MONTREAL, March 31, 2026 — There was much joy throughout the city of Montreal in May of 1970. That’s when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced it had awarded Montreal the right to host the 1976 Summer Olympics.
It was like the perennial icing on the cake for the city. Shortly after he was re-elected to the mayor’s chair in 1960, after three years in the political wilderness, Jean Drapeau made it his mission to bring Montreal into the modern world and raise its international profile. And the laundry list of his achievements during the 60s is quite impressive, if not miraculous: the Metro subway system, Place des Arts, the Montreal Expos and of course the Expo 67 World’s Fair, which attracted over 50 million visitors during the Fair’s six-month run.
With that track record, it looked like Mayor Drapeau could not do anything wrong, and staging the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal would be his crowning achievement on the same scale as Expo 67.
However, what happened during those six years that culminated in the 1976 opening ceremonies would gradually wear down that sense of public euphoria. There were cost overruns, labour slowdowns, construction delays, rampant corruption, widespread disorganization, a boycott by several African nations, an unfinished Olympic Stadium, and, of course, the $2 billion debt that was incurred, which took Montreal taxpayers an astounding 30 years to pay off, thanks mainly to a tax on tobacco products.
Scandals and controversies aside, the Games of the XXI Olympiad were a resounding success during those two weeks in July of 1976. There were many stellar athletes grabbing the headlines, winning medals and breaking records, such as decathlon champion Bruce Jenner, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, swimmer Shirley Babashoff, weightlifter Vasily Alekseyev, Canadian Greg Joy and his silver medal victory in the high jump, and of course, gymnast Nadia Comaneci and her perfect 10s, which was THE story of the Games.
To sum it all up, the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics were Jean Drapeau’s baby…and his burden.
Montreal Gazette Cartoonist Terry Mosher (aka “Aislin”)
Veteran Gazette cartoonist Terry Mosher (aka “Aislin”) was there; armed with a special photographer’s press pass from the paper, and a generous supply of pencils and notebooks, he bounced from venue to venue, capturing the games in the arena, in the stands and in the press box to give an all encompassing and humane type of coverage that only cartoonists can offer its readers.
Now 50 years after the Olympic flame was carried through the streets of Montreal, Mosher put together another scrapbook-type memoir — his fourth in nine years — that gives a humorous, without tears look at those 14 days of glory in Montreal and the man who was its eye of the storm with Jean Drapeau’s Baby.
Mosher unveiled the new book on March 1, 2026 at a press launch at Atwater Library and Computer.
Two Books in One
Part One: Jean Drapeau
This is actually two books in one. The first part is an examination of Jean Drapeau, an unassuming lawyer (whose simple facial features made him easy to caricature) and racket buster who was first elected Montreal’s mayor in 1954 with one goal in mind: to clean up the crime, graft and corruption that pervaded the streets of Montreal and the corridors of city hall, which made it a wide open city. After he suffered defeat in the 1957 municipal election, Drapeau made an incredible comeback three years later, but this time with a new mission: to modernize and promote Montreal to the rest of the world with the flair of 19th-century American master showman P.T. Barnum.
Part Two: 1976 Olympics Trials and Tribulations
The second part is dedicated to the long, painful road to the 1976 Olympics and the never-ending hangover that Montreal and its citizens had to endure for three decades (and counting, thanks to that ineffectual “retractable” stadium roof). Mosher tells both parts the way he knows best, through a well-researched and highly entertaining text, plus selections from his extensive cartoon archive (including his iconic illustration from 1973, which portrayed a slightly pregnant Drapeau calling abortion doctor Henry Morgenthaler, which served as a response to his bold claim that “the Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby”). As well, Mosher shares drawings about Drapeau and the Olympics from other fellow cartoonists past and present, like Ed McNally of The Montreal Star, John Collins of The Gazette, Andy Donato of The Toronto Star, Pascal Elie of Le Devoir, legendary Quebec cartoonist Robert La Palme, and Serge Chapleau of La Presse.
A Treasury of Montreal Stories
As well, Mosher has unearthed a treasury of stories during his years covering the circus that was the Montreal Olympics and its hubris-filled ringmaster. Standouts include Drapeau’s habit of cruising the streets of Montreal after hours by himself in his Lincoln Continental, to savour the city he was running and finding problems that needed fixing, which he would report to the relevant municipal departments the following morning; construction slowdowns that resulted in construction workers earning $800 a day for doing nothing but sit around or play cards; the judo competitors who would crack jokes with each other in between those flips and takedowns on the mat; and the story behind the eye-catching (and coveted) multi-colorued shirts that were worn by CBC crews and employees throughout the games.
Montreal’s unintentional Last Hurrah
The flame has been extinguished for half a century, and the concrete white elephant that is the Olympic Stadium continues to be the butt of so many jokes, memes, and more editorial cartoons; however, Jean Drapeau’s Baby brings a balanced look back at what was Montreal’s unintentional last hurrah of its decade-long glory days of the 1960s. Yet through all the heartburn-inducing controversies that involved the project before and way after the 1976 Olympic Games, we can leaf through Mosher’s book and look back with fondness that during the memorable summer of ’76, Montreal experienced an unforgettable 14 days of first-class athletic competition — and unending celebrating — that amazed the rest of the world.
Montreal Children’s Hospital
A portion of the proceeds from sales of this book will benefit the Montreal Children’s Hospital Foundation, in particular its Kat Demes Pavilion, which provides lodging for families of long-term-care patients receiving various forms of treatment at the hospital. To purchase a personally inscribed copy of the book by Aislin — hardcover or softcover — send an email to shop@aislin.com.
book launch review by Stuart Nulman
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