his vacations, Mr. Silverman would travel overseas and film news stories, often focused on local, personal stories or social justice issues. Once, he and Mr. O’Keefe were embedded with the Canadian Armed Forces in Bosnia.

Other trips were in collaboration with non-profit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity. Along with doing stories about Israel, Guyana and El Salvador, Mr. Silverman helped fix up a hospital in Rwanda, build a bridge in Ethiopia and build houses in India.

Mr. Silverman, who had a military background, would replace the Silverman Helps segments during the week of Remembrance Day with stories about local veterans.

Along with serving in the military, he worked as labourer in his younger years. He lost a finger while working to lay the Victoria line of the London Underground. A pillar was about to strike a fellow crewman, so Mr. Silverman pushed it away, severing his finger. He lost a second finger while doing woodworking at home: His daughters searched for it in vain as it had been shredded by a planer, his wife, Frances Burton, recalled.

Mr. Silverman would say to Mr. O’Keefe, “This one I lost in the Underground and this was the one I grieve for because it was my own stupid fault.”

He completed a doctorate in military history and worked in academia before becoming a television journalist. He later wrote two nonfiction books: Who Speaks for the Children and Voices of a Lost Generation.

Peter Guy Silverman was born on July 5, 1931, in Montreal. He was the only child of Blanche (née Wiener) and Aubrey Silverman, and grew up in Westmount. He graduated from Sir George Williams University (now part of Concordia University) in 1953.

In 1956, he completed a master’s in history at the University of British Columbia, writing his thesis on B.C.’s militia and defences from 1871 to 1914.

He wanted to join the Royal Canadian Air Force, but he was turned away because of his imperfect vision, so did army training in Alberta and joined the Royal Horse Guards in London, England, and then Britain’s Special Air Service, which sent him to fight in Cyprus.

Mr. Silverman also embarked on other jobs during that era, including working on the Wabush Lake Railway in Labrador and the Victoria line. He also went to South Africa, getting involved in the anti-apartheid movement; he left at the request of the government.

He returned to Canada and completed a PhD in British naval history at the University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus in 1968 and stayed on to teach.

David Onley, who later worked with Mr. Silverman at Citytv and subsequently served as lieutenant-governor of Ontario, had Mr. Silverman for a teaching assistant for a Canadian history course in 1970. After the first class, Mr. Silverman said to him, “Young man, for our next class, you will provide an erudite dissertation on the bishop and the governor-general and the intendant for New France. You got it?”

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Mr. Silverman, left, with David Onley after receiving his Order of Ontario.Courtesy of Frances Burton

Mr. Onley did just that, eager to impress the imposing but fair Mr. Silverman. His TA would often arrive for class with cuts and bruises, as he played intramural football for the school. Once, Mr. Silverman asked for a cigarette and took five. “It’s going to be a long class,” he told Mr. Onley.

Around that same time, Ms. Burton, an anthropology professor, was looking for someone to date, so had an administrative assistant comb through faculty directories. When the young woman came across Mr. Silverman’s name, she said, “He’s a son of a bitch, just like you.”

Mr. Silverman arrived in her office wearing rubber boots. They immediately began arguing about the military. He sealed the courtship by inviting Ms. Burton on an evening walk after it had just snowed.

The two married in 1971 and for their honeymoon, visited Spain and then Gibraltar, where Ms. Burton was doing research. Mr. Silverman spent his time learning how the territory worked and its history. (A year later, the couple became parents to twin daughters, Leah and Alexis.)

The following summer, a friend who worked at Global News contacted Mr. Silverman. Anchor Peter Trueman wanted to do a story on Gibraltar and needed background information. “He met Peter and he laid it all out for him,” Ms. Burton recalled.

That led to a job offer at Global in 1974, where Mr. Silverman later wrote and hosted a half-hour show called Code 10-78 that focused on unsolved police cases. In 1981, he moved to CityPulse, starting as a business reporter and launching Silverman Helps in 1989.

In 2008, Mr. Silverman’s series and job at Citytv were cut suddenly. He then briefly hosted The Peter Silverman Show, a call-in consumer advocacy segment on Newstalk 1010.

After his full retirement, he focused on charitable donations and board work for groups such as Canadians For Properly Built Homes and Save a Child’s Heart. He earned the RTDNA Edward R. Murrow Award in 2005 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the same organization in 2010. He was named a member of the Order of Ontario in 2009 and received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Mr. Silverman is remembered by family, friends and colleagues as intelligent, passionate about justice and often forceful in his ideas. “He was one of the people that I truly respected in the business,” Mr. Onley said.

“He didn’t always make my life easier, but he always made it better,” Mr. O’Keefe said.

Mr. Silverman leaves his wife, daughters, and three grandchildren.

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Cristina Tenaglia, Frances Burton and Mr. Silverman at Burton and Silverman’s cottage in Prince Edward County in 2019.Courtesy of Cristina Tenaglia

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