OTTAWA VALLEY – Lowell Green, longtime Ottawa radio host and community organizer, died Feb. 14 at the age of 89.
Green was best known as the host of The Lowell Green Show on CFRA, but his impact on the Ottawa Valley extended far beyond broadcasting. Over five decades, he organized campaigns that led to the creation of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority, helped save the Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill and mobilized Canadians to travel to Montreal to stand for unity ahead of the 1995 Quebec referendum.
Green didn’t just talk on the radio for 50 years. He moved people to action.
North America’s longest-running talk show host
Green launched his open-line talk show Greenline on CFRA in 1966 and retired on Jan. 4, 2016, making him North America’s longest-running open-line talk show host.
His reach extended far beyond Ottawa’s city limits. From his microphone at CFRA, his voice carried across the Ottawa Valley and into Lanark County, reaching rural communities from Arnprior to Smiths Falls, from the Quebec side of the river to the farming towns of eastern Ontario.
He understood the valley because he came from it. Born in Ann Arbor, Mich., on July 7, 1936, to Canadian parents, Green grew up in Arthur, Ont., a small agricultural community in Wellington County where his family ran a dairy farm. He graduated from Macdonald Agricultural College of McGill University in 1956.
Green began his radio career in Brantford, Ont., and worked in Sudbury and Montreal before joining CFRA in 1960 as a news and farm reporter.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe, who worked as a broadcaster at CFRA before entering politics, said he grew up listening to Green before they became colleagues and friends.
“He was a groundbreaking talk show host and a proud Canadian,” Sutcliffe said in a statement after Green’s death.
Two of Green’s broadcasts are preserved at Library and Archives Canada.
That pattern repeated across Ottawa for five decades. People listened. Then they knew him. Then they acted alongside him.
When radio cleaned rivers
In the late 1960s, Green launched a campaign to address pollution in the Rideau River.
He asked listeners to bottle the polluted water and mail it to the provincial government at Queen’s Park. Hundreds of bottles arrived, until Canada Post stopped accepting them.
According to Green, the campaign led directly to the creation of the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority. Cleanup efforts for the Rideau and Ottawa rivers followed.
The Centennial Flame
In 1967, Canada turned 100. The Centennial Flame was lit on Parliament Hill on Jan. 1, serving as the centrepiece of the centennial celebrations. It was always intended as a temporary installation, meant to burn only for the centennial year.
Green spent weeks on air rallying listeners to save it. Thousands of petitions were sent to Ottawa.
In December 1967, the government agreed to keep the flame burning permanently. It still burns today.
Building community beyond the airwaves
Green co-founded Ottawa’s Big Brothers chapter with the Rev. Norman Johnston. He started the Help Santa Toy Parade, which still runs in the city.
When a local boy needed life-saving treatment in the United States, Green raised $280,000 on air. Lions International gave him the Helen Keller Fellowship for that campaign.
These weren’t publicity stunts. They were sustained efforts that required follow-through, organization and community trust.
A voice for the valley
Green’s commitment to the Ottawa Valley ran deeper than broadcasting. In 1968, he sought the Liberal nomination for the federal riding of Pontiac. He lost the nomination to Thomas Lefebvre.
He tried again on Dec. 13, 1984, running for the Ontario Liberal Party in a provincial byelection in Ottawa Centre. He came third, losing to NDP candidate Evelyn Gigantes. Green later attributed the loss to his “sharp” personality and low voter turnout, but the campaigns showed he wanted to represent the people who listened to him.
Even without an elected office, Green served. He joined the boards of the United Way and the John Howard Society. He contributed to efforts to modernize Saint Vincent Hospital and the Élisabeth Bruyère Hospital in Ottawa.
In 1983, he co-founded the Ottawa Sunday Herald, which was acquired by Toronto Sun Publishing Corporation in 1988 and relaunched as the Ottawa Sun.
The unity rally
In October 1995, Quebec’s separation referendum loomed.
Green promoted and helped organize a unity rally in Montreal on Oct. 27, 1995. Tens of thousands of Canadians from across the country descended on Place du Canada, with crowd estimates ranging from 35,000 to more than 100,000.
That number represents buses chartered, time off work and families making the trip. It represents Green’s ability to turn concern into co-ordinated action.
The referendum failed by a razor-thin margin three days later, with 50.58 per cent voting No. The rally showed Quebecers that Canadians outside the province cared about keeping the country together.
Recognition
The Radio and Television News Directors Association gave Green its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. He also received the Golden Ribbon Award for outstanding community service from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.
An Ottawa hospital wing carries his name. So does an Ottawa day.
Pierre Poilievre honoured him in the House of Commons on Nov. 21, 2017. Ottawa city hall displays Green’s Community Builders Award.
What Lowell Green understood about community media
Green’s career spanned an era when local radio could still mobilize thousands of people, when a single voice, speaking daily to the same audience, could organize campaigns that changed policy.
He understood something essential about community media: trust compounds over time.
Year one, you’re a voice on the radio. Year five, people recognize your name. Year 10, they listen when you suggest action. Year 20, they show up by the tens of thousands.
Green built that trust through consistency. He showed up daily for 50 years. He followed through on campaigns. When he asked listeners to send bottles of river water, he made sure those bottles reached Queen’s Park.
The legacy across the valley
Walk along the Rideau River. The water runs cleaner because of a 1960s radio campaign.
Visit Parliament Hill. The Centennial Flame burns because thousands of Canadians petitioned to keep it.
Check the Help Santa Toy Parade schedule. It runs because Green started it decades ago.
These aren’t abstract achievements. They are physical changes to Ottawa’s landscape and annual calendar.
Green’s voice is gone, but the valley he helped shape remains.
What Ottawa loses
Modern media fragments audiences. Podcasts, streaming, social platforms, they all create smaller groups talking to themselves.
Green represented an era when local media could unite a city around shared concerns, when a radio host could organize environmental campaigns, help save national monuments and mobilize tens of thousands for a unity rally.
That kind of reach, built over 50 years of daily broadcasts, doesn’t exist anymore. Not because the technology changed, but because the trust required to wield it takes decades to build. Green had those decades. He used them to clean rivers, save flames and bring Canadians together when the country needed it most.
The Ottawa Valley doesn’t just lose a broadcaster. It loses a model of what local media can accomplish when it commits to a region for half a century.
The Centennial Flame still burns. The rivers run cleaner. The toy parade continues.
That’s the legacy. Not just what Green said, but what he moved people to do.
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