Legendary journalist and recent Richmond Hill resident Peter C. Newman says he’s leaving town due to a domestic dispute between daughter, Dana Doll, (seated) and York Central Hospital CEO Bruce Harber.
Richmond Hill
August 21, 2008 11:45 PM
By: David Fleischer
Despite having just settled in Richmond Hill, one of Canada’s pre-eminent journalists intends to move due to a domestic dispute between his daughter and the CEO of York Central Hospital.
A restraining order filed last Friday prohibits hospital boss Bruce Harber from approaching Dana Doll, daughter of Peter C. Newman, now a resident of Richmond Hill.
Lawyers for the parties brokered an agreement at Newmarket court yesterday, which puts the restraining order in effect until Sept. 3. In the meantime, they said the matter is a private one and a permanent separation agreement will be negotiated.
“This is entirely a private matter and does not reflect on his professional pursuits, nor does it reflect on York Central Hospital,” said Mr. Harber’s attorney, Richard Stone, in a statement in front of the court yesterday.
Ms Doll was engaged to Mr. Harber, but the two split up last week. In an affidavit, she said she feared for her safety because of his reaction. None of the allegations in the affidavit have been proven in court.
At 1 a.m. on Aug. 14, Ms Doll alleges Mr. Harber showed up at her new home in Oakville, banging on her door, undeterred by her warning that police were called.
“Bruce is an extreme alcoholic who has blackouts and often acts in an unpredictable manner,” she said in the court document.
He made threats and attempted to forcefully enter her house, she claims.
Oakville police gave Mr. Harber a warning, but Ms Doll called York Regional Police Aug. 14 and they advised her to seek a restraining order, which she did the following day.
The order was initially granted on an emergency basis but expired yesterday at 5 p.m.
It prohibits Mr. Harber from approaching her residence in Oakville as well as her three-year-old daughter’s day care and her parents’ residence in Richmond Hill.
Sitting in the house with her parents earlier this week, an engagement ring still on her finger, Ms Doll told The Citizen she is upset with how things ended between her and the man with whom she hoped to have a future.
“I’m sad and I’m scared. It was a relationship that was supposed to end in marriage and children,” she said.
Ms Doll felt she needed the restraining order to keep Mr. Harber at a distance.
In January 2008, Mr. Harber allegedly said, “I wouldn’t know what I would do if I lost you — that I might have to kill you,” the affidavit says.
Ms Doll is the daughter of Mr. Newman’s wife, Alvy, but she was adopted by Mr. Newman last year.
The Newmans were living in England but returned to Canada to respond to since-settled lawsuits with Conrad Black and Brian Mulroney.
After a brief time in a Toronto apartment, they looked for a place where they could settle and be near their daughter.
“I’d heard about Richmond Hill, and it said, ‘A Little North, a Little Nicer’,” Ms Newman said, citing the town’s motto.
“An idyllic, retirement lifestyle,” she said. “This was going to be our forever home.”
Also a draw were the schools, the pastoral Mill Pond and York Central Hospital, in which Ms Newman hoped to work.
She is completing her PhD in chronic pain management and thought she had found a home at the hospital.
Mr. Newman, 79, is the author of numerous Canadian best sellers, including 2005’s The Secret Mulroney Tapes. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada and a former editor of The Toronto Star and Maclean’s magazine.
In an effort to get to know their new community, the Newmans hosted a fundraiser for federal Conservative candidate Alex Yuan last September.
It was there Ms Doll met Mr. Harber, who asked her parents for her phone number.
“He’s a really, really nice man and we had fun. We had big plans for a wonderful future,” she said.
Those plans included a house in Gormley in which they lived since April.
Mr. Newman said he would miss the man he expected to be his son-in-law.
The family sought a mutual consent peace bond rather than a restraining order, Mr. Newman said. It was because a peace bond takes several weeks that police advised them to get the order.
Mr. Harber is on vacation and had left before hospital board president David Bannister became aware of the matter.
Mr. Bannister declined to comment on any details of the allegations prior to meeting with Mr. Harber and the board’s executive committee.
“When he returns, there will be a discussion with him,” Mr. Bannister said on behalf of the hospital.
Mr. Harber began his role at York Central in 2003. He worked at other large institutions, including Vancouver’s North Shore Health Region and Brampton’s Peel Memorial Hospital.
According to the 2008 provincial Sunshine List, Mr. Harber made $359,245.04, as well as more than $12,000 in taxable benefits last year.
Mr. Harber could not be reached before press time.