Michael Schulman
Program Coordinator, Spokesperson

How did you get involved with HAT?

It was June 1998. I was freelancing as publicist for the upcoming Toronto Lion Dance Festival, based at the Scadding Court Community Centre. At the farewell party for a long-time staffer, someone introduced me to Terri Hope as "a fellow ex-New Yorker." Terri had been the community centre's previous Director but she told me she was now the Co-ordinator of the Humanist Association of Toronto. She asked me if I'd ever heard of it and was very surprised when I said "Yes." I told her I'd attended a few meetings about three years before, but found the guest speakers poorly qualified and uninteresting. No wonder, I said, that fewer than 20 people came to these meetings. I told her I'd return only if more competent, stimulating speakers were engaged by offering them some compensation - at that time HAT speakers weren't paid - and assuring them of larger audiences with advance publicity. Terri invited me to the AGM held later that month, and I was completely surprised when she nominated me to become Program Co-ordinator - I wasn't even a member yet - and I was elected without opposition.

Did you have any accomplishments in the time you were involved with HAT of which you are especially proud?

Yes, I believe I helped to significantly increase the turnout at our monthly meetings, our total membership numbers and media exposure. With Terri's go-ahead, I started recruiting higher-profile speakers, first offering 25-dollar bookstore gift-cards, eventually 100 dollars in cash. I listed our meetings in Now magazine and we began getting much larger audiences, sometimes 80 to 100 or more. Our membership also jumped to over 200, thanks mostly, I think, to the drawing power of our paid speakers like Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, politician Jack Layton, science-fiction author Robert J. Sawyer and Joe Nickell - the debunker of so-called "paranormal" phenomena - as well as representatives from organizations like Dying With Dignity, Amnesty International and the anti-circumcision group Intact. Dr. Robert Buckman, then President of the Humanist Association of Canada, spoke to us five straight years without accepting payment - he used to earn thousands from his lectures!

What other roles did you take, and what activities were you involved with in HAT?

After I became Spokesperson, Rob Buckman asked me to collaborate with him on the book, Can We Be Good Without God? He also had me organize and publicize two very well-attended multi-faith symposiums, co-sponsored by HAC and HAT; Rob represented Humanism. As Spokesperson, I promoted HAT and Humanism in newspapers, on radio and TV, and twice publicly debated the existence of God with the spokesman of the Campus Crusade for Christ. I also presented a lecture of my own, on the origins and persistence of supernatural beliefs, to a Unitarian congregation, a Mensa meeting, Humanist groups in Barrie and Owen Sound, and a joint meeting of HAT and the Ontario Skeptics. I suggested creating HAT's Humanist of the Year Award and submitted the winning slogan - "We're Beyond Belief!" - that the membership voted to print on HAT T-shirts.

Tell me a little about your background and how you became a Secular Humanist.

I was born in Brooklyn in 1940 and grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood. By the time I was six or seven, I was a voracious reader. My parents bought me lots of books, including a thick volume of Old Testament stories in comic-book format, as well as The Wonderworld of Science series. The science books taught me not to believe in the Bible. I also heard my elders questioning how God could have allowed the Holocaust and wondered about that myself. My parents weren't particularly religious, though they continued to observe the traditions connected with Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, traditions that made no sense to me - at a very young age, I'd become an atheist! I didn't find out until much later that I was also something called a "Secular Humanist." My three kids - Sarah, David and Judith - are also Secular Humanists, I'm happy to say; Sarah even did a stint as HAT's Membership Secretary!

What brought you to Canada?

In May 1970, I was an executive at a large survey-research company in Manhattan when four kids at Kent State University, protesting against the Vietnam War, were shot dead by the Ohio National Guard. I'd been active in the anti-war movement but as a new father, I was so severely shaken that I decided to leave the U.S. I telephoned the President of the Toronto research company subcontracted on a major U.S.-Canada survey I was directing. I immediately accepted his job offer and on August 1st, 1970, I arrived in Toronto with my wife, baby Sarah and three Siamese cats. I later held a management position with the CBC's Audience Research Department and freelanced as a guest-host or guest-critic on CBC Radio music programs. I wrote reviews and interviews on classical music and musicians for The Globe and Mail and most of the Canadian music magazines. I became Toronto Scrabble champion, a marathon runner and a world traveller - 72 countries, including most of the world's great archaeological sites, art museums and opera houses, and attended all kinds of religious rituals, some of them quite bizarre.

Could you tell me about your current interests?

When COVID hit in March 2020, I was volunteering for Autism Speaks, the CNIB and Travellers' Aid. I'd previously volunteered with P.R.I.D.E. - People to Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere - and the Huntington Society of Canada. For both of those, I was a founding board member and publicist. I'd also volunteered with Operation Lifeline - bringing Vietnamese "boat people" to Canada - the Canadian Music Centre, the NDP - as speechwriter and publicist for a successful provincial candidate in 1990 - and the Green Party - as an unsuccessful provincial candidate myself in 1999. I'm still keeping as active as I can - visiting my grandkids - Sarah's kids - Lily and Darwin, hiking three or four miles most mornings, reviewing DVDs and CDs for The WholeNote magazine, going to concerts, singing with the Toronto Choral Society and, of course, I'm still a Life Member of HAT. I feel very, very honoured to be added to HAT's Hall of Fame.