Pickle Barrel
"NOTHING GREAT WAS ever achieved without enthusiasm," declared the 19th-century American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Small wonder then that Richmond Hill-raised Austin Delaney has carved out a successful and award-winning broadcasting career for himself. Enthusiasm could be his middle name.
The seasoned general assignment reporter for CTV News Toronto arrived in Canada from Britain with his family at age nine. Four years of English schooling left its mark. Delaney’s enthusiasm is part of an Englishschoolboy charm that has never left him.
The Delaneys lived on the border of Thornhill and Richmond Hill, just behind Uplands Golf Course. Austin attended Langstaff Secondary School on Garden Avenue. He met the boy destined to become his best friend for life on the first day of Grade 9. Delaney got talking to Brian Hobbs, seated next to him in French class, and the two discovered their older siblings were dating each other.
“We had a lot in common,” says Hobbs, a graphic and web designer. “We were both into sports, and he’s a very outgoing guy so he meets people very easily,” Hobbs adds. “He’s one of the funniest guys I know. A very good sense of humour and quick witted. When you’re with him you’re always laughing. I’m proud of him. If I’m watching TV with someone who’s not aware I know him, I say, ‘Hey, I know that guy. He’s my buddy.’”
Sports were Delaney’s favourite activities in school. He found the academic transition from England to Canada challenging, but thrived on athletics and team sports, especially soccer. Fortunately for him, his soccer and basketball coach was also the science teacher.
Wayne Hillman still stands out as a bright light in Delaney’s mind. “He just liked kids, he was good with kids,” Delaney comments. “He treated us like adults, which was nice. Not all teachers do that. You could always come to him and get a little bit of help. I think in school that’s important.”
Hillman literally went the extra mile with his students, twice taking them on a camping trip to Florida. Years later, as a token of appreciation, Delaney went out of his way to send Hillman a copy of an article written about him in which he mentioned his former teacher. He wanted to make sure Hillman knew his efforts hadn’t gone unnoticed.
It seems Delaney was destined to work in the media. “I used to watch the 6 o’ clock news when I was a kid and go, ‘That looks pretty cool,’” he reveals. At 12 years old, with his English accent still intact, he filmed a news report on pollution for a Grade 6 school project.
When his Langstaff school buddies started applying for university, Delaney wasn’t sure what direction to take. Then he applied for and got a spot on My Radio Hour, a Q107 late-night rock show DJ’d by non-professionals. Hobbs recalls attending a party on the Saturday night of Delaney’s radio debut. They turned the music off at midnight so they could listen to the show. “I remember the next day I talked to him, and it had just changed him. He said, ‘That’s what I want to do,’” Hobbs says, recalling his friend’s transformation.
After graduating from the Humber College Radio Broadcasting program, Delaney started a night internship at CFTR, a Toronto pop/rock station at the time. It was there he caught an incurable news bug. He continued to work in radio in the ‘80s before making the switch to TV when he joined CTV News Toronto in 1989.
He thrives on being part of the successful station’s news team. With an average audience of 421,000, CTV News at Six is Canada's most-watched local newscast.
Delaney has won several broadcasting awards, including Toronto, Peel and York Police awards for reporting, and two Edward R. Murrow awards from his peers for best spot news.
While he appreciates the acknowledgement, he makes it quite clear that looking for awards is not his focus.
Delaney enjoys the intense pressure of his work and the challenge of meeting a daily deadline despite possible mishaps like equipment breakdowns.
“You don’t have a second chance,” he explains. “You have to have your story ready. With the experience you’ve got after so many years, you pull it off. The adrenaline rush of that — it’s unbelievable. You’ll go running for ten miles after that! You talk very fast for the rest of the day!”
The 46-year-old processes his stress and keeps his head clear by running every other day.
Last year he even ran — and finished — the 26-mile Toronto Marathon. He also loves motorcycles and currently owns a 750-cc Honda Shadow American Classic.
For all his customary good humour, Delaney takes a serious and sincere attitude to talking to people when terrible things have happened to them. It’s the hard part of the job he loves, and he regards it as a tremendous responsibility.
“You’re talking to people who have great emotion about something. They’re talking about their lives being taken apart. And they trust you,” he emphasizes. “Often people want to talk about someone who has passed away, because they want you to know about that person. So you want to tell that story.”
Delaney has reported on a variety of beats and covered important stories such as the Belinda Stronach defection to the Liberal party and, most recently, the Toronto Police Service’s crackdown on marijuana growoperations in the GTA.
However, the one story that sticks out in his mind the most is the Karla Homolka trial.
“That was awful,” he says of the sentencing day in St. Catharines when for the first time the Canadian media found out Homolka’s involvement in the rape and murder of her younger sister.
Shortly after hearing the shocking news, Delaney had to deliver to camera the on-location report he had written. “I just couldn’t read it. I kept going, ‘Oh my God. Your sister. Oh my God.’ It was frightening,” he says, getting a little emotional. “You knew there was evil in the world.”
But there is also balance. His work can have a fun and even glamorous side. Delaney interviewed Mick Jagger a few years ago when The Rolling Stones were rehearsing in Toronto. “We staked it out. And it was a long hot day in the sun. Suddenly the limos pull up and they’re all there — and they talk to you!” he says, still excited by the memory.
Although Delaney moved to the Beach some years ago, when he is in Richmond Hill, he makes a point of going back to the same burger joint he’d frequented back when he was a student at Langstaff — Steer Inn Burgers, a no-nonsense diner famous for its burgers and fries, located just south of Major Mackenzie. “They’re great!” he says. “They’re just lovely people.”
There’s that enthusiasm again. 
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